BuzzFeed and Lionsgate joined hands last year for a film project titled Dear David. The film is based on stories by writer and illustrator Adam Ellis. While this should not be extraordinary, film adaptations from stories are not that uncommon. However, the special part about this film is that it’s not being adapted from novels or folklore but from Twitter threads.
In 2017, Adam began to post on Twitter about a ghost of a boy haunting his house. He called the ghost 'Dear David'. Besides text anecdotes, Adam shared photographs, videos, and audio recordings as well. Adam tweeted about the haunting for over a year.
A film inspired by a Twitter thread might sound odd at first but this is not the first time work on social media has been recognised with a film or a book deal. This is part of a larger trend where a number of writers over the years have had their stories on internet forums or social media turned into books and films.
Here are five such instances where stories on the internet got book and screen adaptations.
1. Jasper DeWitt
Jasper DeWitt posted a nine-part story titled The Patient Who Nearly Drove Me Out Of Medicine on Reddit. The first part was posted in December 2016. Around two years later, Twentieth Century Fox and actor Ryan Reynolds were among the group that sought the rights of the story to turn it into a film.
2. Dathan Auerbach
Dathan Auerbach self-published a novel titled Pen Pal in 2012 that he had first posted in a serialised form on Reddit. Building up on his work from Reddit and his self-published novel, Auerbach published his second novel titled Bad Man with Doubleday, a traditional publisher that’s part of the Penguin Random House. The Washington Post wrote about him, “With just two novels, Auerbach has established himself as a significant figure in the post-King generation of horror writers. It will be interesting and instructive to see what dark places he takes us to next.”
3. Felix Blackwell
Felix Blackwell first posted a serialised story of a getaway to a cabin in the woods on Reddit that went viral. The story was turned into a book titled Stolen Tongues. Since then, he has published two more books titled In The Devil’s Dream and The Cold People.
4. Channel zero
The series Channel Zero, which originally aired on the TV channel SyFy, ran for four reasons. Each season expanded on a creepypasta – the internet-originated viral horror stories. The stories turned into the seasons are –
Candle Cove by Kris Straub
The No-End House by Brian Russell
Butchers Block by Kerry Hammond
The Dream Door by Charlotte Bywater
Vox wrote about the show, “Channel Zero fleshes out the bare bones of the original story to gripping effect, complete with a strong ensemble cast (featuring British treasure Fiona Shaw), a malevolent tone, and a cadre of creepy monsters — including one covered with human teeth.”
5. Jatin Bhasin
During the COVID-19 lockdowns in 2020, US-based management professional Jatin Bhasin began to write horror stories rooted in the lore and urban legends of Delhi on Twitter in the form of threads. The hyperlocal horror stories often went viral.
Two years later, Harper Collins is set to release his book titled The Haunting of Delhi City, co-authored with his wife Suparna, in December 2022. He is also working on a podcast in collaboration with the production house Kommune for a series of stories on Delhi’s history, culture, food, and ghosts.
