Great Books Turned into Great Movies

True. Comic books are great screenwriter resources as well. Some do well, such as the first Spider-man and some do poorly, as the awful Catwoman!

I think these productions are often doomed to unfair criticism as well. They are either blamed for being unoriginal and lacking a separate non-literary voice or they are lambasted for not following a well loved story closely enough / with proper attention to details. Since when has the general movie watching audience craved creativity over formulaic drivel? It is very different for movie adaptations of the past because expectations were less concrete (given that movies were newer and viewed with more wonder) and because people continue to amplify their pretension & criticism of quality as time goes on. Every one is an 'expert' and don't we just love to see things go bad so we can leap on them with sharp words? I am talking about myself here, I am always spouting off about how something should have been done better. I recognize that films have a hard row to hoe in these challenging times. That being said, I also would like to note that a feature length film can NEVER come close to the kind of detail inclusion and audience intimacy of a novel. The middle ground is almost entirely visual and fleeting, while a novel is the property of imagination and enduring. No wonder it is so common to have a feeling of emptiness after the adapted experiences. Great list, Genessa and great thought-provoking all.

I agree with Sean's take. Something that is already a great story with a great following (ex. The Da Vinci Code) is easy pickings to make a successful film usually. When Hollywood is investing all those bucks and want results they will always go with a known quantity over the unknown. Many of the Classics of Science Fiction and Horror have done well (War of the Worlds, The Invisible Man) and it was a no-brainer to make the Harry Potter movies.

Great discussions, everyone! I do enjoy book to film adaptations, but I enjoy even more when Hollywood "wows" me with an original script. Personally, I agree with Christopher. I get more enjoyment from reading the novels than watching the adaptations. There have been a few adaptations that have surprised me, but most of the time I feel like they are let downs.

Oh, I so agree with you Kit. I'm certain I'm in the camp that flinches when I hear that a book that I've read is going to be turned into a movie because I'm concerned that they won't stay true to the original story. That certainly happened when I heard that Jumper by Steven Gould and The Dark is Rising(aka The Seeker: The Dark is Rising) by Susan Cooper were going to be made into movies. I'd read the former about two years prior to it's release and the latter about fifteen years before it's release. As a result, I haven't seen either of the movies. But I did see Dave Barry's Big Trouble after I found out that it had been made into a movie and I was fairly impressed. And I saw Pay it Forward a couple of years after its release because I thought it was foolish that I was avoiding it because they'd changed the racial background of one of the main characters (which btw plays HUGE role in the book), and I was pleasantly surprised. Maybe we ARE to harsh on these productions and we should take them more at face value.

Wow, didn't expect such a reaction on the way back.  But in truth, I've never been a big fan of comparing mediums.  When it comes to film adaptations of books, I don't think people ever take into consideration just how different the mediums are.  As I said before, many classic movies were adapted from books that, for the most part, people didn't know WERE books, which made it easier to adapt it and mold it for the film medium.  Nowadays people are too concerned with accuracy that they can't see the limitations that film has... that books actually don't.  The reason no one cared whether "Die Hard" was like the book was because no one actually read the book to begin with.

Nowadays Hollywood is adapting books you've actually heard of, and that makes people pay more attention to how accurate the movie is.  Not realizing that sometimes certain changes must be made for the sake of the film medium... and that you can't avoid cuts.  No matter what.  My favorite example for now is Youth in Revolt.  The book is over 500 pages in length.  It's over 200,000 words!  The movie was only given a length of 90 minutes.  You CAN'T fit that much of the novel into that time frame.  It's impossible.  So the reaction from audiences who read the book to complain there wasn't enough.  In order for Youth in Revolt to have actually been able to include so much... you'd have to settle for a six hour long movie.  Can YOU find an audience that'll sit in a dark, uncomfortable theater seat for six hours?  You can also really go into a characters thoughts, feelings and emotions in a book.  You can't exactly do that in a film.  You have to rely on facial expressions and a bit more exposition.  So sometimes even when the film doesn't get it all right... I sympathize and try to think about it from a film makers point of few.  When a movie adaptation of a book is bad... it would probably still be bad if you hadn't read the book, for example.