But in general, if I put my hand on my heart, wouldn’t it be better for you to start writing yourself? I'm sure you will do much better, but only you will have your own story. and the author has his own.
By the way, remember the Chinese saying about a hundred flowers in a flowerbed - every flower is important, even if each flower is different from the others - let a hundred flowers bloom!
why not make it a kind of writing competition? let everyone make a fork of the original story but with their own development.