When it comes to upcoming book adaptations, we’re always curious to see how the source material compares, and how much the author gets involved (should they be still living). The latest of the 2025 movies based on a bestselling book is Regretting You, which was authored by viral author Colleen Hoover, but how much was she involved in the film’s production?
Hoover is listed as an executive producer on Regretting You. When I spoke to the movie’s director Josh Boone, he shared that her involvement in the production was “very minimal.” As he explained further:
I wanted nothing but for Colleen to love the movie, which she did, which was the biggest ‘Whew.’ But, she had had such a tumultuous time on that last one. I just wanted her to have a good experience and I didn’t want to inundate or bother her or vie for her affection. So I really thought about that a lot – giving her space and just going to make the movie. I didn’t really need anything from her. I had the book, you know? I’m sure she’s great, but I just wanted to kind of keep a distance from all that stuff.
Boone is of course referencing last year’s It Ends With Us, where Colleen Hoover was an executive producer. In the case of that film, she was reportedly much more involved in the creative process, and even had a cameo. However, since It Ends With Us led to a legal battle between producer/star Blake Lively and director/star Justin Baldoni, which remains ongoing with new developments, it’s understandable Hoover might have wanted to step away.
Hoover was part of the It Ends With Us press tour, which underwent a lot of scrutiny and has led to the author being in the middle of some of the drama. As Boone also told us about the making of Regretting You:
The producer that brought it to me is a guy named Brunson Green, who did The Help. And he’s like my favorite producer I’ve ever worked with. Like, he is awesome. The two [other] producers that he worked with on this movie, Flavia [Viotti] and Anna [Todd] knew Colleen. And so, they are in the book world. Anna wrote all those After books. So she’s known Colleen for many years through that. So it’s like I was able to keep a nice sort of removed from all that, and they did that.
It sounds like Regretting You had a lot of well-trusted producers behind it that allowed Hoover to sit back and trust the hands adapting her novel. It also helps that a fellow author named Anna Todd is on her side as an executive producer as well. In terms of Josh Boone, who also famously adapted The Fault In Our Stars back in 2014, he also shared with us what was exciting about adapting Hoover’s 2019 novel.
Every single movie I’ve made is a coming of age movie to some degree. From Stuck In Love, my first movie, which is very similar to this in that it deals with dual stories of parents and children and then kind of crosses between their love stories or whatever’s going on in their lives… I guess I’m interested in that moment where you realize as a teenager that your parent is a fallible human being who has an inner life you don’t know anything about, who has sacrificed things for you.
Boone continued to say he was interested in “the moment where the idealism of being a teenager bumps up against the reality of the adult world.” You can see his full comments in the video above, and check out our full Regretting You interviews on YouTube. We also talked to the cast about Dave Franco playing a 17-year-old and asked Mckenna Grace about a Tangled fancast we saw for her as Regretting You plays in theaters now.