Lost manuscripts, whirlwind romances: When movies leave a paper trail

Check out a book on the bro code, another by Ant-Man, a memoir by Selina Meyer of Veep, and other dramatic and whimsical tales emerging from films and TV.

Argylle (2024): Set in the world of the film

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In the 2024 movie, a woman named Elly Conway writes best-selling spy novels and lives the life of a recluse. Until she starts to realise that the plots in her books are being mirrored, almost exactly, by a particular spy agency.

Just ahead of the film’s release, the makers also released a book titled Argylle (which is the name of Conway’s spy)

The book was credited to Conway, “a reclusive writer based in New York”, and ghostwritten by the Australian and British authors Terry Hayes and Tammy Cohen.

It’s the story of a spy with a dark past, whose mission is to stop an evil Russian oligarch from becoming that country’s next president.

A Woman First: First Woman (2019): Set in the world of the TV series Veep

Published just before the premiere of the final season, this book draws its title and its cover from a fictional memoir that featured in the show.

In Season 6 of the political-satire series Veep (2012-19), Selina Meyer, the first woman Vice-President of the United States (played in award-winning manner by Julia Louis-Dreyfus), releases this memoir just in time to coincide with a blistering expose on her tenure. That’s just how things always seem to go for her.

In the real world, the book was written by the show’s executive producers, Billy Kimball and David Mandel, and explores questions such as: What was it like being raised in “the American heartland of God-fearing suburban Maryland”? What goes on in the corridors of power?

Look Out for the Little Guy! (2023): Set in the world of Ant-Man

“Once upon a time I was just a guy living a normal life who committed a crime (for the greater good!), unfortunately, went away for a couple of years, got out and became a Super Hero, joined the Avengers, went down to the Quantum Realm, and then came back and saved the universe. You know, typical dad stuff.”

That’s from the author’s statement in Look Out for the Little Guy!, credited to Scott Lang aka Ant-Man, commissioned by Marvel and ghostwritten by comedy writer Rob Kutner.

The book is dear to the tiny superhero’s heart. He promotes it at the beginning of the film Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania (2023). He is supposed to have written it after helping save the world in Avengers: Endgame (2019).

Its 20 chapters detail his time with The Avengers, offer some additional dirt on Thanos, and expand on the realities of shrinking down to ant-size.

This one briefly made it to the New York Times bestseller list.

Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (2001): Set in the Harry Potter world

The book is credited to Newt Scamander, the wizard and magizoologist of the Potter books, and was written by JK Rowling.

It takes the shape of a magizoology text from the first-year syllabus at Hogwarts, in keeping with its description in the Harry Potter books, and the first Potter film, …Philosopher’s Stone (2001).

It offers notes on the habits and lifestyles of fantastical creatures such as the giant snake known as the basilisk, and the thieving rodent known as the niffler. It purports to be the very copy shared by the protagonists of the Potter books. In the margins are handwritten notes and scribbles by Potter, Hermione Granger and Ron Weasley.

In 2016, the Fantastic Beasts… film followed. It told the story of how the book was compiled, with Eddie Redmayne playing the passionate, scatter-brained, always-in-trouble Scamander.

The Bro Code (2008): Set in the world of the TV series How I Met Your Mother

What is a bro? Is it ok to hug one? Does one have to take a gift to a bro’s wedding? These are some of the pressing questions addressed in the book credited to the dapper, promiscuous Barney Stinson of the sitcom, How I Met Your Mother (2005-14).

Containing approximately 150 “unspoken” rules, the satirical code of conduct was the first in a series written by show writer Matt Kuhn. Other titles include Bro on the Go (2009), The Playbook (2010) and Bro Code for Parents: What to Expect When You’re Awesome (2012).

Bad Twin (2006): Set in the world of the Lost series

This is supposedly the manuscript that mystery writer Gary Troup had with him when Oceanic Airlines Flight 815 crashed into a deserted island, in the popular-if-ultimately-disappointing series Lost (2004-10).

In the show, Troup goes missing when the plane goes down, and his draft is read by one of the stranded crash survivors, in Season 2.

In the real world, the book was ghostwritten by thriller writer Laurence Shames and released after Season 2 had concluded. The story is set around the disappearance of twins from a rich family. The book spent a brief while on the New York Times bestseller list.

The Secret Diary of Laura Palmer (1990): Set in the world of Twin Peaks

This was an early mover in this category. As soon as Season 1 of the popular detective series Twin Peaks ended in 1990, the show’s creators, Mark Frost and David Lynch, released a version of the murder victim’s diary.

Entries begin when Laura Palmer is 12 and end abruptly when she is 16, a few days before her death. In the series, an FBI agent then turns up in the little town of Twin Peaks, Washington, to investigate.

The book was written by Lynch’s daughter, Jennifer Lynch, who was then 22. It offers a graphic account of the life of a popular, beautiful and troubled schoolgirl, and was a New York Times bestseller.

The show, incidentally, was picked up again in 2017, for a third and reportedly final season.

Murder, She Wrote (1989-): Set in the world of the TV series

This is a strange case of a series of books, emerging from a TV series, that was based on a series of books.

From 1984 to 1996, CBS produced a TV series loosely based on the Miss Marple stories by the master mystery writer Agatha Christie (1890-1976).

In the CBS series, called Murder, She Wrote, the action shifted from Britain (and its colonies), to a small coastal town in Maine. The protagonist was named Jessica Fletcher, and in addition to being an amateur sleuth was also a mystery writer.

Portrayed by the award-winning Angela Lansbury, Fletcher found herself helping solve a number of murders in her small town.

About halfway through the series, the makers of the show began to commission tie-in novels that either elaborated on tales from the series or were inspired by it.

More than 60 such novels have been ghostwritten so far since 1989, all attributed to Fletcher. The latest, Murder, She Wrote: A Body in Boston by Terrie Farley Moran, is due next July.