I genuinely need you to understand what Ali Hazelwood has pulled off here.
She’s a neuroscience professor—Italian-born, lived in Japan, lived in Germany, and eventually earned her PhD in the United States—who started writing Star Wars fan fiction in her spare time as a creative outlet. A literary agent stumbled across it online, and that fan fiction became The Love Hypothesis.
This book then spent ten months on the New York Times bestseller list.
Now, she has three separate book adaptations in the works across two competing streaming platforms, with a cast and producing roster that reads like someone’s dream Hollywood wishlist.
The Neuroscientist Who Accidentally Took Over BookTok
Ali Hazelwood is a pen name. The actual neuroscience professor behind it has remained largely private about her personal details, with her books doing most of the talking.
Her self-description on her website says pretty much everything you need to know about her:
“I’m originally from Italy, lived in Japan and Germany, and eventually moved to the US to pursue a PhD in Neuroscience. I recently became a professor, which absolutely terrifies me. When I’m not at work, you can find me binge-watching shows with my three feline overlords (and my slightly less feline husband), running, or eating candy.”
She has since left academia to write full-time, which, given the pace of her adaptation deals, seems like a reasonable career pivot.
Her books are what the internet has dubbed “STEMinist” romances. These are stories about women navigating the particularly thorny, often male-dominated world of academic science, who happen to also fall for the one person most likely to complicate their career.
The formula works because Hazelwood writes from genuine experience. As a PhD student, she was the only woman in her cohort.
All Ali Hazelwood Book-to-Screen Adaptations:
1. The Love Hypothesis Movie (2026)
The Love Hypothesis follows Olive Smith, a biology PhD candidate who needs to convince her best friend she’s moved on from a former crush, so she impulsively kisses the nearest available person. That person happens to be Dr. Adam Carlsen, a notoriously cold and demanding professor with a reputation for making grad students’ lives miserable.
They agree to a fake relationship. The rest writes itself, as these things tend to do.
Lili Reinhart plays Olive, and Tom Bateman plays Adam. The supporting cast includes Rachel Marsh as Anh, Jaboukie Young-White as Malcolm, Nicholas Duvernay as Jeremy, and Arty Froushan as Tom.
Claire Scanlon, who directed Netflix’s Set It Up, is behind the camera, working from a script by Sarah Rothschild. Elizabeth Cantillon is producing, with Reinhart, Catherine Hagedorn, and Hazelwood all executive producing for Amazon MGM Studios and MRC.
The movie releases on Prime Video on September 23, 2026.
Hazelwood’s reaction to the team assembled around it said everything about how she felt:
“Honestly, I still can’t believe this is happening? Elizabeth Cantillon, Claire Scanlon, and Lili Reinhart have all created, produced, or starred in works that I’m absolutely feral about, and I am beyond honored that they’re choosing to bring their talent to this project. Books and films are very different media, and I have complete trust in this brilliant team. I cannot wait to see the final product they’ll come up with. I hope they have as much fun filming as I had while writing the book.”
Reinhart herself was clear about what she wanted to do with the role. Speaking to V Magazine in January 2026, she said:
“It’s not my typical genre, but I appreciate a really good romantic comedy. I felt like this was a chance to change the perception of the streamer rom-com and do something more elevated. I tried to make the story as grounded as possible, even if it meant telling people, ‘these words don’t feel organic.'”
Amazon is so confident in the film that, three months before its release, they greenlit a second Hazelwood adaptation, which brings us to the next adaptation.
2. Love, Theoretically Movie (TBA)
Love, Theoretically follows Elsie Hannaway, a thermodynamics adjunct professor who moonlights as a professional girlfriend-for-hire. This entails accompanying men to events as a paid companion while quietly drowning in the exhausting economics of academic precarity.
The complication arrives in the form of Jack, the head of MIT’s physics department and the one person who could either save or derail her entire career.
Amazon MGM Studios announced the adaptation on June 29, 2026, the same day Reinhart and Bateman were presenting The Love Hypothesis trailer at Prime Video’s Obsessed Fest.
Sofia Alvarez, the filmmaker behind Along for the Ride and the writer of both To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before screenplays, is directing and adapting the script.
Colleen Hoover is producing through her Heartbones Entertainment banner alongside partner Lauren Levine, with Max Siemers and Tanner Anderson of Magic Hour Entertainment also on board. Hazelwood executive produces alongside Alvarez.
In May 2026, just weeks before this deal was announced, Hazelwood had given Harper’s Bazaar a refreshingly honest update on the state of the adaptation:
“The person who was supposed to write the script [for Love, Theoretically] is still attached. I’m still a huge, super, mega fan of this person. I don’t know that anything is going to happen. The road from something being optioned to something actually being made is just so long and so winding that sometimes announcing it is not even worth it.”
Then, six weeks later, Sofia Alvarez was announced as writer-director, with a full producing team behind her. As of writing, though, no cast has been confirmed.
3. Deep End Movie (TBA)
Deep End is Hazelwood’s first foray into sports romance, and Netflix acquired the rights before a single reader had even opened the book.
Published in 2025, it follows a competitive diver and an elite swimmer whose campus lives become entangled in ways that turn increasingly complicated and increasingly difficult to ignore. It sold nearly 1.5 million copies worldwide and was licensed in 21 territories. Netflix, clearly, read the room.
The producing team here is genuinely one of the more unlikely pairings of the year: Shawn Levy and Dan Levine of 21 Laps, whose recent credits include Deadpool & Wolverine and Backrooms, alongside Alex Cooper of Call Her Daddy fame and her Unwell Productions partner Matt Kaplan. Laura Kosann is writing the screenplay. Hazelwood is executive producing.
The announcement landed in August 2026. No director or cast has been named yet, which means it’s still firmly in the early stages of development.
More Book-to-Screen Adaptations: