4 Classic Movies That You Probably Didn’t Know Were Books First!

Sometimes, a story is so strong that it can’t keep itself contained in only one form. This is the whole reason why so many books are adapted into television shows or films. But oftentimes, the adaptation grows to be more widely known than the original work. 

Listed below are some of the most surprising cases of this phenomenon, in which films were adapted — in some way or another — from an original written work,= but their fame transcended the work’s original presence so heavily that you may not know it was a book in the first place. For some, it may just be a fun fact, but for others, there’s potential for a whole new reading list in our picks for the four most exciting books that came before the movie!

1. Pitch Perfect (2012)

Although not a 1-for-1 adaptation, the popular a cappella rom-com that sparked a fierce fanbase and a massively successful franchise was originally a non-fiction novel. It was published in 2008, four years before the film was released widely in theaters. Mickey Rapkin, a senior editor at GQ at the time, spent an entire season traveling campus-to-campus to infiltrate the competitive depths of the collegiate competitive a cappella scene. 

The book’s title is a little bit of a mouthful: Pitch Perfect: The Quest for Collegiate a Cappella Glory. Personally, we’re glad they stuck to the two catchy words before the colon. Regardless, the novel is a fascinating deep dive into the university subculture behind one of the funniest films of the past couple of decades, and it’s absolutely worth your time. You wouldn’t believe how much of the film’s material is based in truth!

2. Mean Girls (2004)

Tina Fey’s most famous piece of IP is a powerhouse, spanning a film, a musical, and, most recently, a movie-musical. But what many fans don’t know is that Tina Fey originally conceived of the idea for the hit film after reading a self-help book by Rosalind Wiseman called Queen Bees and Wannabes, published in 2002. 

The original book is obviously quite different from the film — while the book is an instructional guide for mothers on supporting their teenage daughters, the film is a zany comedy with an equal parts ridiculous and hilarious plot. Still, the cult classic would undeniably not exist without the book to inspire it, another case where literature saves the day. 

3. Freaky Friday (2003)

It’s no secret that Freaky Friday is some real solid material. Although the 2003 film starring Lindsay Lohan and Jamie Lee Curtis is the adaptation we know and love, the film has four other versions released in different years, and a sequel with the two famous actors reprising their original roles is coming in 2025. 

Before all of the on-screen craziness, though, Freaky Friday was a children’s novel of the same name written by the beloved Mary Rodgers. Published in 1972 by Harper & Row, the book was an immediate widespread phenomenon and had its first film adaptation only 4 years later starring Jodie Foster. The plot is so rock-solid that none of its adaptations deviate much at all from the original source material, showing that some stories just are that good. 

4. Legally Blonde (2001)

Although the events of Legally Blonde are a whirlwind of melodramatic comedy and emotion, you might be surprised to find out that the film is actually a relatively sincere adaptation of a book based in reality. 

Amanda Brown is a graduate from Stanford Law School who wrote an autobiographical account of her time there. The book is just a collection of funny stories and letters, but screenwriters Karen McCullah Lutz and Kirsten Smith did a fantastic job turning the collection into a digestible story for the masses, and it was a smash hit instantly. What, like it’s hard?