How Colleen Hoover became one of the most bankable names in Hollywood

Much is left unanswered in Verity, the latest film adaptation of a Colleen Hoover novel. But while the story twists and turns, one thing remains clear: audiences can’t get enough of the Texan author’s tales.

Verity has topped the Australian box office since its October 1 release. The psychological thriller, starring Anne Hathaway, Josh Hartnett and Dakota Johnson, has grossed over $163 million globally against a $57.3 million production budget. In Australia, it breezed past other popular titles such as Heart of the Beast, starring both Brad Pitt and an incredibly cute dog, as well as Zach Cregger’s buzzy Resident Evil.

This isn’t the first time a pulpy Hoover adaptation has smashed the box office. Within two years, four of the author’s stories have been adapted for cinema: It Ends With Us, Regretting You, Reminders of Him and Verity, all of which enjoyed solid to significant box office success.

At first glance, this seems perplexing. Hoover began as a self-published author, writing stories on her mother’s laptop in a Texas trailer and uploading finished titles to Amazon. She admits she’s no literary genius, telling Elle last year she just wants to write “fun books that are easy reads”. And easy reads they are, with most of her titles prioritising sugary melodrama or ridiculous plot twists. Sprinkled throughout the pulp are heavier subjects, such as domestic violence and infanticide, neither of which scream “light read” or “fun girls’ night out at the cinema”. And then there are the critics’ reviews, most of which range from middling to downright scathing.

Yet, this self-published author has become one of Hollywood’s most bankable names. How?

Speaking to Variety in March, Hoover credits “BookTok”, the online sub-community dedicated to popular literature, with propelling her career into the stratosphere. Early in the pandemic, she made some of her work available online for free to increase accessibility during lockdowns. This, paired with her novels’ romance-heavy plots, helped them go viral on socials, where young readers discovered her work and shared doting review videos.

Associate professor Liam Burke, discipline lead for Swinburne’s cinema and screen studies, says Hoover even maintains her own TikTok account where she shares updates on publishing and film adaptations, allowing fans to develop a closer relationship with her.

“Such parasocial relationships are incredibly valuable for authors looking to stand out in our attention economy,” Burke says.

By 2022, Hoover’s titles outsold the Bible by more than 3 million copies in the US. That same year, she attained six of the top 10 spots on The New York Times bestselling paperback fiction list. She has so far sold over 35 million copies of her books worldwide, and one of her most recent novels, It Starts With Us, broke Simon & Schuster’s record for most pre-orders in the publication’s 100-year history.

“Book sales consistently show that women read much more fiction than men,” Burke says. “With well-drawn characters dealing with romance, loss and life’s many challenges, Hoover’s books have become appealing for readers looking for relatable novels that centre the female experience. Avoiding dense plots or fantastical genre tropes, her accessible books can be easily read and reread, becoming firm favourites for a generation of readers.”

Her BookTok success and growing fan base (known as “CoHorts”) inevitably caught Hollywood’s attention. It Ends With Us kicked off the Hoover adaptation craze in August 2024, telling the story of a woman who attempts to break a cycle of domestic abuse. Starring Blake Lively (Gossip Girl) and Justin Baldoni (Jane the Virgin), the film attracted massive audiences, grossing over $501 million globally.

Its audience only grew amid Lively’s legal dispute with Baldoni, which alleged that Baldoni conspired with publicists to preemptively destroy her reputation after she privately accused him of sexually harassing her on the movie set. This intrigued viewers, playing into some of the film’s themes in a rather twisted way. The case has since been settled, but chatter lingers about the lawsuit and film itself.

Beyond real-world controversy, Hoover’s stories are also arguably made for the big screen. “When I write, I always see my books as a movie,” she told Variety earlier this year. “I love film, so I write in a way that it translates well.”

Studios clearly agree – within one day of the announcement of her latest novel, Woman Down, Hoover received at least 30 requests from people who wished to adapt the story, sight unseen.

“Hoover’s books fill a void in cinemas, as they tend to focus on romance and drama genres, which have largely gone to streaming in the form of miniseries like Big Little Lies, Little Fires Everywhere, and All Her Fault,” Burke says.

It also helps that each of her film adaptations have starred famous faces. From Lively in It Ends With Us to Dave Franco in Regretting You, Tyriq Withers in Reminders of Him and Hathaway in Verity, all Hoover films feature gorgeous A-list drawcards to spearhead marketing strategies. These actors, and the filmmakers, are then given relative freedom on-set, as Hoover famously doesn’t request completely faithful adaptations (even when she’s co-producing, such as on Reminders of Him and Verity).

“I have to keep readers in mind,” she told Variety. “But I love a good movie. If I don’t think something from the book is going to work in the film, I’ll be the first one to say, ‘let’s get rid of it’.”

With at least 24 novels under her belt, all written since 2012, Hoover has plenty more material for Hollywood to work with. That alone is enticing for studios, which may already consider her the Marvel of romance-dramas. Could we see an It Ends With Us sequel, It Starts With Us? Or perhaps it’ll be the adaptation of Woman Down, for which Hoover has reportedly already begun writing a script. Regardless of the story, we can assume one thing is certain: her “CoHorts” will show up in droves to watch it.

Verity is currently in cinemas.

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