Audiences are used to Hollywood mining pre-existing material for movies. For over two decades now, the industry’s go-to source for blockbusters has been comic books. And increasingly, it’s been video games. But occasionally, Hollywood turns to Reddit, too.
This week, it was announced that the popular Hollywood actress Sydney Sweeney had acquired the film rights to a four-year-old Reddit post. As noted by The Hollywood Reporter, the Reddit post in question is a short story by a Massachusetts-based high school English teacher named Joe Cote.
That short story and post, titled “I pretended to be a missing girl so I could rob her family,” is about a girl who shows up at the house of a family whose daughter went missing years earlier. The girl says she is their missing daughter so she can stay with them for the night—a lie she uses in her attempt to rob their house.
The Hollywood Reporter says that Warner Bros. won the rights to the film deal, which was described as “competitive.” Warner Bros. picked up the rights after Sydney Sweeney became attached to star in and produce the short story adaptation.
Sweeney reportedly then brought Oscar-winning scriptwriter Eric Roth, of Forrest Gump fame, to make the story into a screenplay. A release date and director have not yet been announced.
Hollywood has been interested in adapting Reddit posts into films before
But “I pretended to be a missing girl” isn’t the only Reddit post that has been picked up for a movie adaptation before. This is actually the second confirmed time a Reddit post has attracted Hollywood’s attention. The first time happened nearly 14 years ago.
As reported by Variety in 2011, Warner Bros. (seems like the studio loves Reddit, doesn’t it?) picked up the film rights to a Reddit post with the lengthy title “Could I destroy the entire Roman Empire during the reign of Augustus if I traveled back in time with a modern U.S. Marine infantry battalion or MEU?”
This post was another short story, and this one explored what would happen if a group of modern-day U.S. Marines were transported back in time to the Roman Empire. The film adaptation’s working title was “Rome, Sweet Rome.” The short story was written by author and “Jeopardy!” champion James Erwin.
However, those Reddit scribes hopeful that their next post—short story or otherwise—will be picked up by Hollywood and see them soon walking down the red carpet need to understand one thing: just because a studio picks up the film rights to something doesn’t mean that the film will ever see the light of day.
The majority of acquired film rights go on to languish in “development hell,” an industry term used to describe projects that get stuck in purgatory for whatever reason, often due to a revolving door of talent coming to and leaving a project.
In 2018, Little White Lies reported that “Rome, Sweet Rome” was stuck in development hell.
Of course, just getting anything picked up by Hollywood, even if it is never made into a movie, is a success in its own right. And when it comes to Reddit posts, it’s now happened at least twice.
As the superhero genre continues to die a slow death, Hollywood is certain to be looking for something it can generate movie ideas from for years to come. As the two examples above show, Reddit may be one of those places.
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