Are There Movies Adapted From The Best Online Stories?

This film gets me thinking about all the digital-age storytelling that’s currently revolutionizing cinema too. While The Martian may have started life as a self-published serial (later to be picked up by a mainstream publisher), its film adaptation – starring Matt Damon – has made a roaring success of blending humor with survival drama. And as for the Asian market, specifically, it’s really where a lot of the most exciting changes in storytelling are currently happening.

Of course, there are also lots of horror films out there, such as the cult hit ‘Train to Busan’, a zombie movie based on online lore. There are also several films based on Wattpad stories – the self-publishing platform has started partnering with studios, including a film of the Harry Styles fanfic ‘After’, which has spawned a whole franchise of novels. ‘Detective Pikachu’ is another great example of a movie based on a video game – a family-friendly film that proves there is plenty of interesting lore to draw from. Examples of more underground treasures include ‘A Silent Voice’, a poignant and powerful movie about bullying and redemption, adapted from a web manga.

It’s so cool that most of them have been made into movies too! For example, Love O2O, the web novel I really love, has been adapted into a movie as well as a drama. The movie adaptation did a great job of portraying the novel as a gaming romance story. The King’s Avatar, a Chinese novel about esports, has even been adapted into an anime as well as a live-action series. The two are so full of action and they are really fun to watch. Then there’s Fifty Shades of Grey, a Hollywood movie. Although the book is very popular, few people know that it’s actually a fanfic that the author wrote on online forums. The light novels by Japanese authors have also been adapted into really cool anime films, such as Rascal Does Not Dream of Bunny Girl Senpai. It’s really cool how online stories can be so full of hidden gems and how they can be adapted into so many different kinds of work and brought to so many different audiences.

While many adapted works are poorly done to the source, there are several instances where they do justice. “All You Need Is Kill” is a great online sci-fi work which was adapted into “Edge of Tomorrow” with Tom Cruise, keeping the core of time-looping and making it more Hollywood-like. There are also many anime adapted from web serials such as “Re:Zero − Starting Life in Another World” / “Overlord” (movies and OVAs).

Also very popular in Chinese online communities are danmei novels, romantic stories mostly about male-male relationships, which are written by mostly female authors and read by mostly females. One of the most successful ones is Mo Dao Zu Shi (Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation), which inspired the donghua (animated series) The Untamed, a beautiful mix of fantasy and romance. And then there are the online written Korean webtoons, that got a great Netflix adaptation with a lot of CGI, like Sweet Home. While these are all different forms of online storytelling, they all retain the emotional core of the online stories, while making them look more beautiful than ever. Some of these even got adapted into movies or TV-series, like The Devil Wears Prada, a novel that was first published as a blog. Although the plot has been changed in the movie, the same wit and sarcasm is still in it. Also some Thai BL web novels have been adapted into movies, like 2gether which became a global hit.