6 Wattpad Stories That Became Movies
These authors became rich and famous just by publishing on Wattpad.
I love a good romance novel. And I’ll even admit it — sometimes I especially like romance books that don’t have standard origins. Wattpad has a cringe reputation, but there’s no denying that some of the best rom-com movies lately have come directly out of the horny loins of Wattpad stories.
Hollywood misses the mark sometimes. Luckily, Wattpad writers and readers are there to point movie studios in the right direction.
I myself am writing a book on Wattpad, and I dream of the day it might become popular enough to be turned into a movie. Until then, I remind myself of these successes to inspire myself.
1. The Kissing Booth 1–3
Not one, not two, but three movies came out of The Kissing Booth. The story follows Elle, a quirky teenager who accidentally falls in love with her best friend’s older brother. The only problem is she promised her BFF, Lee, that she’d never date his brother. She does, though. Secretly.
He’s a hot bad boy; she’s an unpopular girl (who is also hot, but nobody realizes it yet). Chaos ensues.
It’s a fun if predictable romp through the teenage id. I believe it was popular because Elle serves as a wonderful self-insert for so many teenage girls who secretly want to be desired by the baddest boy in town. (🙋)
The movie was a commercial success on Netflix. I found it cheesy and a little funny.
2. After
If you missed this trend, you’ll be tickled to hear that for a while, the hottest thing on Wattpad was to write fanfic about One Direction. After is the archetypal 1D fanfiction story, and unsurprisingly, teenage girls drove this to popularity.
After follows Tessa, a meek college freshman who finds her predictable, quiet life turned upside-down when she falls for Hardin, a bad boy at her college. He falls for her, too. (Sensing a trend?)
Hardin is a stand-in for Harry Styles.
After and After We Collided became movies, both of which were considered commercial successes. They were totally panned by critics. That has not stopped studio executives from planning on some sequels and prequels, though.
3. Death Is My BFF
Death Is My BFF follows Faith Williams, who has her soul spared by Death himself — but only until she turns eighteen. Of course, she’s not going down without a fight. She’s also unique and interesting enough to be noticed by not only Death, but several monsters, demons, a vengeful demi-god, and even a hot playboy.
While this hasn’t been turned into a movie yet, it has been optioned by Sony. This story was so fun to read — it tapped into the paranormal trend of the early 2010s and once again featured a girl who has all these bad boys at her doorstep.
4. Light As a Feather
This story was turned into a series by Hulu! It follows McKenna, a young girl who moves to a new town after her parents’ divorce and the death of her twin sister. She is welcomed into the popular girls’ clique at her new school, which seems great… until Violet Simmons, a mysterious new girl, predicts the death of McKenna’s new friends in horrible, violent ways.
These predictions begin to come true. McKenna teams up with her neighbor to put an end to them.
Definitely on the darker side of Wattpad, this story got a better critical reception from Rotten Tomatoes than any of the previous books on this list (although still not a great one).
5. Float
OK, back to what Wattpad is good at: cheesy teen romance. This story focuses on Waverly, a girl from Alaska who is sent off to a beach town after her parents divorce. She hates everything about it, especially Blake, an arrogant beach bum. But Blake discovers her dirty secret: she can’t swim.
Instead of revealing her to the town, he offers to tutor her instead. Romance follows.
It’s sweet, it’s relatable, it once again features a new girl who attracts attention from bad boys. It got millions of reads on Wattpad, so I expect the movie will be a commercial hit.
6. Kairos
Kairos is set in a world with legal, state-sanctioned time travel. We follow Ada, a young girl looking for love in all the wrong times (instead of places). She stages a daring rescue for one of her love interests from the 1920s gang scene in New York — and has to fight for her love against heists, time paradoxes, and other jealous lovers.
This story is one of the wilder ones on Wattpad. As of 2020, it’s been optioned for a movie and has a screenwriter, so we can expect to see it on our screens soon.
While it’s less rom-commy than a lot of standard Wattpad stories, it does feature a lot of the same elements: quirky girl finds love with a bad boy.
These stories may not be complex or deep, but they’re what readers proved they wanted. Since Hollywood doesn’t always listen to readers, I found it really interesting that Wattpad chose to use machine learning and data to find trends to decide which Wattpad stories to promote to become movies or TV shows.
If you’re a fellow romance reader, maybe check out Wattpad next time you’re looking for your next good read.
