I feel like being a casting director in 2026 might not be a very forgiving job. With the vast list of adaptations in the making, fans are either rioting over a casting choice or jumping for joy; there rarely seems to be an in-between.
That’s exactly the conversation last week when Netflix announced the leads for Lynn Painter's Better Than The Movies were cast. Within an hour of the news, fans took to social media to share their opinions. But it got me thinking: are we judging these adaptations too early?
We’ve all seen it before: A book blows up on #BookTok and the fancasts aren’t long behind it. For some people, it comes very easily, and they can imagine a person or an actor throughout their entire reading experience. Other readers (like myself) understand what a character would look like, but they’re not imagining a face, let alone a real person. Some readers don’t visualize anything, but this is more commonly reffered to as aphantasia.
Sometimes these fancasts circulate for years, and sometimes it’s less than that before the rights are acquired and casting is announced. Nonetheless, these fancasts (or ideas of what a character should look like) have taken root in many fans' minds. More often than not lately, when the official casting news is released, people are not happy.
I love that #BookTok has given readers a space to make connections and converse about decisions such as casting, but sometimes it goes too far. I think some people forget that actors—even A-list celebrities—are still real people. I draw a line where opinions get too personal or offensive towards the actors.
Because then the trailer drops and people begin to change their minds… but that doesn’t erase all the hate the actor originally received. Audiences see the actor in character for the first time, and the casting decision starts to make more sense to them. They notice little quirks in the character or specific scenes they loved from the original book. And then the show or movie drops and fans realize they were wrong all along and now there’s no one else who could adapt this character.
Now it’s also VERY possible that actors or the production team on an adaptation don’t adapt the book well… But giving them the benefit of a doubt is where I think we should start more often. While an adaptation is adapted from source material, it is still a new medium created by a new creative team, so they have every right to curate their own vision for it.
➡️ What casting choice did you doubt at first, but ended up loving after watching the adaptation? Let us know in the comments!
Rewind back to May 6, 2025, when the cast for Off Campus was announced. With The Deal releasing back in 2016, fans had almost a decade of love (and fancasts) for these books. With that said, the opinions came, and they came down hard. Between Tucker not having red hair, Allie missing her blonde hair combined with not feeling girlie enough, and Dean being a brunette, it felt like no one on my #BookTok feed was happy.
I felt for the actors. For some of them, this was about to be one of their biggest roles, and instead of seeing excitement online, they might have encountered negativity.
The first shift I noticed was when the official Off Campus Instagram account posted a video of the four boys in hockey jerseys. People finally began to see the vision, and the trailer confirmed everyone’s hopes and dreams when it released. Fans also realized two things: 1) Hair dye does exist and 2) Hair doesn’t always make up a character.
Stephen Kalyn, who plays Dean, appears to naturally be a brunette in his headshot in the article from Deadline. Dean Heyward-Di Laurentis is the love interest in book 3, The Score, and is a very prominent character in the entire Off Campus universe. The infamous “Call Dean” scene actually still lives rent-free in my brain. To replicate the Dean look, Stephen Kalyn dyed his hair for the show and recently shared at Obsessed Fest that they touched it up every three weeks.
"It takes like four and a half, five hours in the chair," he said, "and we do it every three weeks-ish, and we just touch it up here and there. “He also shared his routine and "needing" to hydrate and condition his hair to make it look as natural as it does on the show. — Teen Vogue
But hair dye aside, I think we can all agree that his Dean energy and chemistry with Mika Abdalla, who plays Allie Hayes, is pretty perfect (blonde hair or not). And speaking of Allie, Abdulla plays her character so well I can’t picture anyone else—let alone her with blonde hair. Which brings us to this week’s biggest conversation...
Written as a love letter to rom-coms, Better Than The Movies follows Wes and Liz—friends since they were kids—who are now scheming to fake date in order to make Liz’s crush interested in her.
The second I read this book back in 2021, I knew it would be headed to the screen, and it feels like I wasn’t the only one, because the fancasts started shortly after and haven’t stopped. Liz having red hair meant Sadie Sink was a very common fancast for her character. As for Wes, I didn’t see one name arise more than the others, but the consensus was a boy-next-door vibe. Jack Champion, Wyatt Aube, Charlie Bushnell and Joshua Bassett were among some of the favourites after a quick search on TikTok.
Last Friday, Beatrice Kitsos (Percy Jackson and the Olympians) and David Iacono (Jurassic World Rebirth and The Summer I Turned Pretty) were cast as the leads. While Kitsos was a new face to me, many people immediately recognized Iacono as Cameron from The Summer I Turned Pretty.
As someone who is chronically online these days, I was quick to notice how fans reacted to David Iacono's casting as Wes.
While some were obsessed with the casting, even pointing out that Iacono has actually been fancasted before, many don’t seem to be on board with it. The general consensus I found was that “Cam Cameron” from The Summer I Turned Pretty wasn’t their “Wes.” Fans of the teen romance series struggled to separate Cam Cameron from the actor. Additional criticisms expressed that he wouldn’t be charming enough or didn’t “look like my Wes.” But other fans who have recently seen him in Jurassic World: Rebirth share a different sentiment: they loved his sense of humour and personality in the film.
All in all, fans appear to be split.
Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, and I'm not trying to change that, but I think we are judging casting decisions way too early. In my eyes, a good adaptation has strong chemistry and delivers a vibe similar to the book. I’d rather have characters who feel like the book than characters who simply have the same physical characteristics. The reality is that 9 times out of 10, the headshot used in the Deadline and Variety articles isn't their best look, and it especially doesn’t show how they’ll look for the role. So I can understand why these articles draw some criticism from fans, but that doesn’t mean I agree with the hate.
There are many other factors at play beyond looks. Not only do I want good chemistry, but I also want strong performance and comedic timing. These are things not determined by looks, but by direction and writing. In other words, a good actor and not a good-looking actor.
Another thought I had recently was that reading is so subjective that casting is, too. Readers spend hours upon hours with these characters in their head, so everyone has created a different Wes in their head. No single actor can encompass everyone’s vision, so people are bound to be disappointed. That’s why chemistry and performance sit so much higher in my mind.
Some castings don’t work—we’ve all witnessed it—but I’d rather decide after watching the series or movie. But for the record: I see the vision for Better Than The Movies, and I’m here for it.
Beatrice Kitsos and David Iacono will play Liz and Wes, respectively
Julia Hart will direct and co-write the adaptation
The adaptation will release as a movie on Netflix
No release date has been set
…here’s what else is happening in the book world!
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EXCLUSIVE: Elle Kennedy on Building the World of Off Campus
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The BIGGEST Changes in the ‘Every Year After’ Adaptation: Breaking down the 5 biggest changes from book to screen (and whether they actually make sense).
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