6 Times Fans Got Put In Charge Of Everything

This task fell to British Star Wars nerds Lee Towersey and Oliver Steeples, members of the "R2 Builders Club," which is exactly what it sounds like. When the pair met Lucasfilm head Kathleen Kennedy at a German Star Wars convention, they jokingly suggested: "if you need droids for Episode VII ..." Either out of love for the fanbase or sheer laziness, a few weeks later, Lucasfilm hired them. Towersey and Steeples were tasked with creating a bunch of "accurate astromech droids," and built a new R2-D2 from scratch using fiberglass and aluminum. And despite J.J. Abrams' penchant for old-school techniques, they refrained from shoving a little person into a death trap of a costume.

But Detective Pikachu isn't the first disturbingly realistic incarnation of Pokemon characters. For six years, fan artist RJ Palmer has been creating amazingly detailed reimaginings of made-up animals used to sell video games, clothing, toys, and small pieces of cardboard to children.

Amazingly, Palmer's fan art got him a job working on Detective Pikachu. It turns out the film's production designer found his work on Google, presumably after searching the phrase "Is there someone else who can do my job for me?" Who knows, maybe Hollywood will start turning to fan artists more in the future. Perhaps the author of that anti-abortion Zootopia comic will one day be brought into the Disney fold.

Sonic fan Christian Whitehead created a new port of Sonic CD for the iPod Touch, and was eventually hired to bring other Sonic games to mobile. Perhaps most amazingly, Whitehead and other modders, such as Simon Thomley, were eventually put to work revitalizing the entire Sonic brand. The gang of fans created Sonic Mania, an old-school platformer for the new generation of consoles.

Sonic Mania became the "highest-rated new Sonic title in 15 years," and was way less existentially terrifying than that comic wherein Sonic inadvertently deleted his children from existence.

Hanshaw put the video up on YouTube, and it was eventually seen by Doctor Who producer Steven Moffat. Not only did he like the idea, he liked the whole damn thing. So for the premiere episode featuring the new incarnation of the Doctor played by Peter Capaldi, the show just used Hanshaw's opening from YouTube, though thankfully with no watermark.

This isn't the only time the show has hired a fan. Part of Doctor Who's special effects team, John Smith, landed the job after making Wholock -- which sounds like a thing to keep the Grinch from stealing all your shit, but was a fanfiction crossover between Doctor Who and Sherlock. Though since this was an elaborately produced video and not a DeviantArt doodle, at no point did Holmes and the Doctor start making out.

Schueller's idea didn't, however, involve any alien symbiotes, but instead had the Fantastic Four and Tony Stark going full Project Runway and designing Peter Parker a new outfit. Marvel was so taken with the black suit idea that they bought it for a cool, uh, $220. They also gave Schueller first stab at writing the script, but after two drafts, his ideas were rejected. A year later, Marvel's Secret Wars was released, and unbeknownst to Schueller, the kernel of his idea made it onto the page. Spider-Man had gone full Johnny Cash.

According to Schueller, he was both "thrilled and saddened" to see his idea realized without his help. Then, when the suit became Venom, he was "disturbed." Though he's probably now more disturbed that his $200 idea paved the way for an almost-billion-dollar movie.

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