Home - News ( United States | United Kingdom | Italy | Germany ) - Football scores

Showing content from https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/RecursiveAdaptation below:

Website Navigation

• Tropes
• Media
• Browse
• Popular
• Forums
• Videos

Recursive Adaptation - TV Tropes

This entry is trivia, which is cool and all, but not a trope. On a work, it goes on the Trivia tab.

This trope refers to when a work is adapted, and then the adaptation is adapted, and this leads to the work being adapted back into its original medium. Often occurs because the original version is so different from the adapted version that it's useless as a tie-in, leading the work to be adapted back. It can also be due to Adaptation Displacement, however. Other reasons are quite possible as well because this trope cares not for the motives of the recursive adapter, merely that the adaptation "stack" curves back on itself (for example, book ⟿ movie ⟿ TV show ⟿ book).

This is the result of making a novelization of a movie based on a book, or making a movie out of a Screen-to-Stage Adaptation, effectively remaking the original movie.

If the recursive adaptation is serial, like comic book ⟿ tv show ⟿ comic book, and the writers are given sufficient creative freedom, it's not unusual for the tie-in to ditch the middle adaptation and run its own storylines, possibly introducing characters from the original that were Adapted Out, or even brand new characters. This can lead to the series standing out on its own and potentially building its own following of loyal readers rather than just being a tie-in. This famously happened with Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Adventures, to the point that characters introduced there have been brought into other incarnations of the franchise over the years.

See also Recursive Import, Recursive Fanfiction, Ret-Canon, Recursive Inspiration, Third-Option Adaptation, and Canon Immigrant.

    open/close all folders 

    Anime & Manga 

• Battle Angel Alita: Last Order, manga → game → manga.
• Cardfight!! Vanguard gives us this on an individual card level with "Majesty Lord Blaster":
  • The original 2011 adaptation of the manga features a card that did not feature anywhere in the manga called "Majesty Lord Blaster" which despite only being relevant for one episode gained instant icon status for its relation to Aichi's character development and its at-the-time unique effect which makes use of cards from clans other than its own which to this day has only been seen on one other card.
  • Then years later the climax of the manga gave us "Messianic Lord Blaster", which is meant to emulate "Majesty Lord Blaster", having a similar design and the same initials of "MLB".
  • A couple of months after the manga's conclusion, a 2018 reboot that aimed to serve as a more faithful adaptation began airing. So naturally, it had its own take on "Messianic Lord Blaster".
  • The final season of the 2018 reboot, which began long after it ran out of manga chapters to animate, features "Majesty Lord Blaster" as a central plot device.
• Mobile Suit Gundam: Char's Counterattack: Novel (High-Streamer) → Movie → Novel (Beltorchika's Children). Both novels were written by series creator Yoshiyuki Tomino, and none of these are straight adaptations, with Beltorchika's Children particularly being based on an earlier concept for Char's Counterattack that Sunrise ended up vetoing.
• Dragon Ball Z had a double recursive adaptation: the fourth Dragon Ball Z RPG for the Family Computer was titled Dragon Ball Z Gaiden, which featured a new storyline written specifically for the game. A two-part video guide for the game was then released that was essentially a Dragon Ball Z OVA with footage of the Famicom game spliced in between. The animated segments of the video guide were then reused for two FMV games released for Bandai's short-lived Macintosh-based Pippin game console in Japan.
  • Dragon Ball Jump Festa special, Yo! Son Goku and His Friends Return!!, was adapted into a one-shot manga by Ooishi Naho. Dragon Ball Z: Resurrection 'F' also received a three-chapter manga adaptation by Toyotarō which began serialization before the movie's release.
  • Dragon Ball Z: Bardock - The Father of Goku featured an original storyline that wasn't in the original manga. Years later Naho Ooishi wrote a manga miniseries called Dragon Ball: Episode of Bardock set after the events of the TV special which got adapted into a TV special. That makes it an OVA adapted from a manga which is a sequel to an anime TV special that was spun off from a manga. Also, just to make it more confusing, Bardock as a character received Canon Immigrant status in a flashback in Toriyama's original manga.
  • And then of course there's the "animanga", which is a manga that uses screenshots of the TV series, which itself is based on the manga. Its main upside was that it was in colour while the original manga was black and white, but then it became "redundantly redundant" with the release of Dragon Ball Colour, which coloured in the original manga panels at a much higher quality.
• Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex is an anime inspired by the original Ghost in the Shell that establishes its own continuity. This anime series received a manga adaptation, which makes it a manga based on an anime inspired by manga.
• Lupin III is a multi-media franchise that began as a serial manga. After making its way to Anime, some of the stories have become full-colour manga volumes.
  • Comic Souris has made full-colour manga from: The Castle of Cagliostro (a three-book set) and Lupin III: Part 1 (Volumes 2 through 12). The best example of recursion is when a Green Jacket episode was aired based on a manga chapter and turned into a manga volume.
  • Action Comics made a four-volume set from The Castle of Cagliostro.
• Negima! Magister Negi Magi (manga) → Negima!? (anime) → Negima!? Neo (manga).
• One Piece had a video game adaptation that had an original story, and the story of the game later got adapted into the Ocean's Dream Filler arc in the anime.
• Trigun is a strange beast; it began as a manga, which ended prematurely due to publication issues but shortly after was adapted as an anime with a definite conclusion to the story; later the original manga was republished under a different magazine, and continued on while borrowing story elements from its own adaptation.
• Yu-Gi-Oh! was originally a manga which was adapted into an anime. The anime received a spinoff, Yu-Gi-Oh! GX, which was adapted back into a manga, though this is not a full example of this trope as the manga is almost completely different from the anime, sharing only characters, setting, and the card game. The same goes for subsequent spinoffs too, the first of which also has a decent amount of changes from the anime, starting with the rules of the game (certain cards are not required and monsters are summoned differently).
• Attack on Titan:
  • The Novelization of Levi's backstory, A Choice with No Regrets being adapted into a Manga, then being adapted into a two-part OVA.
  • The music composer for the anime was heavily inspired by the Dutch Symphonic Metal band Epica. In 2017 Epica covered several Attack on Titan songs on an EP.
• Mobile Suit Gundam (anime) → Mobile Suit Gundam: The Origin (manga) → Mobile Suit Gundam: The Origin (anime adaptation of new manga material as a Prequel series)
• Puella Magi Madoka Magica (anime) → Magia Record (video game spinoff) → anime adaptation of the latter.
• The Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha Reflection/Detonation duology are movie adaptations of the Gears of Destiny video game, which in turn was a Spin-Off of the Lyrical Nanoha anime franchise, which in turn was a More Popular Spin-Off of a visual novel.
• Several volumes of the new Doraemon Film Series since 2005 have recursive manga adaptations. It starts with Doraemon's Long Tales, which started as an adventure-focused spin-off manga where Doraemon and his companions embark on thrilling quests with high risks and menacing villains. Each year, a new volume was adapted into an animated film. After the passing of Fujiko F. Fujio in 1996, the series continued, with his team carrying on until volume 24, which was released in 2004. The films didn’t stop but instead took a new path: movies were produced first, and manga versions followed. This included remakes. For instance, the 1984 film, based on volume 5, was remade in 2007 and subsequently received its own manga adaptation. These adaptations align with the remake's storyline and feature new characters introduced in the films, officially cementing them as part of the canon.

    Asian Animation 

• The animated show BoBoiBoy Galaxy's comic book adaptation, BoBoiBoy Galaxy Season 2, got turned into an animated TV show in its own right in 2023.
• Pleasant Goat and Big Big Wolf: It began as an animated series, and it was later adapted into a comic series in a tie-in magazine, which then got adapted back into an animated series called Man Jing Tou.

    Comic Books 

• Various non-comic DC Comics properties have received their own continuing comic book series:
  • The DC Animated Universe is a famous example, with The Batman Adventures, The Superman Adventures, Justice League Adventures, Justice League Unlimited, and Batman Beyond.
  • Super Friends had its own comic book tie-in.
  • DC Super Friends goes an extra step. Comic → Toys → Cartoon → Comic. And it's adorable and fun.
  • DC once had a comic based around a Bruce Timm-inspired animated world called Adventures in the DC Universe, with its own version of the Justice League. This was before Justice League Unlimited but seemingly taking place in the world of Batman: The Animated Series and Superman: The Animated Series. So it was a comic series based on a cartoon that would later have its own cartoon equivalent.
  • Young Justice was a popular Lighter and Softer comic, which was adapted thematically into the Teen Titans (2003) cartoon, which got a comic book version called Teen Titans Go! (2003) drawn by the former artist of the YJ comic. There was later a Young Justice (2010) cartoon based on the Darker and Edgier TT comic, which in turn received its own tie-in comics. To complete the loop, the TT cartoon was spun off into the Teen Titans Go! cartoon, which is a comedic series unrelated to the comic by that name: the full loop is comic → cartoon → comic → two cartoons → comic.
  • Superman was adapted into Smallville, which had a continuation comic for a comic → series → comic loop.
  • Supergirl was adapted into a movie which was adapted into a comic. Similarly, her show was also adapted into a limited comic series.
  • The Super Powers toy line from the 80s and the Total Justice toy line from the 90s had comic book mini-series as tie-ins.
  • DC Comics used to have a title called Human Target, about Master of Disguise Christopher Chance who would disguise himself as people whose lives were in danger in order to draw out their attacker. This later got an In Name Only TV adaptation, where Chance isn't a Master of Disguise, he's just an undercover bodyguard. DC Comics have released a new Human Target comic based on this.
  • DC has launched Ame-Comi Girls, a comic based on a popular line of Animesque figurines of comic characters, which would make it a comic based on merchandise based on comics. Later, DC launched DC Comics Bombshells and Gotham City Garage, both of which were also alternate-continuity series based on statue lines, which had been respectively themed around "1940s pin-up art" and "post-apocalypse bikers".
  • DC Universe Online: Legends is a comic based on a game based on DC Comics.
  • 2013's Batman '66 comic is an adaptation of the 1966 Adam West Batman series, which of course was itself an adaptation of the Batman comics that had been printed up to that time.
  • The comic Infinite Crisis: Fight for the Multiverse is based on the video game Infinite Crisis (2015), which is based on the comic book Infinite Crisis and similar Crisis Crossovers.
  • The comics Injustice: Gods Among Us and Injustice 2 are based on the games Injustice: Gods Among Us and Injustice 2, based on DC Comics.
  • The Flash (1990) received tie-in comics, which ended up having a major influence on The Flash (2014).
  • Similarly, Batman: Arkham Unhinged is a comic book set in the universe of the Batman: Arkham Series of video games, which was inspired by comics focused on Arkham like Arkham Asylum: A Serious House on Serious Earth and Arkham Asylum: Living Hell. Several other comics based on the Arkham game continuity have been released since then.
  • Wonder Woman and the Star Riders is a promotional comic set in the same universe as the TV show and toy line which is very different than Wonder Woman's usual continuity. In a twist, the TV show and toy line were canceled before they came out leaving the comic adaptation the only thing that was completed and released to the public outside of advertisements.
  • Superman Smashes the Klan is a comic adaptation of the most famous story arc in The Adventures of Superman, the 1940s radio adaptation of the comic character.
  • Steppenwolf's unique design from Zack Snyder's Justice League (which doesn't look anything like the original New Gods version and borrows the "horns" and battleaxe to the New 52) would be incorporated into the comics seven months after the film's release.
• Dark Horse had Adventures of the Mask, adapting the animated series based on the film based on the comic.
• Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles went comic book → animated series → Archie comic book. Eventually occurred with the second cartoon as well, although the resulting comic book ended up having a much shorter shelf-life than its predecessor. Then there was a comic based on the 2012 cartoon, courtesy of IDW.
  • There's also comic book → the first movie → comic book adaptation written and drawn by the original creators, resulting in the slightly weird case of the Turtles looking just like they do in the Mirage stories, but behaving like their movie counterparts (ordering pizza, for example).
• In a slightly different case, the plot of the Ultimate Spider-Man (2005) game was adapted back into the comic as the "War of the Symbiotes" Story Arc.
• The DuckTales comic book series is a comic book based on a cartoon based on a comic book based on a cartoon.
  • The new reboot series is continuing the tradition by having a comic book series based on it.
  • In addition, the theatrical cartoon movie DuckTales the Movie: Treasure of the Lost Lamp is based on the television cartoon based on the comic book based on the original theatrical cartoon shorts. And of course this movie also got adapted into a comic.
• The Hellboy comics were adapted into the Hellboy Animated direct-to-DVD films, which were then adapted into a Hellboy Animated comic series.
• The Middleman started off as a TV pitch that ended up being a series for Viper Comics which became a TV show on ABC Family which returned to comic form for the show's unaired 13th and final episode.
• The Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes has a comic book adaptation. The animated version incorporated elements from the Marvel Universe, Ultimate Marvel, and the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Naturally, it went by the name Marvel Universe - The Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes
• The Ultimate Spider-Man animated series also has a comic adaptation called Marvel Universe-Ultimate Spider-Man. That's a comic retold as another comic, adapted into Western Animation, and adapted back into a comic. The cartoon also incorporates unique elements of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, which itself is an adaptation of both the Marvel Universe and Ultimate Marvel.
  • Incidentally, Ultimate Spider-Man had an original character, a new White Tiger, become a Canon Immigrant to the Marvel Universe before the series even premiered.
• The films in the Marvel Cinematic Universe usually have comic book tie-ins that either outright adapt the events of the movies, or explain what went on in-between each installment. For example, there's a comic set in-between The Avengers and Iron Man 3 that explains where War Machine was during the Chitauri invasion of New York.
• Daredevil: Following the release of the Netflix show, the comics depictions of Matt and Foggy were reworked to resemble Charlie Cox and Elden Henson. In addition, the show renamed Wilson Fisk's wife from Vanessa Fisk to Vanessa Marianna, which the comics began doing in 2017. Mitchell Ellison from the New York Bulletin has also been adapted into the comics, but he has only been mentioned and not yet seen.
• Likewise, there were a few one-shot comic prequels published for X-Men and X2: X-Men United. A lot of them were pushed into Canon Discontinuity by the later films in the franchise.
• IDW have announced they're publishing a comic based on Generator Rex, which was based on the short-lived Image Comics title M. Rex.
• Dredd had a prequel comic printed in the Judge Dredd Megazine which told Ma-Ma's origin story. There's also an Alternate Continuity series carrying on from the film's continuity.
• Spidey Super Stories was a Lighter and Softer Spider-Man series adapted from the skits of the same name that appeared in the PBS show The Electric Company (1971) (which of course had picked them up from the original franchise).
• Marvel's S.H.I.E.L.D. comic is an adaptation of the ABC series Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., which was written to be set in the Marvel Cinematic Universe of films based on the original Marvel comics. The show's main cast of Canon Foreigners (barring Grant Ward, who turned out to be The Mole in the show, and Skye, who turned out to be the MCU version of Daisy Johnson a.k.a. Quake) are Canon Immigrants.
• Contest of Champions (2015) is an adaptation of the Marvel Contest of Champions video game, which was named after and loosely inspired by the Contest of Champions (1982) comic from 1982. The series adapts the events of the game into the official Marvel continuity.
• Big Hero 6, the Disney movie loosely based on a Marvel comic book series, later got its own comic series by IDW Publishing, as well as a prequel manga.
• Smurfs: The Village Behind The Wall is a five-story comic book album based on the movie Smurfs: The Lost Village, which in turn is based on the original comic book franchise The Smurfs.
• Duckman was an animated series adapted from a one-shot comic published by Dark Horse Comics and got its own Comic-Book Adaptation published by Topps Comics, consisting of five issues as well as a three-issue miniseries titled The Mob Frog Saga.
• Ultraman Tiga had a comic series by Dark Horse, which appeared to take some elements from the 4Kids English dub. The most notable example is the Color Timer being referred to as the "Biotic Sensor" and the setting being in the year 2049 as opposed to 2007; however, many elements were retained from the original version, such as the extra statues in the Pyramid of Light being Tiga's lost companions rather than fakes and much of the rest of the terminology (Ultraman's "types" as opposed to "modes", for instance). This is a case of Tropes Are Not Bad, though, as much of the universe was expanded on in a way neither version did, such as Kyreloid/Kilalien having a more extensive backstory.
• WildC.A.T.s Adventures was a comic tie in to Wild C.A.T.s (1994), which itself was an adapted from WildC.A.T.s (WildStorm).
• As pointed out in this post in a Fantastic Four respect thread , Shogun Warriors was a Marvel comic based on a line of Japanese toys, which were themselves based on various tokusatsu series, including the Japanese Spider-Man series, which was, obviously, based on Marvel's Spider-Man comics.
• The Asterix comics got adapted into movies multiple times. The third animated movie, The Twelve Tasks of Asterix, features an original story not based on any album. The movie got later adapted into a comic book, Asterix Conquers Rome.
• Les Légendaires had a short-lived Lighter and Softer animated series that was later adapted into comics titled Les Légendaires: Missions

    Films — Live-Action 

• The Producers: movie about a musical (1968) → Broadway musical (2001) → movie of the musical (2005).
• Hairspray: movie (1988) → Broadway musical (2002) → movie musical (2007) → tie-in novel
• The Little Shop of Horrors: movie (1960) → off-Broadway musical (1982) → musical movie (1986) → animated series (1991).
• Ninotchka (1939) became the Broadway musical Silk Stockings, which was in turn filmed in 1957.
• Federico Fellini's 1957 film Nights of Cabiria was adapted into the Broadway musical Sweet Charity, which was filmed in 1969.
• Fellini's 8½ became the Broadway musical Nine (Musical), a film adaptation released in 2009.
• Reefer Madness: The Movie Musical
• Metropolis is a borderline example. It started out as a movie, then Osamu Tezuka made a manga that was inspired by a single still from that movie of a female robot being born, and then someone made a feature film out of that — which actually resembled the original film more than the manga did, as it heavily emphasized the elements of the manga that were already coincidentally similar to the film.
• Madagascar produced the Alternate Continuity TV spinoff The Penguins of Madagascar, which stars the Ensemble Dark Horse penguins from the film. And in 2014, the Penguins got their own film in canon with the original movies.
• The LEGO Movie: Construction toys → movie → construction toys.
• Elf: movie (2003) → stage musical (2010) → animated TV special (2014).
• The four additional songs from the film version of Grease, "Grease", "Sandy", "Hopelessly Devoted to You" and "You're The One that I Want", were later incorporated into revival productions of the stage musical.
• Warner Bros., being determined to promote Batman (1989) through every medium possible, unsurprisingly produced a Comic-Book Adaptation.
• The James Bond story Thunderball began life as an unproduced screenplay. It was then adapted by Ian Fleming into the novel Thunderball (leading to a highly publicized court case with the co-writers of the original script), which was then adapted as the 1965 film Thunderball, which was, in turn, remade in 1983 as Never Say Never Again.
• Fanny: Started out as a couple of stage plays, which were adapted into movies, which were adapted into a 1954 stage musical, which was adapted into the 1961 film Fanny.
• Tommy Wiseau's The Room (2003) received a "making of" story in the form of actor Greg Sestero's book The Disaster Artist. James Franco went on to make a Film of the Book in 2017.
• In a What Could Have Been example, filmmaker Peter Berg was once involved in plans to develop a feature film sequel to his TV show Friday Night Lights, which was itself a spinoff of a film that he directed of the same name.
• City Hunter: The Cupid's Perfume is a partial example, being a mix of both the original manga and the (notoriously bowdlerised) French dub of the anime.
• Mean Girls was adapted as a Broadway musical in 2018. The musical would eventually receive its own film adaptation in 2024.
• Spirit Untamed is a feature film based on the TV show Spirit: Riding Free, which in turn is based on another feature film, Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron.
• Teen Wolf: The Movie is the Big Damn Movie of the tv show Teen Wolf itself (very loosely) based on the 1985 comedy Teen Wolf.

    Literature 

• The Beast Player: Erin adapts the original novel into an anime series. Jun'ichi Fujisaki, the chief writer of Erin, wrote "And Kiriku", a short story about the Canon Foreigner Kiriku. It's available in the first fanbook.
• Paul Féval's Le Bossu was adapted into On Guard, which got a novelization by Philippe Morgaut.
• Both the films Bram Stoker's Dracula and Mary Shelley's Frankenstein had new novelizations written, despite being based on classic novels themselves. And having included the original author's name in the title of the movie, as if to give an air of authenticity. Fred Saberhagen wrote the novelization of Bram Stoker's Dracula; Saberhagen reportedly offered his services on the Frankenstein novel as well, solely for the purpose of being able to put "Mary Shelley's Frankenstein: From the author of Bram Stoker's Dracula" on the cover. Ah, What Could Have Been...
• The Thing (1982) also had a novelization... making it a novel based on a film based on a short story (ignoring the previous film version of the short story which had little to do with the original).
• Hollywood producers offered Philip K. Dick the chance to write the novelization of Blade Runner, itself a loose Film of the Book (the screenwriters had not read the original book) of his Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? They would have paid him a lot of money to do this, but feeling insulted he refused. This led to the release of tie-in editions of Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? re-titled and looking for all the world like Blade Runner novelizations. Later, his short story "We Can Remember It for You Wholesale" inspired the movie Total Recall (1990). Having gone through Development Hell and many screenwriters, the script was essentially an original script with even less in common with its source material than Blade Runner. By the time of the film's release, Piers Anthony had written a novelization of Total Recall. The novelization came out in 1989. The movie came out in 1990.
• Black Beauty, originally a novel, had a movie made out of it. And then the movie was novelized into a children's book with pictures from the movie in the middle.
• Several movies based on children's books wind up getting adapted into children's books again. Examples include The Tale of Despereaux.
• Anthony Trollope's six-volume Palliser series (long) was adapted into a twenty-six episode miniseries (also long) only to be novelized again in a single volume (very, very short).
• Fritz Leiber adapted Tarzan and the City of Gold starring Mike Henry into a prose Tarzan novel. He took pains to footnote past Tarzan adventures by Edgar Rice Burroughs to make this a canonical continuation of the Tarzan continuity of Burroughs.
• Star Trek: The Animated Series: The episode "The Slaver Weapon" was adapted by Larry Niven from his own original (unrelated to Star Trek) short story "The Soft Weapon". The episode itself was then subsequently novelised by Alan Dean Foster as a Star Trek novel. This means that there are two print versions of the exact same story, both of which are similar but also startlingly different from each other.
• Many The Saint comic strip arcs and TV episodes received prose adaptations by Leslie Charteris and other writers. These adaptations fit into the Saint's literary continuity. Examples include The Saint in Trouble (has a footnote to the events of The Last Hero) and Salvage for the Saint.
• Will Murray wrote some Remo Williams comic books, at least one of which he adapted into a prose novel.
• Max Allan Collins wrote a Bones novel. This counts as a recursive adaptation as the Bones TV series adapts Kathy Reichs' concepts from her novels.
• Carl Dreadstone adaptations of the Universal Horror universe, many of whom started in prose.
• 1977 novelization of The Island of Dr. Moreau (1977), itself an adaptation of a novel.
• The novelization of Tim Burton's Planet of the Apes remake was a novelization of a remake of a film adapted from an English translation of a French novel.
• Joy Hakim's A History of US middle-school textbook series was adapted into a PBS documentary series Freedom: A History of US, which was released concurrently with a history book (not quite written for middle-schoolers, but for all casual readers) adaptation of the documentaries, sharing the revamped title with the documentaries. So Textbook → Documentary → history book.
• The run-up to the Jackson The Lord of the Rings adaptation inspired this memorable parody.
• Both Arthur and Franklin began their lives as popular book series, and have since been made into television series. In turn, episodes of those series have been released as books, though they've generally avoided releasing episodes as books that were adapted from books in the first place.
• The Magic School Bus TV series was based on a book series by the same name, and original episodes of the TV series were then adapted into books. They were by far the least educational of the versions, being essentially novelizations.
• How to Train Your Dragon: The Chapter Book is based on the first How to Train Your Dragon movie, which was adapted from the How to Train Your Dragon books.
• The Goosebumps series by R.L. Stine was adapted into a TV show, which then was adapted back into books based on the episodes (though, these books were written by someone else).
• James Bond:
  • The Spy Who Loved Me has an interesting history as a book → movie → book. It was the tenth James Bond novel by Ian Fleming. Fleming only licensed the title to EON, due to him being unhappy with the novel and with Bond only appearing in the final third of it. An entirely new plot was created for the 1977 film The Spy Who Loved Me. Since the book and the film had so little in common, a novelization was commissioned; the first for James Bond. The film’s screenwriter, Christopher Wood, adapted his screenplay into the novelization, titled James Bond, The Spy Who Loved Me to differentiate it from the original novel.
  • Done again with Moonraker, the third Bond novel by Ian Fleming. The 1979 Moonraker film only incorporated the villain (Hugo Drax) and the idea of a rocket from the novel. While it wasn't nearly as deviant from its source novel as The Spy Who Loved Me, it was still far enough removed to have another novelization commissioned, again by screenwriter Christopher Wood. As before, the novelization was titled James Bond and Moonraker to distinguish it from the Fleming novel.
  • A strange case happened with the novelisation of Licence to Kill. John Gardner, who was writing the continuation novels at the time, wrote the novelisation to fit into his ongoing novel continuity. However, the film used a lot of set pieces from the original books that had been cut from previous adaptations. This led to strangeness like Felix Leiter getting his false leg bitten off by a shark. The same leg he'd lost years earlier in the novel Live and Let Die... when it was bitten off by a shark.
• Night at the Museum (2006), based on a children's picture book, was adapted into a young adult novel.
• Mary Roberts Rinehart adapted her detective novel The Circular Staircase in collaboration with Avery Hopwood into the play The Bat, whose runaway success led to a novelization.
• The Fox and the Hound, a novel by Daniel P. Mannix, and obviously literature to begin with, was very very loosely adapted into a Disney movie which was then further adapted into another series of books.
• Where the Wild Things Are started as a picture book, then was adapted into a much longer and more detailed movie, and the movie has its novelized version, titled Wild Things.
• Conan the Barbarian, both the 1982 and 2011 versions, received novelizations. (Admittedly, this an unusual entry, since the films did not especially specifically adapt the tales from the 1950s reprint volume Conan the Barbarian.) Robert Jordan also wrote a novelization of Conan the Destroyer, but no anthology or novel had used that title.
• Significant changes were made to A Princess of Mars to get the movie John Carter, but at least the novelization included the original novel as an added feature in the back of the book!
• Who Framed Roger Rabbit was based off the book Who Censored Roger Rabbit?. The film then led to the book ... Who Framed Roger Rabbit. Not a straight example because only the characters were used but rather close.
• Jurassic Park (1993) was based fairly directly on Michael Crichton's novel, though differed in several major respects — including just which characters survive or not. Crichton's subsequent book The Lost World (1995) was written more as a sequel to the movie, rather than the novel, given the sudden Unexplained Recovery experience necessary for one major protagonist to appear after his apparent fate in the original novel. This new book was itself swiftly followed by a movie of (partly) the same name, although adapted more loosely still. A second sequel movie was then produced titled Jurassic Park III, combining some characters from the first book/film with the setting of the second and at least one major inspiration (the pterosaur 'cage') from the original novel. By the time we got to the third movie, we were 4 steps away from the original book in general, though.
  • As a straighter example, the film adaptation of Jurassic Park was given the junior novelization treatment. So, the book of the film of the book. The same is true of Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs, Jumanji and Zathura.
• Pretty much any fairy tale that Disney adapted was later released by them as either a picture book, a movie novelization, a manga, or all of the above, including Beauty and the Beast (1991), Sleeping Beauty (1959) and Cinderella (1950), to name just a few.
• Robert Sheckley novelized Condorman, loosely based on his novel The Game of X.
  • He also novelized The 10th Victim which was based on his short story, The Seventh Victim and wrote two sequels, Victim Prime and Hunter/Victim.
• Some Ellery Queen film adaptations received novelizations.
• The dramatic novel by Peter George Red Alert was adapted to the Kubrick film Dr. Strangelove with many satirical elements. George would go on to make a novel of the film.
• Jane And The Dragon was a series of children's books that got an animated series, which in turn had a few episodes get the Novelization treatment.
• David Morell wrote First Blood, which was adapted into the Rambo series of films. Morell then penned novelizations of the first two sequels, which have more in common with the films than the original book since Rambo dies at the end of the original story.
• Return to Oz, loosely based on The Marvelous Land of Oz and Ozma of Oz, received a novelization.
• Julie Burchill's novel Sugar Rush was adapted into a popular TV show that ran for two series. Burchill was inspired by the performance of the two leads to writing a follow-up novel, Sweet, that incorporated aspects of both the original novel and the TV show but wasn't canonical to either, essentially creating a third version of the story.
• If you guessed this has happened to any of the Live Action Adaptations to Dr. Seuss's books, give yourself some Green Eggs and Ham!
• Doctor Who Expanded Universe prose sub canons: Doctor Who and the Krikkitmen: Began as an unfilmed script for the series, later dolled-up into the third Hitchhiker's novel, and finally adapted into a Doctor Who novel based on the original script, with a few subtle Shout Outs to the Hitchhiker's novel.
• David Pinner's novel, The Ritual was adapted into The Wicker Man to which director Robin Hardy and scriptwriter Anthony Schafer wrote a novelization. Hardy wrote a sequel called Cowboys For Christ which he adapted into a movie called The Wicker Tree.
• Bone Chillers was turned into a television series, made mostly of original stories. One of them, Romeo and Ghoulette, was later turned into a book for the series.
• The Boss Baby was an In Name Only adaptation, or fairly heavy Adaptation Expansion of a fairly simple picture book. A novelization of it was released, described humorously on the cover as being "Based on the movie inspired by Marla Frazee's award-winning picture book, The Boss Baby."
• The Cat in the Hat: book → movie → book
• Goosebumps → movie → tie-in novel.
• Chitty Chitty Bang Bang is based on a book by Ian Fleming but due to differences from the original book, the movie was novelized by John Burke.
• The third Diamond Brothers book, South by South East, is extremely complicated in this regard. It wasn't actually a book to start with, but a TV series that served as a sequel to the film adaptation of the first book. However, Anthony Horowitz then novelised the series, and the novelisation actually came out before the TV series was screened, leaving people to presume that the series was an adaptation of the book. This was not helped by the fact that the TV series was never repeated or released on home media, and a few years later Horowitz rewrote the novelisation to bring it in line with the continuity of the first two books; this revised version is by far the better-known version, further fuelling the belief that the book came first.
• Umi Ha Sono Nazotoki Wo Nozomu Noka?, a novel by Hinata Haruhana, was adapted into the pair of Vocaloid songs Nazotoki and Nazokake, which in turn were made into a novel, also called Nazokake. Noteworthy that all of these adaptations were also done by Hinata Haruhana.
• There were several books based on the Thomas & Friends TV series, but the series itself is an adaptation of The Railway Series novels. However, several of these books were written by Rev. W. Awdry himself.
• Scarface: book → 1932 film → 1983 film remake → book
• The PBS Kids cartoon Seven Little Monsters was adapted from a children's book by Maurice Sendak and received several book adaptations of its own that were published by Hyperion imprint Volo and had the monsters drawn to resemble how the cartoon depicted them.
• Mona the Vampire was an animated series loosely based on a children's book series and happened to have several tie-in books adapted from episodes of the show, the specific episodes adapted being "Attack of the Living Scarecrow" (retitled "The Living Scarecrow"), "The Robot Babysitter", "Jurassic Parking Lot", "The Men in Darksuits", "The Vampire Hunter", "The Book of the Slimy", "Miss Gotto's Haunted House" and "Garage Sale Genie" (retitled "The Jumble Sale Genie"). In addition, the original picture book and the four chapter books that were released before the cartoon began production (The Big Brown Bap Monster, The Hairy Hands, The Tinned Poltergeist and The Jackpot Disaster) had reissued editions with cover art depicting how the characters appeared in the cartoon.
• The Clifford the Big Red Dog book series got a live-action movie in 2021. That film got a novelization, Clifford the Big Red Dog: The Movie Graphic Novel.

    Live-Action TV 

• The History Channel Mini Series of The Bible (2013) released a novelization called The Story of God and All of Us.
• The Brady Bunch inspired two television movies, The Brady Girls Get Married and A Very Brady Christmas, which each had a spin-off series (The Brady Brides and The Bradys, respectively).
• After Doctor Who was revived on TV, there have been a few cases of Expanded Universe stories being remade as television episodes.
  • Full-scale adaptations are "Human Nature"/"The Family of Blood" (a Tenth Doctor TV story based on the Seventh Doctor novel Human Nature), "Blink" (a Tenth Doctor TV story based on the prose Ninth Doctor annual short story "What I Did on my Summer Holidays, by Sally Sparrow"), "The Lodger" (an Eleventh Doctor TV story based on a Tenth Doctor Doctor Who Magazine comic story of the same title), and "The Star Beast" (a Fourteenth Doctor TV episode based on a Fourth Doctor Doctor Who Magazine comic of the same title).
  • Looser adaptations are "Dalek" (a Ninth Doctor TV story loosely based on the Sixth Doctor Big Finish Doctor Who drama Jubilee, earlier drafts of which were reportedly much more heavily based on the audio), "The Shakespeare Code" (a Tenth Doctor TV story loosely based on the Ninth Doctor Doctor Who Magazine comic strip story "A Groatsworth of Wit"), and "The Haunting of Villa Diodati"/"Ascension of the Cybermen"/"The Timeless Children" (a Thirteenth Doctor TV story that takes major plot elements from the Doctor Who (Titan) multi-Doctor story "Supremacy of the Cybermen").
    • "Dalek" later received a novelisation which had an audiobook release, bringing Jubilee back to audio again!
  • The Third Doctor was partially based on James Bond, who was allegedly partially based on Jon Pertwee.^note It Makes Sense in Context, after old audiotapes of a 1994 interview with Pertwee were unearthed that revealed that during his wartime service he was part of a top-secret Allied spy organization headed by Ian Fleming, who had created Bond. Although according to Pertwee's reminiscences (he only felt comfortable coming forward in '94 due to concerns about violating the Official Secrets Act), he'd have been much more likely to have been a model for Q, as Pertwee was Fleming's "gadget guy" and briefed spies on such equipment as hidden pistols in pipes and playing cards that had hidden maps.
• Monk received a series of non-canon tie-in novels set throughout the series. Two of the plots from these novels (Mr. Monk Goes to the Firehouse and Mr. Monk and the Blue Flu) were later loosely adapted into episodes of the main television series ("Mr. Monk Can't See a Thing" and "Mr. Monk and the Badge", respectively), albeit with some differences (the most significant being the main plot point of "Can't See a Thing").
• Muffin the Mule puppet show had a book based upon it. Some of the shorts from the book were remade into cartoons in the Soviet Union.
• Red Dwarf's novel "Infinity Welcomes Careful Drivers" had some plots used for episodes of the TV show, notably in "White Hole". The book also explains a lot of what happened before most of the crew were killed, and some of it was adapted into Series 8. The book is often inconsistent with the show's plot, but this was done deliberately (it is inconsistent in the show too). The other books, "Better Than Life", "Backwards" and "Last Human" had some features put into the show too, but none as much as the first book.
• The Big Bad of Tokumei Sentai Go-Busters is clearly inspired by Power Rangers RPM's, the Western version of one of its predecessor series Engine Sentai Go-onger. Go-Busters' own adaptation then decided to make it a Stealth Sequel to RPM. They even went so far as to adapt its Big Bad as the same one from the latter show he was inspired from in the original.
• Television (The Twilight Zone (1959)) → theme park ride (The Twilight Zone Tower of Terror) → television (Made-for-TV Movie Tower of Terror).

    Music 

• Ludwig van Beethoven's Violin Sonata No.9 in A major, known as the Kreutzer sonata after its dedicatee,^note  Even though he never played the sonata (calling it "outrageously unintelligible"), only met Beethoven once, and didn't care for his music. inspired the novella The Kreutzer Sonata by Leo Tolstoy about an adulterous affair between a violinist and pianist who perform the Beethoven work. Tolstoy's novella was then adapted back into music as Leoš Janáček’s String Quartet No.1, also called Kreutzer Sonata, which paraphrases a theme from the first movement of the original Kreutzer sonata in its third movement.
• "Lambada (Chorando se foi)" by Kaoma is a Portuguese-language cover of Spanish-language "Llorando se fue" by Andean band Los Kjarkas, in a more upbeat variant and referencing the lambada dance as a metaphor in an additional verse. That said, that cover became so more popular than the original that a time later a Spanish cover directly based on "Lambada" would exist recorded by Dominican singer Sergio Vargas, with slightly different lyrics that sound closer to "Lambada" than the original Bolivian song. The single/album package of this version even titles it simply as "Lambada" just as Kaoma's.
• Any time a song, album, musical artist, or musical genre inspires a movie, musical, etc. a soundtrack album is inevitably produced. For example:
  • The music of The Beatles inspired the film Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band (1978), which of course had a soundtrack album.
  • The Who album Tommy was adapted as a musical in the 1990s, and produced an album of the original cast recording.
  • American Idiot spawned a Broadway Musical in 2009, which in turn spawned an album of the original cast recording. It even won a Grammy for Best Musical Show Album.
• Frank Zappa's 200 Motels, originally conceived as a classical music piece (and performed in fragments at various Zappa shows over a span of two years), then made into a film in 1971, which was also going to be performed in concert at the Royal Albert Hall around the time of the film's release, until the orchestra and organizers balked at the bawdy lyrics. Eventually, a newly-adapted version, 200 Motels: The Suites, with elements of the film and of Zappa's 300-page original score, was performed by the LA Philharmonic and the BBC Concert Orchestra in 2013.
• MF DOOM's "Rap Snitch Knishes" was mixed with I'm here to see Paco. into the meme im here to see doom, which in turn inspired "I'm here to see...", an arrangement of the former with vocal clips from the latter. In short: Song → Meme → Meme → Song.
• Russian artist Radio Tapok made his name covering various Western Heavy Metal songs in Russian, including Sabaton. He later wrote the original song "Битва за Москву" ("Battle for Moscow") as an homage to Sabaton's music. Sabaton translated it into English and covered it under the title "Defence of Moscow".
• The songs that John Carpenter composed for his films are frequently cited as influential in the Synthwave genre, so much so that in 2015 John Carpenter started a second career as a standalone musician.

    Radio 

• Adrian Mole started out in 1982 as a BBC radio play called The Diary of Nigel Mole. The Adrian Mole books were then adapted for Radio 4, with the same voice actor, Nicholas Barnes. In 1985 Sue Townsend wrote some original Adrian Mole material for Radio 4's summer holiday programming (again with Barnes), which later became "Adrian Mole at The BBC" in her True Confessions of Adrian Albert Mole book. So radio → book → radio → radio → book. Further books have come out at random intervals every few years since, featuring Adrian's diaries from the age of 13¾ to over 40.
• Season one (and elements of season two) of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (1978) were adapted into the first two novels. The four subsequent novels were later adapted for radio.
• The game of Mornington Crescent on I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue inspired two books detailing the history of the game: The Little Book of Mornington Crescent and Stovold's Mornington Crescent Almanac. The later radio Mockumentary In Search of Mornington Crescent is essentially an Audio Adaptation of these books.
• Red Dwarf was based on the Dave Hollins: Space Cadet sketches from Son of Cliché. The audiobook versions of the first two Tie In Novels were adapted for radio.
• To the Manor Born started as an unaired radio pilot before they thought it would work better as a TV show. It was re-adapted into a radio series in 1997.

    Tabletop Games 

• The role-playing game phenomenon inspired the Niven & Barnes novel Dream Park and its sequels. R. Talsorian Games then adapted the novel into an actual tabletop RPG.
• The Civilization series was inspired by the Avalon Hill board game of the same name, expanding it from just the Bronze Age to the entirety of human history. The video games have since been recursively adapted thrice as board games.
• Magic: The Gathering sells a few of the decks used in its Duels of the Planeswalkers video game as pre-made decks. Of course, there's nothing but money preventing the dedicated player from making the decks himself.
• Words With Friends: The Boardgame. Zynga copies the concept of Scrabble to make a video game, then licenses it back to Hasbro, the company they copied it from.
• Dungeons & Dragons: tabletop game → animated series → "Dungeons & Dragons Animated Series Handbook", a third-edition supplement that started out several characters and races exclusive to the cartoon.
• Has happened more than once with the Star Wars roleplaying games.
  • When writing The Thrawn Trilogy, Timothy Zahn was given a box of Star Wars d6 sourcebooks to pull material from. West End Games subsequently released a series of sourcebooks based on the trilogy.
  • Star Wars d20 strongly influenced the Knights of the Old Republic video game series, which inspired a comic book, both of which spawned a Campaign Guide for the tabletop game a few years later.
• Scrabble: Board Game → game show → board game.
  • Trivial Pursuit followed a similar path.
• Europa Universalis. Board games to series of computer games to board games.
• R. Talsorian Games has announced an RPG based on Cyberpunk: Edgerunners, based on Cyberpunk 2077, based on Cyberpunk
• Pathfinder: The Second Edition remastered version of the Kingmaker Adventure Path expands on the original by adding three new chapters, two of which originated from the video game adaptation of the AP before being adapted to tabletop form. The Kingmaker Companion Guide additionally provides rules to incorporate NPC companions, who originated as the PC's companions in the video game, into your tabletop game. Paizo also released the Kingmaker Bestiary containing First Edition statblocks for the same companions.
• Monopoly Go!: Board Game → Mobile Phone Game → board game. It also includes an exclusive token which can be used in the mobile game version of Monopoly Go!.

    Theatre 

• The musical My Fair Lady was based on the 1938 film adaptation of Pygmalion as much as on George Bernard Shaw's original play. It was made into a film in 1964.
• The 1939 Broadway play The Philadelphia Story was adapted to a film of the same name in 1940. In 1956, the movie was remade as a musical film called High Society. In 1997, High Society was adapted into a Broadway musical.
• In 1952, French playwright Marcelle Maurette wrote the play Anastasia, based on the claims of Romanov imposter Anna Anderson. Four years later, it was adapted into the film Anastasia, starring Ingrid Bergman and Yul Brynner. In 1997, the 1956 film was loosely remade by Don Bluth as the Disneyfied animated musical Anastasia. The 1997 animated film inspired, in turn, a 2016 Broadway musical.
• The Rocky Horror Show, a 1973 stage musical was adapted into the movie, The Rocky Horror Picture Show in 1975 which got a sequel called Shock Treatment in 1981, which was adapted into a play in 2015.
• Grease was a 1971 stage musical, turned into a movie in 1978, which got a sequel, Grease 2 in 1982, which was adapted into the play, Cool Rider in 2014.
• The Producers was supposed to have been a Broadway play originally, but Mel Brooks was turned down by the theatre companies he took it to. So he adapted his play into a feature film, which he was then able to turn into a Broadway musical four decades later (which in turn became a movie).
• Strictly Ballroom began life as a play produced by Baz Luhrmann while at drama school. After a successful run in Sydney, the play was adapted into a movie. In 2014 a new stage version, this time a full musical, debuted in Sydney.

    Theme Parks 

    Video Games 

• Street Fighter II inspired a Live-Action Adaptation simply titled Street Fighter, which in turn inspired two fighting games based on it, both titled Street Fighter: The Movie. The arcade version was made by Incredible Technologies and featured a unique gameplay system that combined conventional Street Fighter II play mechanics with Mortal Kombat-style tap commands. The console version, often mistaken to be a port of the arcade version, was developed in-house by Capcom and plays more like a standard Street Fighter game (specifically like a slower Super SF II Turbo).
  • Street Fighter II: The Animated Movie also had its own game version, albeit one that came out only in Japan. Instead of being a traditional fighting game, it was a raising simulator where you control the newest model of Shadaloo's Monitor Cyborgs and develop his fighting abilities by traveling around the globe to observe the World Warriors fight each other (which basically meant moving a cursor over FMV footage from the movie itself, mixed with new footage created specifically for the game). There is a Super Turbo-style fight sequence in the end, but the Cyborg's moves are the same ones that Ken has in Super Turbo (including his Shoryu Reppa).
• Pokémon:
  • Video game → collectible card game → video game. And the promotional cards that came with the game and its strategy guide are based on those from the video game, adding another layer.
    • Also worth noting that several aspects of the TCG directly affected later generations of the main series, prime examples including moves like Destiny Bond and Rain Dance (respectively a move and a Pokémon Power from the original TCG set that became moves in Gold & Silver), and "Pokemon Powers" from the early card game being the basis for abilities beginning in Gen 3.
  • Also, Pokémon Yellow is video game → anime → video game. This eventually went double-recursive when Ash and Gary finally battled each other in the anime: Ash uses Pikachu while Gary uses an Eevee, which are the Pokémon their game counterparts start with in Yellow. Pokémon Let's Go, Pikachu! and Let's Go, Eevee! are based loosely on Yellow, and add elements of the spinoff game Pokémon GO to the mix.
  • The Surfing Pikachu card is a reference to the anime via Pokémon Yellow, and is included in the video game version of the TCG. Surfing Pikachu has also been available in games other than Yellow via events. That's video game → anime → video game → trading card game → video game.
  • Pokémon Puzzle League, aside from being a dolled up version of Panel de Pon, is a pretty massive recursive adaptation in its own right, given that the Puzzle Master is Mewtwo from the first film. So the adaptation goes: game —> anime —> movie —> game.
• Advanced Variable Geo was loosely adapted into a 3-part OVA by KSS in 1996. Part of which was used for the beginning of Advanced V.G. II's (released in '98) story mode. Specifically, by reusing the exact same footage of Yuka's match with Jun to explain how Tamao first saw Yuka in action.
• Double Dragon V: The Shadow Falls by Tradewest was a tie-in to the 1993 Double Dragon (1993) animated series, which in turn was a show loosely based on the earlier Double Dragon games. Instead of being a side-scrolling beat-'em-up like the earlier games, Double Dragon V was a one-on-one fighting game (clearly inspired by Street Fighter II) featuring characters lifted from the show, including the Lee brothers themselves (who went from unarmed combatants to swordsmen), although the game also deviated slightly from the show too (Billy and Jimmy never wore masks like their counterparts on the show).
  • Technos, developers of the original Double Dragon games, would later make their own fighting game version of the series for the Neo-Geo, simply titled Double Dragon, as a tie-in to the live-action Double Dragon (1994) movie. While the attract demo uses footage from the movie, the game itself uses traditional hand-drawn sprites instead of digitized actors and barely half of the roster are actually characters featured in the movie (Billy, Jimmy, Marian, Abobo, and Koga Shuko). Still, there are some visual references to the movie, such as Billy and Jimmy having transformed forms, or Abobo swelling into a mutant when performing some of his super moves.
• Hoo boy, Super Robot Wars. Initially a series of games centered around anime crossovers which eventually got a sub-series of games based on its Original Generation. Said subseries got its own Animated Adaptation and an OVA sequel. And then the first two OG games got a remake that changed plot elements to accommodate scenes from the anime, and a bonus segment based on the OVA. And after that, a Gaiden Game was released that continued the plot of the bonus segment and threw in elements from what was essentially a radio play. Together with all the Canon Immigrants getting tossed around between series and mediums, Super Robot Wars has more loops than your average roller coaster ride.
• Sonic the Hedgehog:
  • Dr. Robotnik's Mean Bean Machine, which was a creative localization of Puyo Puyo based off the Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog animated series, which was based on the Sonic the Hedgehog games.
  • Sonic Spinball is a video game loosely based on Sonic the Hedgehog (Archie Comics) and Sonic the Hedgehog (SatAM) (which were both based on the original games, and shared quite a few elements due to the former having started as a tie-in with the latter), which eventually got its own comic adaptation within the former's continuity.
  • There was going to be a straight example of this—that is, a Sonic game based on the SatAM cartoon, which in turn was based on the video games—but it was canceled.
  • Sonic Chronicles: The Dark Brotherhood was heavily inspired by the Archie Comics' comic line, which in turn took some ideas from the game. It also contains a subtle reference to the anime series Sonic X, which is a very different adaption of the games.
  • Sonic Boom is a reimagining of the Sonic universe as an animated CGI cartoon series with the companion video games Sonic Boom: Rise of Lyric and Sonic Boom: Shattered Crystal acting as a prologue to the story of the former.
  • An obscure Sonic X Edutainment Game exists for the Leapster console that mainly houses those kinds of games aimed at younger children. It contained various minigames, math problems mixed with light platforming, and flash animated cutscenes.
  • The Shadow Generations DLC stage "Tokyo" is based on the third ''Sonic'' movie, itself adapted from the game series.
• F-Zero: GP Legend: A video game based on the anime of the same name, based upon the F-Zero franchise of video games. As a sequel to the GP Legend game, this also applies for F-Zero Climax.
• Pac-Man → the Saturday morning cartoon Pac-Man → Pac-Land, a sidescrolling platformer based on the cartoon.
  • In Japan, however, it became a (slightly) Dolled-Up Installment. It was still Pac-Land, but with changes made to certain sprites, including Pac-Man himself, where he looks more like Namco's official artwork.
  • Pac-Man game franchise → Pac-Man and the Ghostly Adventures cartoon → Pac-Man and the Ghostly Adventures Licensed Game
• Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha, the Triangle Heart 3: Sweet Songs Forever added mini-scenario (game) → Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha series (anime) → Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha A's Portable - The Battle of the Aces (game)
• Metal Gear Solid: Digital Graphic Novel is a video game adaptation of the Metal Gear Solid graphic novel illustrated by Ashley Wood, which in turn was an adaptation of the first Metal Gear Solid. The game basically consists of reading through the comic with added visual and sound effects while trying to build a database based on elements that appear in each of the images.
• The 2006 installment of Midway's Spy Hunter series, SpyHunter: Nowhere to Run, was actually based on the movie that was based on the game series. Except that the Spy Hunter movie upon which the game was based never ended up being released. Apparently they got tired of waiting and decided to just release the game with no context.
• Bomberman → Bomberman Jetters → Bomberman Jetters video game.
• Touhou Project series (video game) → Strange and Bright Nature Deity (manga spinoff) → Fairy Wars (video game continuation of a story from the SaBND manga)
• City of Heroes goes Comic Book > MMORPG > Comic Book.
• Not across mediums, but across companies: Konami's Guitar Freaks → Harmonix's Guitar Hero → Konami's Rock Revolution.
  • Another Rhythm Game non-pure example; Pac Man and other old arcade games → Pac-Man Fever by Buckner and Garcia → Pac Man Fever on Rock Band, including a song about Donkey Kong available on Xbox 360 and PS3.
• Roadside Picnic (novel) → Stalker (short story^note expanded into a script, by the same people plus Tarkovsky) → Stalker (1979) (Tarkovsky movie) → S.T.A.L.K.E.R. (video game) → numerous novelizations → movie based on one of them.
• Tak and the Power of Juju started out as its own game series, became a cartoon, them Tak from the cartoon appeared in Nicktoons Unite! and got two games based loosely off the cartoon.
  • It goes deeper than that. The games were meant to launch with the cartoon, but the cartoon ended up getting stuck in Development Hell while the games went on to become a trilogy. So, there are games based on a cartoon, which are based on a series of games, which were meant to tie in with a cartoon.
• Autobahn Raser: racing game (1998) → In Name Only movie adaptation (2004) → racing game based on the movie (2004).
• The additional cars and tracks from the home versions of San Francisco Rush 2049 were incorporated into the Updated Re-release /Special Edition of the arcade version, as well as two of the BGM's from the Dreamcast version to go with the new tracks. The tracks also had new shortcuts added.
• The Star Wars films lead to the space simulator X-Wing, which lead to the X-Wing Series starring Wedge Antilles and his Rogue Squadron, which lead to the Rogue Squadron series of games.
• Adventure Island → Bug-tte Honey (anime) → Takahashi Meijin no Bug-tte Honey (video game)
• The King of Fighters → The King of Fighters Kyo (manga) → The King of Fighters Kyo (video game)
• Where in the World Is Carmen Sandiego? → Where on Earth Is Carmen Sandiego? (cartoon) → Carmen Sandiego: Junior Detective Edition (PC game)
• Final Fantasy VII (original game) → Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children (animated movie sequel) → Final Fantasy VII: Ever Crisis (mobile game remake)
• Arcus (early RPG series by Wolf Team) → gag Yonkoma in Micom BASIC Magazine → Arcushu (adventure game)
• After making his debut in the crossover MOBA game Heroes of the Storm, Lucio from Overwatch gained new features in his native game based on his appearance in HOTS: namely, a visual indicator for the range of his auras and increased movement speed while wall-riding.
• Parodied with I Wanna Be the Guy: The Movie: The Game.
  • It also is the source of an extremely unusual example. The creator of I Wanna Be The Guy was inspired to create the game when he played an unfinished Japanese flash game entitled The Life-Ending Adventure. The creator of The Life-Ending Adventure must have noticed because they finished the game by adding a I Wanna Be The Guy section.
• Mega Man Battle Network: GBA games → anime → WonderSwan games
• Virtua Fighter → The Anime of the Game → Virtua Fighter Animation for the Game Gear.
• Metro 2033 is based on the novel of the same name, and the game's sequel Metro: Last Light got its own sequel by the original author called Metro 2035.
• Raving Rabbids → Rabbids Invasion cartoon → Rabbids Invasion: The Interactive TV Show
• Ratchet & Clank (2002) → Ratchet & Clank film → Ratchet & Clank (2016) video game. This a complex example because while some levels like Veldin, Quartu, and the Deplanetizer are this trope, many others like Novalis, Batalia, and Kalebo III are Video Game Remakes placed in the context of the movie's plot. Its tagline is even "The game, based on the movie, based on the game".
  • In-universe, there was also a holo-film based on the adventure as seen in the real-life film, which spawned a holo-game based on that film (the PS4 game is the adventure being told by Captain Qwark).
• An unusual one is Hearthstone, which follows the unusual path of WarCraft (The original PC RTS) -> World of Warcraft (The MMO) -> the World of Warcraft CCG -> Hearthstone (video game)
• Mighty Bomb Jack, the NES adaptation of the arcade game Bomb Jack was backported to arcades as Vs. Mighty Bomb Jack. Similarly, the NES version of Gradius had the recursive arcade port Vs. Gradius.
• Zanac(MSX)->Zanac(NES)->Zanac EX(MSX)
• Steins;Gate → The Anime of the Game → Steins;Gate Elite. What makes this interesting is that Elite is an Updated Re-release of both the game and the anime; it contains a visual novel-adapted version of the anime's version of the game in its entirety, all 24 episodes, but also adds new routes on top of that.
• Shadowverse: Game -> Shadowverse anime -> Shadowverse: Champion's Battle for the Nintendo Switch.
• Rampage the arcade game -> Rampage, the film adaptation of the arcade game -> Rampage, the arcade game based off the film, based off the arcade game.
• Kung Fu Panda is considered by some to be a very loose adaptation of a video game with many similar concepts called T'ai Fu: Wrath of the Tiger, which DreamWorks also worked on. Kung Fu Panda itself went on to spawn a few video games of its own, with a few based on the first two movies and some of its spinoffs.
• Story of Seasons: Friends of Mineral Town is a 3D remake of Harvest Moon: Friends of Mineral Town, which is a sprite-based remake of the Playstation game Harvest Moon: Back to Nature.
• The Legend of Zelda CD-i Games are infamous for being extremely far removed from anything resembling the main Zelda games. This is because it's inspired more by the cartoon based on the games.
• As with Dark Horse's Ultraman Tiga example (see Comic Books folder), One Piece for Game Boy Advance is based on the 4Kids dub of the anime. Drawing more comparisons to Ultraman Tiga, it seems the developers are familiar with the original source material; however, many elements from the 4Kids dub remain, such as the names (Chaser, Zolo, etc.) as well as Sanji receiving lollipops.
• The release of BattleTech, a spin-off of the tabletop game series of the same name, was followed by a sourcebook covering the region where the game takes place in greater detail. This makes it one of a very few Battletech videogame adaptations to be fully canon, albeit in Broad Strokes.
• Crimzon Clover started life as a Windows release. It would then get ported to arcade hardware as Crimzon Clover for NESiCAxLive. This version would then get an Updated Re-release as Crimzon Clover World Ignition, bringing the game back to Windows. Then this game would be ported with extra content to Nintendo Switch as Crimzon Clover World EXplosion. Finally, this version was ported back to Windows under the same title.^note In other words: It's a Windows port of a Switch port of a Windows port of an arcade adaptation of a PC game.
• Armored Hunter Gunhound was first released as a Japanese doujin game. It was later picked up and co-developed by G.rev Ltd. for remake on the PSP as Armored Hunter Gunhound EX. The PSP remake would finally find its way back onto PC under the same name via an upgrade tool for owners of the original game and as a standalone game through PLAYISM and Steam... up until the developers got suspended.
• Minecraft is receiving a movie adaptation, A Minecraft Movie, which in turn received official in-game addons and events in Bedrock Edition. In particular, the Minecraft Movie LIVE, which was a multiplayer event meant to promote the release of the movie, had the movie's visuals and actors turned back into pixel art.

    Web Original 

    Web Animation 

• The Season 3 Bravest Warriors episode "Fast Times at Saturn Oaks" is adapted from the 14th issue of the Boom Studios comic book tie-in, the story itself reworked from a scrapped episode idea.

    Western Animation 

• A strange example in regards to The Amazing World of Gumball: The show got a Shoddy Knockoff Product entitled Miracle Star that ripped off scenes from the show wholesale. The show, in turn, then made Captain Ersatz versions of those characters in the episode "The Copycats". There's even an in-universe video where the parody character reenacts a specific scene of Gumball that was ripped off by Miracle Star.
• The 2014 Angry Little Asian Girl animated series adapted the Angry Little Girls webcomic based on the 1994 Angry Little Asian Girl short cartoons.
• The Animals of Farthing Wood, which was adapted from Colin Dann's book series of the same name, received abridged story book adaptations of the show's episodes from the first-two seasons by Reed Children's Books under their Buzz Books subtitle.
• Batman: The Animated Series had two episodes in its retool season The New Batman Adventures that were adapted from its comic book tie-in The Batman Adventures.
  • The Christmas Episode "Holiday Knights", which was adapted from a Holiday Special one-shot. Aside from a few changes in character dialogue (both to make the language more appropriate for television and for reasons less clear), one of the most notable changes made in adapting the comic book into an episode of the animated series was the omission of Mr. Freeze's story, as it had discrepancies with the changes made to his story as of the film Batman & Mr. Freeze: SubZero and his New Batman Adventures episode "Cold Comfort".
  • "Mad Love", Harley Quinn's Origins Episode adapted from a one-shot of the same name, which changed little aside from leaving out the implications that Harleen Quinzel got her degree by sleeping with her professor.
• Disney Fairies: The animated short Tink'n About Animals was released on Disney Channel in January 2015 (and later as a Blu-Ray bonus feature) to tie in to the lore of the Tinker Bell and the Legend of the Neverbeast film, and was about Fawn singing about what the terms for herds of various animals were called. It then got storybooks based on it in March 2015, and then the storybook got a narrated storytelling as part of The Book of Once Upon a Time^note No relation to Once Upon a Time with a 16:9 aspect ratio on Disney Channel Australia some months after that again.
• The Cartoon Hangover animated short Dead End would later spawn the comic DeadEndia. Dead End: Paranormal Park would finally come full circle and return the story to the medium of animation.
• The Dexter's Laboratory episode "Momdark" was adapted from a story featured in the fifth issue of the tie-in comic book by DC Comics.
• The Magic Key was adapted from the Magic Key subseries of Biff, Chip and Kipper, and ended up receiving novelizations (well, early reader book-ifications) of all of its episodes.
• The Powerpuff Girls (1998) tie-in comic story "Remote Controlled" (which was originally written as an episode of the show, but was repurposed as a comic story out of concern that Family Communications would sue them over the plot spoofing Mister Rogers' Neighborhood) was loosely adapted into the episode "Neighbor Hood".
• The Spooktacular New Adventures of Casper was a cartoon based on the film Casper, which in turn was based on the cartoon Casper the Friendly Ghost.
• Teacher's Pet (2000) had a four-page comic story titled "Food for Thought" that was featured in the October 2000 issue of Disney Adventures and was subsequently adapted into the cartoon's antepenultimate episode "The Nose Knows".
• Thomas & Friends garnered its own promotional magazine series, with some of its original stories actually adapted into episodes of the show itself in Seasons Three and Five. Incidentally, the magazine's writer at the time eventually ended up lead writer for the show come to Season Seventeen.
• Super Why! bases most of its' episodes on popular fairy tales and folk tales. The show would later get book adaptations of the versions of the stories presented in the show, including Hansel and Gretel, Goldilocks and the Three Bears, The Little Red Hen and 'Twas the Night Before Christmas.

    Other 

• Toy lines are prone to this, with Merchandise-Driven adaptions resulting in more toys.
  • Transformers started out as toys, went to an animated series, which then introduced new toys, some of which were used for new Transformers series, or for The Movie, which got its own line of toys.
  • Another Hasbro franchise to which something similar happened is My Little Pony. It started out as a line of plastic toy ponies with accessories, and in order to boost sales, an animated series was produced. Three generations later, since My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic was launched, the toys are more and more based on the animated series which in turn is based partly on the first generation toys (or how Lauren Faust characterized them), part on the third generation (In Name Only, though).
  • Even LEGO has gotten in on this, with toys based on movies based on the toys. Unikitty! merch goes further, with toys based on an In Name Only Spin-Off of a movie based on toys.
  • The Trolls franchise, originally based on the Troll Dolls toyline, had a lot of toy merchandise from many brands, as well as tabletop games, paper-related products, and a lot of other kinds of merchandise and promotions.
• Japanese pro soccer player Hidetoshi Nakata cites the Captain Tsubasa manga and anime as his inspiration for pursuing a career in soccer. He got a cameo in Inazuma Eleven 2 via a secret character based on and named after him. Said character became an Ascended Extra in the third game and consequently also appeared in the corresponding arc of the anime adaptation. In short, anime → real life → game → anime.
• "Baby's Tears" started out as a Konami original song in DanceDanceRevolution SuperNOVA. It got drastically remixed (different instrumentals, different lyrics, slower tempo; about the only thing that stayed the same was the melody) into an Anime Theme Song as the opening theme for the Sky Girls OVA. The anime version subsequently appeared alongside the original in DDR SuperNOVA 2, listed as "Baby's Tears (Sky Girls Opening Theme)".
• Rice Krispie Treats Cereal: cereal → dessert → cereal.
• A weird one occurred after Homestuck cosplay at various convention: A bystander appeared on a photo and quickly went memetic with fanart, cosplay, and fanart of the cosplay.
• Taco Bell's Doritos Locos Tacos were adapted into Doritos Locos Tacos flavored chips. It's a mix of either nacho cheese or cool ranch and "taco flavor" chips. The world quietly weeps but also gets ready to go grocery shopping.
• Radicalfaith360 is a YouTube user known for his re-enactments of YouTube Poop. Since becoming popular, his re-enactments have become sources for poops on their own — often by the very same users who made the poops he was re-enacting in the first place.
• The Heckler & Koch G3 rifle: Unproduced Nazi German gun (StG-45) → Spanish gun based on its plans (CETME Modelo B) → licensed German copy. Likewise, for the M20 Super Bazooka: Original American rocket launcher (M1 and M9 "Bazooka") → upscaled German copy (Raketenpazerbüsche 43 and 54 "Panzerschreck") → upgraded, further-upscaled original American rocket launcher based on the Panzerschreck.
  • Modern versions of the AR-10 came about like this as well: original 7.62mm rifle → scaled-down 5.56mm version with some other changes (AR-15) → 5.56mm version scaled back up to 7.62mm.
• Girl Genius Radio Theatre strips: Webcomic → live performances and podcasts → webcomic.
• Combining this with Hey, It's That Sound! — Williams Electronics' Defender reused sound effects from several of Williams' early solid-state Pinball games. When the game became a smash hit, Williams released Defender, a solid-state Pinball Spin-Off that used the video game's sound effects.
• Parodied in Irregular Webcomic!, where Will is hired to write a novelization of the Peter Jackson Lord of the Rings movies.
• Vocaloid: A mascot character meant to be modeled after a Nendoroid collectible figure of Hatsune Miku, created in order to promote the rhythm game Hatsune Miku: Project Mirai (which had an art style based on the Nendoroids of Miku and her fellow Crypton Vocaloids), became memetic for its strange look and awkward movements, gaining the nickname Mikudayo. This became her official name, and she got made into a figure of her own and started to make cameos in the same rhythm games she'd been created to promote. She was adapted from music software → figure◊ → video game → mascot◊ → figure◊ → video game.
• Through an elaborate set of videos, The Fine Brothers gave us Kids React to Poppy Reacts to Kids React to Poppy. As Poppy is more or less performance art that invokes Uncanny Valley Girl, it actually turned out to be a pretty good practical joke.
• British supermarket Morrisons once sold its own-brand Cola Cube flavour soft drink. In other words, a soft drink, based on a sweet, based on a soft drink, which tasted nothing like their actual own-brand cola. Wrap your brain around that one.
• Anyone with knowledge of cuisine would understand that American Chinese food is far removed from "true" Chinese food, which is why it was a notable risk for an American Chinese restaurant to open in Shanghai. In spite of its challenges — mainly its reliance on international exports and incompatibilities with local tastes — it was an overall success, with the owners planning on opening additional restaurants in Shanghai.
• TNA somehow managed to pull of the improbable-sounding Professional Wrestling → Video Game → Professional Wrestling adaptation. In 2008 they released an (awful) video game based on their product, the story mode of which culminated with the player character adopting the persona of a masked wrestler named Suicide. This character somehow ended up making its way onto TNA television, portrayed by various performers.
• The name Sean is the Irish equivalent of the English name John, which was then Anglicized into the names Shawn and Shaun.

RetroSearch is an open source project built by @garambo | Open a GitHub Issue

Search and Browse the WWW like it's 1997 | Search results from DuckDuckGo

HTML: 3.2 | Encoding: UTF-8 | Version: 0.7.4