A story that started off as One Direction fan fiction has now landed its author a movie deal. Yes, really.
Anna Todd’s After book series is being turned into After: The Movie, and it initially began life as Harry Styles fanfiction.
“I was a struggling army wife going to community college who didn’t know what to do with my life,” the author recalled to the BBC.
“I would read a lot of fan fiction on [publishing website] Wattpad and felt I had read everything so one day I decided to write a chapter.”
The movie is set to star Harry Potter‘s Hero Fiennes Tiffin as Hardin Scott (the original Harry Styles character) alongside Josephine Langford (sister of 13 Reasons Why‘s Katherine).
“When I started I had no followers but I did it for fun,” Todd continued of writing the fan fiction. “After I wrote the first chapter I wanted to know what happened so every day I would write a chapter and it became more popular.
Today is the pride and prejudice argument in class and if you need me I’ll just be sitting on set sobbing. 😭 Also check my insta story for details how to win a trip to the set and to be an extra in the movie!!! #aftermovie
A post shared by Anna Todd (@imaginator1d) on
“I could see the numbers go up and when I tried to make a Twitter account I couldn’t even use my own name because all these fan accounts already existed – I realised people actually cared and loved it.”
In the end, she was approached by numerous publishers.
To date the book has sold 11 million copies, while the online version has had 1.5 billion views.
Well, we suppose Fifty Shades of Grey started off as Twilight fan fiction – and look how well that did. In fact, Todd herself is friends with that franchise’s author, EL James.
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