Self-Adaptation

"And somehow, almost in conversation, it began to become clear that it might be a good idea if I did it myself—at least the director wouldn’t have to keep wondering what the author meant. It just seemed that I’d be the only person who could treat the play with the necessary disrespect."

—Tom Stoppard on why he directed the movie adaptation of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead

So, you made a thing, and that thing is popular. Suddenly, folks are hounding you to adapt it into a film, TV series, or whatever that they can make money from. And while you like the idea, you're more than a bit worried about Adaptation Decay, and not entirely sure you can trust the execs with your masterpiece.

So what do you do? Well, usually you'd have little choice in the matter outside what company you give permission to tamper with your work, after which they'll decide just how much they want you involved. But by some random miracle, you've got quite a bit more leverage than that or said company is surprisingly open to your suggestions. In which case, why do you need someone else to write the adaptation? You're a versatile person, how hard could making the adaptation be? You know what bits are important and what can be cut, and how to make sure your favorite bits stay in. Or perhaps add, alter, or remove parts that you have missed or were unsatisfied with. So you write it yourself.

These are the results.

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Examples:

Anime and Manga

• Nahoko Uehashi, the author of The Beast Player, supervised its anime adaptation Erin.
• Rakuda, the author of the Oresuki light novels, wrote the scripts and handled the series composition for its anime adaptation and OVA.
• Fate/Apocrypha's writer, Yuichiro Higashide, also wrote the scripts for its anime adaptation.
• Masashi Kishimoto, the creator of Naruto, was involved in the productions of The Last: Naruto the Movie and Boruto: Naruto the Movie, so that they were included in the canon of the manga, unlike all of the previous movies in the franchise. For the former, he joined the writing staff as chief story supervisor; for the latter, he wrote the screenplay and was chief production supervisor. He's also a supervisor for the anime adaptation of Boruto, and served the same position for the manga until he stepped in and took over the manga altogether after its writer bowed out.
• Miyuki Miyabe wrote the manga adaptation of his novel, Brave Story.
• Hayao Miyazaki was both the author of the Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind manga and the director of the movie based on it; ditto with Porco Rosso.
• Double Subverted with the film adaptations of Hideo Kojima's Metal Gear Solid and Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty. The games were adapted in comic book form by Ashley Wood and IDW Publishing. But the comic book adaptations would be turned into Digital Graphic Novel movies, which would be directed by Hideo Kojima once again.
• Eiichiro Oda was involved with several One Piece film adaptations:
  • One Piece Film: Strong World as the writer.
  • One Piece Film: Z as an Executive Producer.
  • One Piece Film: Gold and One Piece Film: Red as a Producer.
• Katsuhiro Otomo directed the animated film adaptation of his manga AKIRA.
• Mari Okada wrote the scripts for the anime adaptation of her own manga, O Maidens in Your Savage Season.
• CLAMP sometimes has more hands-on involvement in adaptations of their works.
  • They were fully involved in the production of Cardcaptor Sakura's anime adaptation. Nanase Ohkawa, the main writer for the manga, was one of the anime's writers; in fact, she wrote 53 of the anime's 70 episodes. Mokona, the manga's main artist, also oversaw designs for costumes and Clow Cards that were exclusive to the anime. For the anime adaptation of the sequel, Cardcaptor Sakura Clear Card, Ohkawa was the sole writer for all the episodes.
  • Ohkawa was also the supervising scriptwriter for the first season of Magic Knight Rayearth's TV anime adaptation, and later became the sole scriptwriter for the second season. Mokona also designed several characters who are exclusive to the anime, such as the second season's villains Nova and Debonair.
• Natsuki Takaya served as chief production supervisor for the 2019 anime adaptation of Fruits Basket. She was notably disappointed by the 2001 anime and the changes it made to the story and characters, so the 2019 anime is more faithful to the manga as a result.
• Osamu Tezuka ran two animation studios during his lifetime in order to produce adaptations of his manga. He even wrote and directed several episodes of Astro Boy (both the 1963 and 1980 anime).
• Akira Toriyama, the creator of Dragon Ball, was very deeply involved in the production of Dragon Ball Z: Battle of Gods and wrote all later movies starting with Dragon Ball Z: Resurrection 'F'. This was due to the disastrous Disowned Adaptation that was Dragonball Evolution, where the makers of that film never listened to him despite his offering advice.
• Tatsuo Yoshida wrote the Mach GoGoGo manga, then directed the anime adaptation after founding his animation studio, Tatsunoko Production.
• During his lifetime, Japanese children's book author and illustrator Takashi Yanase has been involved with two animated adaptations of his children's books:
  • He directed the 1970 animated short Yasashii Lion (The Kindly Lion) by Mushi Productions based on the children's book of the same name. He created the artwork for the short alongside writing the lyrics for every song in the short.
  • He also directed the 1977 animated short The Rose Flower and Joe (バラの花とジョー, Bara no Hana to Joe) by Sanrio Animation alongside writing lyrics for the short's theme song. He even drew illustrations for certain scenes in the short (such as Joe's imagination sequences and the end credits) and created the official cover art◊ for it's DVD and VHS release.
• Kirby: Right Back at Ya! was produced by Warpstar, Inc., a joint investment between the Kirby series publisher Nintendo and its original developer HAL Laboratory, with the direct involvement of the series' creator Masahiro Sakurai.
• Yoh Yoshinari is the director of both the original Little Witch Academia short films, as well as the TV series adaptation. Likewise, most of the staff that worked on the original films also worked on the TV series. Yoh Yoshinari also penned the stories for the numerous manga adaptations.
• In contrast to previous shows based off of Sonic the Hedgehog, Sonic Team, the developers of the original games, was deeply involved with the production of Sonic X. So much so that elements from the anime would later be transplanted into the games.
• To celebrate the 20th anniversary of the Yu-Gi-Oh! franchise’s beginning, a movie was planned. The producer asked the creator of the original manga Kazuki Takahashi to write the movie, and he soon took over the project, becoming the executive producer, sole scriptwriter, and character designer for Yu-Gi-Oh! The Dark Side of Dimensions. He also personally provided the key animation for one scene.
• Deep-Sea Prisoner wrote and illustrated the manga adaptation of her game, Wadanohara.
• Momoko Sakura, creator of Chibi Maruko-chan, wrote the first 219 episodes of the anime adaptation, and served as a supervisor from episode 220 onward until her death in 2018.
• Shouji Gatoh, author of Full Metal Panic!, was one of the writers for the comedy spinoff anime Full Metal Panic? Fumoffu (which is based on the novels' Lighter and Softer side stories rather than the main plot).

Comic Books

• Terry Pratchett wrote the script of Mort: The Big Comic, including adding a bit about a bitter old man leaving all his money to the cat which also appeared in Soul Music the same year. (This doesn't apply to other Discworld graphic novels: The Colour of Magic and The Light Fantastic were adapted by Scott Rockwell; Guards! Guards! was based on the Stephen Briggs playscript, and Small Gods was adapted by the artist, Ray Friesen.)
• Jean Van Hamme wrote Largo Winch based on the novels he wrote in the '70s, the first 5 arcs being straight adaptations of the novels before moving to original stories. Nowadays, the novels have all but faded into obscurity.

Film — Animation

• Footrot Flats: The Dog's Tale, based on the New Zealand comic strip of the same name, was directed by the strip's cartoonist, Murray Ball. He also co-wrote the screenplay.
• Bryan Hitch, creator of The Ultimates, was hired as a character designer in Ultimate Avengers 1 and 2.
• Batman: Under the Red Hood was written by the original author of Under the Hood, Judd Winick.
• Superman vs. the Elite was written by the original author of Action Comics #775, Joe Kelly of Man of Action Studios.
• Peter S. Beagle wrote the script for the animated movie adaptation of his novel The Last Unicorn. Due to a notorious case of "Hollywood accounting", his share of the profits was much smaller than would seem fair.
• René Goscinny and Albert Uderzo, the creators of Asterix, directed both Asterix and Cleopatra and The Twelve Tasks of Asterix. They also cowrote the script for the latter.
• Marjane Satrapi, the writer and artist of Persepolis, also co-directed and co-wrote the movie adaptation.
• Luc Besson directed Arthur and the Invisibles and its two sequels, based on his own series of books (originally called Arthur and the Minimoys).
• Super Mario Bros. mastermind Shigeru Miyamoto directly helped produce The Super Mario Bros. Movie, in an attempt to not let it become too distanced from the source material like the live-action film.

Film — Live Action

• French author and filmmaker José Giovanni wrote L'Excommunié and directed its 1972 film adaptation, La Scoumoune. The film is actually The Remake of the 1961 Jean Becker film Un nommé La Rocca, which already adapted the novel. Despite the fact Giovanni also wrote that 1961 film, he wasn't satisfied with it and decided to re-adapt it to the screen himself.
• Clive Barker was exclusively a horror writer before becoming a film director. He has based several of his films on his earlier stories, such as Hellraiser (based on his novella The Hellbound Heart) and Lord of Illusions (based on his short story "The Last Illusion"). He also directed Nightbreed based on his book Cabal.
• William Goldman had experience writing for film, and so rewrote The Princess Bride himself, removing many of the (admittedly unfilmable) metatextual elements of his own accord and shifting the focus towards the fairy-tale parody angle, retaining the editor's notes about the story being read to him as a child as a different Framing Device. He also adapted Marathon Man and Magic from his own novels.
• Ayn Rand wrote the screenplay for the adaptation of The Fountainhead, and had significant say in the creative process. Among other things, she absolutely insisted that Howard Roark's climactic monologue at the end of the film be reproduced from the novel in its entirety; it ended up being one of the longest monologues in cinematic history.
• During the filming of To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee used to come every day to the set but stopped after three weeks because by then she knew the movie would be fine without her.
• Mario Puzo and Francis Ford Coppola worked very closely to adapt Puzo's The Godfather and build together the new storylines of the sequels.
• Nicholas Pileggi served as Martin Scorsese's co-writer in two adaptations of his books, GoodFellas (based on Wiseguy) and Casino.
• As of 2012, comedian Jerry Lewis has brought his original version of The Nutty Professor to Broadway; as well, as managing a CGI-animated sequel/remake to the original, produced exclusively for DVD.
• Frank Miller was a co-director on Sin City, as Robert Rodriguez felt that being such a direct adaptation of the original comics (the visual compositions usually being directly lifted from the panels) meant that most of his directorial work had already been done for him by the creator.
• Rómulo Gallegos was invited to work as the scriptwriter for the 1947 movie adaptation of his novel, Doña Barbara.
• Stephen King made the movie Maximum Overdrive, loosely based on his own short story "Trucks" from Night Shift. He even released a trailer in which he directly addressed the viewer, boasting that if you want something done right, you've gotta do it yourself. It's the only movie based on his stories that he personally directed; however, its reception was pretty negative, an opinion King himself later agreed with. By his own admission, he was letting his cocaine habit do most of the actual work during filming, and boy does it show.
• J. K. Rowling was fairly actively involved in the creative decision making for the Harry Potter films, ^note  She only really put her foot down on two things: cutting out Kreacher and nixing Dumbledore (who’s gay) telling Harry a story about a girl he liked and writes the Fantastic Beasts sister series herself, albeit with Steve Kloves as a co-writer on the third one.
• Tom Stoppard wrote the screenplay for the film adaptation of his play Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead, and ended up directing it as well. Rather than seeking to keep everything the same, he had no hesitation about making substantial changes, adding new bits to take advantage of the new medium, and cutting out bits that no longer worked. He said in an interview that part of the reason he took the director's chair was that it "just seemed that I'd be the only person who could treat the play with the necessary disrespect."
• Chris Roberts, creator of Wing Commander, wrote the story for and directed the movie.
• Suzanne Collins, author of the Hunger Games book series, wrote the screenplay for the film adaptation of the first installment and executive produced the rest of the films.
• The Perks of Being a Wallflower was written and directed by Stephen Chbosky, who wrote the original novel.
• William Peter Blatty produced and wrote The Exorcist, which was based on his novel of the same name. More directly, he directed The Exorcist III, based on his novel sequel Legion, at least in part out of his disdain for Exorcist II: The Heretic.
  • Blatty also wrote, directed, and produced The Ninth Configuration based on his book of the same name.
• Gillian Flynn wrote the film adaptation of Gone Girl.
• Holes: After Richard Kelly's screenplay for the film was rejected due to being an In Name Only adaptation set in a post-apocalyptic world, original author Louis Sachar wrote the final screenplay himself, keeping the film very faithful to the book.
• Jordan Mechner, the creator of the Prince of Persia franchise, was the screenwriter for Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time, doing the first two drafts of the script, and was on set during the filming. He is credited with writing the story.
• An In-Universe example happens in Saving Mr. Banks, where P.L. Travers is given unprecedented creative control over the production of Mary Poppins by Walt Disney. Interestingly, this was the case in the actual production as well, though Travers was unhappy with the result.
• Ernest Cline co-wrote the screenplay for the film adaptation of his book, Ready Player One.
• Ed Wood directed Necromania, based on his own novel, The Only House.
• Enki Bilal wrote and directed Immortal based on The Carnival of Immortals comics he wrote.
• Takashi Shimizu directed Ju-on and its American remake, The Grudge. He directed The Grudge 2 and was an executive producer on The Grudge 3.
• Thea von Harbou wrote the screenplay for Metropolis, which was based on her book of the same name.
• Astrid Lindgren was deeply involved in writing scripts for films based on her novels. This came about after she famously disowned the 1949 film adaptation of Pippi Longstocking.
• Famously played with with Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory, an adaptation of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory^note The title was altered a little bit because of The Vietnam War, where U.S. soldiers used "charlie" to refer to the Viet Cong, and other people of East Asian descent.. Although the screenplay is credited to Roald Dahl, much of his script was altered by ghostwriters, which included the addition of the "gobstopper test" in order to give the movie a villain (Slugworth) and a moral. He hated what had been done to his script so much that he (allegedly) stated in his will that the book's sequel, Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator, would never be adapted into a movie.
• Michael Haneke directed the original Austrian Funny Games and its English language Shot for Shot Remake.
• Hans Petter Moland directed both In Order of Disappearance and its American remake Cold Pursuit.
• David Rook wrote The White Colt in 1967, then wrote the screenplay for its 1969 film adaptation, Run Wild, Run Free.
• Sam Raimi co-wrote and directed Darkman based on a short story that he wrote.
• Peter Shaffer who wrote the play Amadeus made a screenplay of its film adaptation
• Greg Rucka wrote the comic The Old Guard and the first screenplay and final rewrites for the film adaptation.
• Peter Benchley wrote both the novel and the screenplay for The Island (1980). Benchley also wrote the first drafts of the Jaws script, being one of the two credited screenwriters.
• Joe Ballarini wrote A Babysitter's Guide To Monster Hunting based on his trilogy of books.
• Woody Allen adapted Play It Again, Sam from his play, while Shadows and Fog was based on his one-act play Death, which appears in the short story anthology book Without Feathers.
• Ingmar Bergman adapted The Seventh Seal from his own play Wood Parting.
• Dalton Trumbo directed only one film, an adaptation of his novel, Johnny Got His Gun.
• Hannibal Rising had its script written by the book's author, Thomas Harris (who is also the one narrating the audiobook version).
• Michael Crichton was a co-writer in both Jurassic Park and Rising Sun.
• Kevin Jakubowski wrote the screenplay for the film adaptation of his book 8-Bit Christmas.
• Florian Zeller directed and co-wrote a film adaptation of his own play, The Father.
• Ernest Thompson wrote the film adaptation of his own play, On Golden Pond.
• Aaron Sorkin wrote A Few Good Men from his 1989 play of the same name.
• Steven Levenson, who wrote the book of Dear Evan Hansen, also wrote the screenplay of the film adaptation.
• Michael Mann first became famous as the Show Runner on Miami Vice, which he parlayed into a career directing slick, modern crime thrillers like Manhunter, Heat, and Collateral. Naturally, when the film adaptation of Miami Vice went into production, he was the logical choice to direct it.
• Pink Floyd bassist Roger Waters was the creative director for The Wall, which was heavily based on his personal experiences as a musician with a troubled upbringing. When the album was adapted into a film in 1982, Waters wrote the screenplay for it.

Literature

• Marv Wolfman wrote the novelization to his comic, Crisis on Infinite Earths. Most of the reviews on Amazon are from confused people who thought they were buying the trade paperback of the comic.
• The Doctor Who Novelisations have this happen a fair bit, to the point almost half the novelisations are written by the original scriptwriters. Among other examples:
  • Terrance Dicks novelized most of the serials he wrote, also writing junior novels for "Robot" and "The Brain of Morbius". The only serial he didn't novelize was "The War Games" which was written by the serial's co-writer, Malcolm Hulke.
  • Hulke novelized all of his own serials apart from "The Faceless Ones" which was written by Dicks.
  • Douglas Adams is a famous aversion: he insisted that if his serials were to be novelized, he'd do it himself, and then never got around to it in his lifetime. Two of his stories were eventually novelized by James Goss (along with an unmade film proposal by Adams, Doctor Who and the Krikkitmen) and the third was novelized by Gareth Roberts, four decades after Adams left Who and almost two decades after he died.
  • Eric Saward wrote the novelizations of all but two of the stories that he wrote, the exceptions being "Earthshock" (written by Ian Marter, who played Fourth Doctor companion Harry Sullivan) and "A Fix With Sontarans" (which never got novelized; it was created as a non-canon crossover with Jim'll Fix It, and the canonically ambiguous Re-Cut made after presenter Jimmy Savile was outed as a serial child predator only came out in 2022).
  • When the first novelizations of new series episodes were released, the ones for "Rose" and "The Day of the Doctor" were written by the episodes' original writers, Russell T. Davies and Steven Moffat, respectively.
• Terrance Dicks adapted his script for Reeltime video drama Shakedown: Return of the Sontarans as part of his Doctor Who New Adventures novel "Shakedown", incorporating the Seventh Doctor and his companions in the Framing Story.
• Barry Letts, writer of the Third Doctor BBC radio drama "The Ghosts of N-Space", and Marc Platt, writer of the Reeltime video drama "Downtime", both novelized their stories for the Doctor Who Missing Adventures. Letts had previously novelized his other Third Doctor radio drama, "The Paradise of Death", for the Doctor Who Novelisations.
• Paul Cornell wrote the Scream of the Shalka webcast and novelized it for the Past Doctor Adventures.
• Seth MacFarlane's only novel is based on the movie he directed and starred in, A Million Ways to Die in the West.
• The novelization to the independent film Robot Overlords was written by the scriptwriter and co-creator, Mark Stay.
• Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry wrote the novelization for Star Trek: The Motion Picture, which he had produced.
• The Toxic Avenger writer and director Lloyd Kaufman wrote its novelization with Adam Jahnke.
• Rocky IV star, director, and writer Sylvester Stallone wrote the movie's novelization.
• Rob Grant wrote a Quatermass radio parody with Andrew Marshall called The Quanderhorn Xperimentations. The pair then wrote a novelization.

• Terry Nation created the show Survivors, then wrote a novelization of some of his season one episodes.
• Michael Crichton wrote and directed West World and then wrote a novelization that was closer to his original script.
• Quentin Tarantino's first novel was the novelization to Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, which he wrote and directed.
• Masaru Nakamura novelized the live-action film adaptation of Dororo that he wrote with Akihiko Shiota.
• Rob Zombie wrote the novelization to The Lords of Salem which he wrote and directed.

Live-Action TV

• Ruyi's Royal Love in the Palace: The screenplay is by the original novel's author, Liu Lian Zi.
• Several episodes in the revived series of Doctor Who were based on pre-existing works:
  • The 2005 episode "Dalek" — written by Robert Shearman — was based on his 2003 Big Finish Doctor Who audio story Jubilee.
  • The 2007 episodes "Human Nature" and "The Family of Blood" — written by Paul Cornell — were based on his 1995 Doctor Who New Adventures novel Human Nature.
  • The following episode, "Blink" — written by Steven Moffat — was based on his short story "'What I Did on My Summer Holidays' by Sally Sparrow", which appear in the 2006 Doctor Who Annual.
  • The 2010 episode "The Lodger" — written by Gareth Roberts — was based on his 2007 Doctor Who Magazine comic strip of the same name.
• George R. R. Martin has consistently maintained that the Game of Thrones series is a separate beast from his A Song of Ice and Fire books^note The title is based on the name of the first book, A Game of Thrones, but he did write an episode of each of the first four seasons, until his schedule filled up too much and he stopped doing so in the fifth (which also happened when the show began diverging significantly from the books). Martin also co-created the prequel series House of the Dragon.
• Playwright Ins Choi is heavily involved in the TV adaptation of his play Kim's Convenience; he plays a big role in the development and has also co/written several episodes, including the pilot ("Gay Discount") and the Season 1 finale ("Family Singing Contest").
• Daniel Handler is the executive producer and lead writer of the Netflix version of A Series of Unfortunate Events (2017), based on his books.
• Stephen King, unhappy with Stanley Kubrick's version, created his own TV miniseries based on The Shining. This version adheres much more closely to the novel and avoids the Kubrick adaptation's Maybe Magic, Maybe Mundane approach, presenting the events as explicitly and unambiguously supernatural in nature.
• Simon Nye wrote Men Behaving Badly based on his book of the same name.
• A rather tragic case with Batman creator-in-all-but-name Bill Finger, whose work scripting the Clock King two-parter of Batman (1966) was the only time he was directly credited for any Batman work during his lifetime.
• The Twilight Zone (1985):
  • Harlan Ellison adapted his short story "Paladin of the Lost Hour".
  • Richard Matheson adapted his short story "Button, Button", though he took his name off of the episode as he disliked the changes that he was forced to make as a result of Executive Meddling.
• Annette and Gina Cascone wrote all the episodes of Deadtime Stories, based on their book series.
• The The Haunting Hour episode Catching Cold was based on Neal Shusterman's short story of the same name, and he wrote the episode.
• Bruce Wagner wrote both Wild Palms and the comic book it was based on.
• Gerard Way created and wrote The Umbrella Academy and was an executive producer on TV series.
• Lindy West helped develop her book (Shrill: Notes From A Loud Woman) into the television series Shrill.
• Max Headroom was originally a British telemovie, and a couple of years later was expanded by its creators into a full American series.
• Geoff Johns, who wrote the comic that introduced Stargirl, also conceived her live-action series, Stargirl.
• The Confessions of Frannie Langton: Sara Collins, writer of the book this was based on, also wrote the script for the series and was an executive producer.
• Robert Kirkman took an active part in adapting The Walking Dead into the 2010 TV series, writing several episodes himself and approving of changes made to the story to avoid Foregone Conclusion for readers of the comic. He did run into some headaches when Frank Darabont created the series-original events of the first season finale (wherein the group learns more about the walker virus in detail and it’s all but said it’s just another virus), since he never wanted to explore the walker virus in detail. Kirkman notably stepped away from the show for the most part after the sixth season ended in a cliffhanger that was negatively received by fans and critics alike, leaving showrunner Scott Gimple and later Angela Kang as the primary architects of the show.
• Maureen Jennings, author of the original Murdoch Mysteries novels, acted as a creative consultant for the TV adaptation of her work and contributed several scripts herself.

Pinball

• The initial design for Guns N' Roses (Data East) came from Slash, an avid pinball collector.
• Guns N' Roses (Jersey Jack) was co-designed by Slash, who came to Jersey Jack Pinball with the idea for another table based on the band.

Theatre

• Agatha Christie wrote stage adaptations of several of her novels. She had no hesitation about introducing significant changes, sometimes in recognition of the different requirements of a play (as with the new ending she gave the stage version of And Then There Were None) and sometimes just to keep people on their toes if they'd already read the original version.
• The Little Witch has a stage adaptation by the original author, Otfried Preußler.
• Eric Idle was one of the writers for Monty Python and the Holy Grail and then wrote its stage adaptation, Spamalot.
• Riyoko Ikeda, creator of The Rose of Versailles, also helped write the script for the Takarazuka Revue's stage adaptation of the series.
• Tina Fey wrote the Mean Girls movie and wrote the book for the stage musical.
• Danny Rubin wrote both the Groundhog Day movie and its stage musical adaptation.
• Daphne du Maurier wrote her novel, Rebecca in 1938 and adapted it into a play the following year.
• Ace Attorney creator Shu Takumi supervised the writing of the original story for the "Turnabout Parallel World" stage play.
• Victor Hugo published The Hunchback of Notre Dame in 1831, and he also wrote La Esmeralda, an opera loosely based on the story that premiered in 1836.
• Of Mice and Men was adapted as a stage play by its author, John Steinbeck.

Video Games

• Harlan Ellison was heavily involved in the writing and development of I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream (which adapts his most famous short story), and he even provided the voice of AM himself.
• The Wachowskis had full creative input on Enter the Matrix and The Matrix: Path of Neo.
• The Brothers Chaps re-wrote every episode of Strong Bad's Cool Game for Attractive People to make it true to their web cartoon Homestar Runner.
• The writers of The Simpsons put full creative control on both The Simpsons Hit & Run and The Simpsons Game.
• One of the writers of Futurama wrote the entire script of the 2003 video game.

Web Video

• Chance Calloway, the creator of Pretty Dudes, was an author before he created the show, so he adapted his own scripts into prose for the novelization. The book was published under his pen name C.S.R. Calloway.

Western Animation

• The scripts for the Peanuts specials, more often than not, would simply be ripped directly from the comic strips with minimal changes, so Charles Schulz was the lead writer by default. But Schulz had a lot of creative control, often writing any additional material as well, and many of the specials' trademarks — the jazz score, the casting of children, and the simplistic animation style — were his decisions.
• Aaron McGruder, creator of The Boondocks, also created the animated series based on them, and wrote every single episode of the first three seasons (though he was totally absent during the fourth and final season).
• Scott Adams, creator of the long-running Dilbert, developed the animated series with Seinfeld producer Larry Charles and also co-wrote a majority of the episodes' scripts.
• Cece Bell, the author of El Deafo, worked on the Animated Miniseries of the same name as an executive producer, writer, and narrator.
• Jim Davis scripted all the Garfield TV specials that aired in the 1980s and early 1990s. It wasn't until Garfield and Friends that he allowed others to write his characters.
• Winsor McCay directed cartoons based on comics that he wrote and drew like Dream of the Rarebit Fiend and Little Nemo.
• A Doonesbury Special, based on the newspaper strip, was co-directed and co-written by creator Garry Trudeau.
• Luke Pearson is the showrunner of Hilda which is based on his own graphic novels.
• Michael Rex, author of Fangbone! Third Grade Barbarian, also helped out a lot with developing the Fangbone! Animated Adaptation, even doing some of the show's concept art. He also received executive producer credit, overseeing the series' development and scriptwriting. His own blog even talks quite a bit about his work on the cartoon.
• Invincible (2021) is co-created by the creator of the original comic, Robert Kirkman.
• Many of Nelvana's Animated Adaptations qualify, particularly those created for PBS Kids' Bookworm Bunch block.
  • Rosemary Wells, author and illustrator of Max & Ruby, Timothy Goes to School, and the Yoko & Friends series, worked closely with Nelvana on the Timothy Goes to School and Max and Ruby cartoons, overseeing production for both shows and helped writing scripts for both shows.
  • Maggie and the Ferocious Beast was based on a book by authors Michael and Betty Paraskevas, who were very involved in the show's production, even writing many of the episodes. The same applies with their more obscure Marvin the Tap-Dancing Horse, which the Paraskevas worked on as executive producers.
  • Both of Maurice Sendak's Nelvana-adapted series, Little Bear and Seven Little Monsters, also saw him brought on board to help with the show's production, and he was heavily involved in the development process, receiving executive producer credit. He even supervised the artwork done for the former show.
  • Rolie Polie Olie and George Shrinks were both based on books written and illustrated by William Joyce, who also worked very heavily on the series' development processes, including designing much of the early concept art (he even won a Special Emmy for Outstanding Production Design on Rolie Polie Olie in 1999) and overseeing the shows' scriptwriting as an executive producer.
• Tara Duncan's 2021 animated series was produced by Princess Sam Pictures, whose CEO is Sophie Audouin-Mamikonian, author of the books.
• The Cuphead Show! is co-created and produced by Chad and Jared Moldenhauer, co-creators of the original game.
• Tad Hills, author and illustrator of the original Duck & Goose picture book series, was the Executive Producer for the 2022 Apple TV+ preschool series of the same name.
• While Dr. Seuss was mostly hands off with a majority of animated specials based off his books during his lifetime. He was able to contribute to Chuck Jones' How the Grinch Stole Christmas! from 1966, where he wrote the lyrics for "You're a Mean One, Mr. Grinch" and co-wrote "Welcome Christmas" which both became staples in future adaptations of the original story.
• Judith Viorist, author of Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day, wrote the screenplay and lyrics to HBO Storybook Musicals musical adaptation from 1990.

Multimedia

• Douglas Adams' level of involvement with each adaptation of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy varies, but the novels and computer game are the ones he had the biggest hand in, and he delighted in completely reworking the story each time he tackled it. The TV version also had his input, and his last draft of the film before he died was used as the final one with minimal editing.
  • He was meant to novelize Starship Titanic but ended up getting Terry Jones to do it as he didn't have time to write the book and the video game.
  • As mentioned above, he wanted to novelize his Doctor Who episodes but never got around to doing it^note While Adams' laziness is infamous there is evidence that it's more likely he knew his success with Hitchhikers priced him out of being commissioned to write them..
• Bryan Lee O'Malley was heavily involved in both the film adaptation and video game adaptation of his Scott Pilgrim comic books.
• Robin Hardy, the director of The Wicker Man (1973), wrote a novelization with Anthony Shaffer, the screenwriter. Hardy went on to write a loose sequel called Cowboys For Christ, from which he directed a movie adaptation called The Wicker Tree.
• John A. Russo is king of this trope:
  • Wrote the book, Voodoo Dawn and wrote the screenplay for the movie adaptation.
  • He directed the 1982 movie, Midnight, based on his own book of the same name.
  • He wrote and produced The Majorettes, based on his novel.
  • His anthology The Hungry Dead contains a novelization of his Escape The Living Dead comic.
  • He wrote the screenplay and novelization to Night of the Living Dead (1968). He then wrote a sequel novel called Return of the Living Dead, directed a movie with the same name, then wrote a novelization to the movie.
  • He and the original movie's director, George A. Romero, wrote the screenplay for the 1990 remake of Night of The Living Dead.
• George A. Romero wrote and directed Dawn Of The Dead and Martin then novelized both with Susan Sparrow.
• Guillermo del Toro:
  • He wrote The Strain with Chuck Hogan then directed the TV series with Hogan writing.
  • He wrote Trollhunters with Daniel Kraus, then directed the cartoon series.
  • Del Toro wrote the novelization and is writing a stage musical based on Pan's Labyrinth, which he wrote and directed.
  • He wrote and directed The Shape of Water and wrote its novelization with Peter Kraus.
• Peter George wrote the screenplay for Dr. Strangelove which was based on his novel Red Alert. He then wrote the movie's novelization.
• The Tick creator Ben Edlund has been a writer for the 1994 cartoon, the 2001 live-action series, and the 2016 live-action series of the same name.
• Sam & Max: Freelance Police creator Steve Purcell was heavily involved with Sam & Max Hit the Road, The Adventures of Sam & Max: Freelance Police, and Sam & Max: Freelance Police.
• Neil Gaiman:
  • He wrote the novelization to his TV show Neverwhere because The BBC wouldn't let him make all the decisions he wanted to.
  • He also wrote a picture book based on MirrorMask for which he wrote the story and screenplay.
  • Was executive producer on How to Talk to Girls at Parties, based on his short story of the same name.
  • Wrote and produced a TV show based on his American Gods.
  • He did the same with Good Omens based on a book he wrote with Terry Pratchett.
• Andrew Norriss:
  • Wrote the screenplay for the series Woof! then wrote novelizations for the second, third, and fourth seasons.
  • Wrote the TV series based on his book, Aquila then novelized the second season.
  • Wrote the TV series based on his book, Matt's Million.
  • Wrote the novelization to his show, Bernard's Watch.
• Arthur C. Clarke co-wrote the screenplay for 2001: A Space Odyssey, which was based on his short story, The Sentinel and then wrote the movie's novelization.
• Mamoru Hosoda wrote light novels and manga adaptations of the anime movies he wrote and directed, Wolf Children and The Boy and the Beast.
• Makoto Shinkai wrote novelizations to the movies he directed: 5 Centimeters per Second, The Garden of Words, Your Name and Weathering With You.
  • He wrote mangas based on all of the above except Weathering With You. He also adapted Voices of a Distant Star, Children Who Chase Lost Voices and The Place Promised in Our Early Days.
• Rob Grant and Doug Naylor wrote the Red Dwarf TV series based on the Dave Hollins: Space Cadet sketches on their Son of Cliché radio show.
  • They then wrote the Red Dwarf tie-in novels.
• The Moone Boy novels were written by the TV series' writers, Nick Vincent Murphy and Chris O'Dowd.
  • O'Dowd was said to be writing and producing an American remake.
• Darren Smith and Terrance Zdunic wrote their musical Repo! The Genetic Opera based on their short play The Necromerchant's Debt and then wrote the movie adaptation.
• J.M. Barrie wrote the original Peter Pan short story, Peter Pan in Kensington Gardens, wrote the 1904 play then wrote its more famous novelization in 1911.
• One Foot in the Grave creator, David Renwick wrote the show's novelization and adapted four episodes for radio.
• Mel Brooks worked on stage musicals based on some of his movies:
  • He wrote and directed The Producers in 1967, wrote the book and songs to the 2001 stage musical then produced and wrote the screenplay to the 2005 musical movie.
  • He wrote the book, lyrics, and music for a 2007 musical based on Young Frankenstein which he wrote and directed in 1974.
• As well as writing the The Twilight Zone episode, Button, Button, Richard Matheson wrote the script for the movie, Duel based on his own short story
• Robert Kirkman took the chance that Invincible (2021) provided to readapt the story, both to fit the story better to the new medium as well as revise story beats with a more experienced eye as a writer since he wrote the original comic.
• The two adaptations of the Diamond Brothers books by Anthony Horowitz were a 1988 film based on the first book, and a 1991 TV series adapted from the third book. Both adaptations were written by Horowitz himself, and he also directed the 1991 series.
• A rare two way example: Hinata Haruhana adapted her own novel Umi Ha Sono Nazotoki Wo Nozomu No Ka? into a duology of Vocaloid songs, Nazotoki and Nazokake. Then she adapted the songs into the official Nazokake novelization.
• The Mousetrap started as the Three Blind Mice radio play written by Agatha Christie that she adapted into the short story of the same name and then turned into the titular play.
• Troma was directly involved for heavily reworking Toxic Avenger into the more family-friendly Toxic Crusaders cartoon, with Lloyd Kaufman and Michael Herz themselves having co-written a few episodes. Troma and Lloyd Kaufman have also worked closely with the 2023 video game's developers.

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