Fans of Reylo may celebrate! Bisous Pictures and author Ali Hazelwood are teaming together to turn Hazelwood’s New York Times bestseller The Love Hypothesis into a film. According to Deadline, Elizabeth Cantillon and MRC Film have signed an agreement to adapt the Berkley novel. Books like The Love Hypothesis are becoming increasingly popular thanks to the ‘BookTok’ community on the video-sharing platform TikTok. A young, attractive, dreamy, and smart professor named (more on this later) Adam Carlsen (more on this later) falls in love with a PhD candidate named Olive Smith (more on this later).
The novel portrays and subverts several of the cliches utilised in traditional romance tales, including the couple getting caught in a lie to present a convincing and passionate partnership. Cantillon of Bisous Pictures expressed his excitement at the prospect of working with Hazelwood to adapt The Love Hypothesis, saying, “Bisous Pictures is thrilled to be working with Ali to amplify her voice and bring this magical book to the screen.” Hazelwood agreed, saying, “It’s a true privilege to have Elizabeth and such a talented and experienced team of people working on adapting The Love Hypothesis, and I’m very excited for this next step in Olive and Adam’s story!” You might be excused for thinking you’ve seen the novel’s cover duo before if you took a closer look. Hazelwood got his start in the fan fiction industry serving Star Trek fans.
In case you were wondering, the two major characters are based on Kylo Ren and Rey from the Star Wars prequel and sequel trilogies. While it was originally titled “The Love Hypothesis,” the story really took off on Archive of Our Own, where a devoted following shared in Olive and Adam’s love. Hazelwood further on the liberation afforded by fan fiction in a 2021 interview with Carly Lane, the day after it was announced that The Love Hypothesis had become a New York Times bestseller.
She went on to describe how it was empowering authors to take risks and publish work that didn’t conform to the standards of established publishing firms. “At the time, I was very immersed in the fan fiction writing communities around both Star Trek and Star Wars. And that was fantastic; I really enjoyed it. Simply said, it was an incredible group of people. I met a lot of cool people and had a blast. After giving it some thought, I decided to attempt writing something completely new for the sake of personal growth and novelty. My agent started reading my fan fiction on Archive of Our Own when I was in that frame of mind, and she eventually messaged me over Twitter. She said, “I read where you mentioned perhaps revising some of your fics. And I’m a literary agent, and I’d love to read some of your work if you’re interested in sending it my way.
There is currently no set date for the release of The Love Hypothesis, but the petition for Driver and Daisy Ridley to star in the film is expected to be launched at any time.