# Book made into a movie - why bother?



## tim290280 (Jan 11, 2011)

Hi Everyone.

We have a number of threads here discussing the merits or your favourite or least favourite book to big screen adaptations. However, last night I was re-watching a movie having just finished the novel it was based upon. Half-way into the movie I was thinking "why did they bother"?

I think that a lot of film adaptations tend to be, at best, nothing more than a passing reference to the book. Yet movie producers and companies spend a lot of money obtaining the rights to make these films, and the inherent legal problems that lay therein. Given that it would be cheaper just to pay a writer to do a screenplay without the tie-ins, why do they bother with this way of film making?

I know that there is seen to be an inbuilt audience for the movie as a result, but unless that is a Harry Potter or Dan Brown book the audience isn't exactly worth it. A classic example of all of this are the Bourne films. They bear absolutely no resemblance to the source material, the audience was largely unaware of the source material, and it would not have been hard to come up with the movie without the source material.

What do others think?


----------



## R. M. Reed (Nov 11, 2009)

I've been told by people in the know that the industry considers any material that was successful in another form to be better than something new. That goes for all the remakes. As long as the property made money once it is a better gamble than something original.


----------



## tim290280 (Jan 11, 2011)

Yes I've heard that too. The film producer on this panel mentions it:


> Fit to be seen: adaptation for film - Panelists: Ross Grayson Bell, Bret Easton Ellis and Hannie Rayson
> http://mpegmedia.abc.net.au/local/northcoast/201008/r615274_4093920.mp3


I can see that if you are producing a film you want to know that the money is well spent, essentially another vetting stage. But this also ties back to my original argument and one of Bret's points in the panel discussion, they don't really use the books at all. So the vetting of work that is good enough essentially becomes a moot point.


----------



## Iwritelotsofbooks (Nov 17, 2010)

People in Hollywood hate taking risks.  Plus, the average movie costs about 100 milllion to produce and market.  Books, comics, old tv shows, old movies all have base audiences.  It's a lot easier to keep your job taking books and making them into movies.  It's basically just to cover the Hollywood's butt.  

Fact is, books to movies have been around since the beginning of Hollywood and will continue to happen--for better or worse.  A lot of the time it helps the book because it introduces the material to a wider audience.  And it's always good for the authors, because they get paid again for the rights of their work.


----------



## tim290280 (Jan 11, 2011)

lacymarankevinmichael said:


> People in Hollywood hate taking risks. Plus, the average movie costs about 100 milllion to produce and market. Books, comics, old tv shows, old movies all have base audiences. It's a lot easier to keep your job taking books and making them into movies. It's basically just to cover the Hollywood's butt.
> 
> Fact is, books to movies have been around since the beginning of Hollywood and will continue to happen--for better or worse. A lot of the time it helps the book because it introduces the material to a wider audience. And it's always good for the authors, because they get paid again for the rights of their work.


Yes, I understand that. But isn't it flawed logic? $100 million is a lot of money to recoup, and most bestsellers don't sell well enough to ever make that back, let alone some of the other books and comics that get optioned (Red and The Losers spring to mind).

I also just wrote a blog post on this:
http://thetysonadams.blogspot.com/2011/02/book-to-movie-process.html


----------



## Mrs. K. (Dec 31, 2010)

With only a couple of notable exceptions, the book is going to be _much_ better than the movie. Physical actions and direct dialogue can be acted; a character's specific thought processes and emotions can be represented but not duplicated. We somehow think the movie will be something MORE or something BETTER and it never is- and then we're surprised by our disappointment.

I'm always praying my favorite books do not become movies. You can't even recommend a great book after Hollywood has wrecked it. If you saw the movie first and it reeked, you certainly won't rush to the bookstore to test whether the book is also substandard. If I were an author, I'd call it too big a risk.


----------



## tim290280 (Jan 11, 2011)

Mrs. K. said:


> With only a couple of notable exceptions, the book is going to be _much_ better than the movie. Physical actions and direct dialogue can be acted; a character's specific thought processes and emotions can be represented but not duplicated. We somehow think the movie will be something MORE or something BETTER and it never is- and then we're surprised by our disappointment.
> 
> I'm always praying my favorite books do not become movies. You can't even recommend a great book after Hollywood has wrecked it. If you saw the movie first and it reeked, you certainly won't rush to the bookstore to test whether the book is also substandard. If I were an author, I'd call it too big a risk.


Absolutely no doubt. The average book runs, at what, 80-90,000 words and is thus several days worth of entertainment. A movie is no more than 2 hours. Just the shear difference in the physics of the two shows that a movie can never equal a book.

But what do you think of the original question? Do you think that movie studios would be better off not pretending they are using a book as source material?

Also I'd encourage people to have a listen to the panel discussion I posted, some interesting points are raised. It would be great to get some discussion on them here.


----------



## Chris Northern (Jan 20, 2011)

Just my few cents worth. Movies funtion differently than books - just as an example, in a book there is plenty of time to clarify motive, but in a movie it has to be done simply and quickly - so a movie has to be different than the book in almost all cases.  The longer the book, the worse it gets. Backstory get's cut and simplified; it has to be. Unnecessary characters are cut... where is Ardelia Mapp in Silence Of The Lambs? Cut; she adds nothing to the story.

Using Silence OTL as an example, let's look at making a movie without referencing a book. Take one incarcerated genius serial killer advising young FBI agent on how to catch active serial killer. Write script. Make movie. Get fleeced for copyright infringment, because that is theft pure and simple. If you take the key elements of a story, work up a script, make a movie, you have to pay what you owe to the writer of the source material, even if you end up making a dfferent story out of them because the book structure won't function in the constraints of a movie.

I would like to see Hollywood being a bit more upfront about this; maybe a marker indicating how like the book the movie is?


----------



## tim290280 (Jan 11, 2011)

Chris Northern said:


> Just my few cents worth. Movies funtion differently than books - just as an example, in a book there is plenty of time to clarify motive, but in a movie it has to be done simply and quickly - so a movie has to be different than the book in almost all cases. The longer the book, the worse it gets. Backstory get's cut and simplified; it has to be. Unnecessary characters are cut... where is Ardelia Mapp in Silence Of The Lambs? Cut; she adds nothing to the story.
> 
> Using Silence OTL as an example, let's look at making a movie without referencing a book. Take one incarcerated genius serial killer advising young FBI agent on how to catch active serial killer. Write script. Make movie. Get fleeced for copyright infringment, because that is theft pure and simple. If you take the key elements of a story, work up a script, make a movie, you have to pay what you owe to the writer of the source material, even if you end up making a dfferent story out of them because the book structure won't function in the constraints of a movie.
> 
> I would like to see Hollywood being a bit more upfront about this; maybe a marker indicating how like the book the movie is?


A very good point.

But I believe, and correct me if I'm wrong, there was a case recently involving Clive Cussler where the rights to a book were exercised but likeness to the book was not to the author's liking and he made a fuss about it and lost his legal case against the studio. So the infringement wasn't about the content but rather the name. As such it gets back to my point of why studios bother paying for a name.

Also counter to your point; how similar are most movies that use books as the source material? I'd argue that many share too little similarity to stand up to legal infringement.


----------



## R. M. Reed (Nov 11, 2009)

Also remember that the movie industry has no respect at all for writers. It's better in TV, where writers often run their own shows and have some power.


----------



## Iwritelotsofbooks (Nov 17, 2010)

tim290280 said:


> Yes, I understand that. But isn't it flawed logic? $100 million is a lot of money to recoup, and most bestsellers don't sell well enough to ever make that back, let alone some of the other books and comics that get optioned (Red and The Losers spring to mind).
> 
> I also just wrote a blog post on this:
> http://thetysonadams.blogspot.com/2011/02/book-to-movie-process.html


Of course it's flawed logic. Fact is, budgets are high for two reasons. First, Hollywood thinks Tom Cruise, Brad Pitt, or Julia Roberts types are enough to draw people into a movie despite the subject matter. And those actors as well as any other big names will run you 20 mil or more per movie. So you're looking at 40 mil off the top. Then throw in a director making another ten or fifteen.

The second thing is special effects and/or action set pieces in general. Not cheap. That's why movies cost on average 100 mil. Is it right? No. Is it smart? Debatable. But it's just the way it is.

The key thing to remember about Hollywood is that it's not about putting out the best product. It's a business interested in making money above all. So if you load the movie up with name actors and start from known source material, you can hedge your bet. And if the movie happens to be good, that's a nice plus--but it's the last thing they care about.


----------



## Stephen T. Harper (Dec 20, 2010)

It's different with every film, of course, but "why bother" is sometimes an excellent question.

I once worked as an assistant to a writer/director who had been hired to write and direct a movie based on a book.  I won't say which one, but the movie was released by a major studio about 10 years ago, in sucked and didn't do particularly well.  Anyway, my first day on the job (this is pre-production) the writer/director (my boss) asked for my opinion on the script he had written.  I had just read it and frankly, it was really bad.  For starters, it was supposed be a serial-killer horror movie, yet no one dies in the first 30 pages and nothing even particularly scary or interesting happened either.  

Keep in mind, I had never heard of this book, but I did know that the studio had paid the author $500K for the rights.  So in discussing the strange pacing and lack of interesting events, I asked him, "what happens in the book?"  

His answer:  "I don't know.  I didn't read the book."

Amazing that the film wasn't more of hit, isn't it?


----------



## Joseph Robert Lewis (Oct 31, 2010)

I know, the novelization of Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen was sooooo much better than the 2009 film adaptation, which wasn't as good as the early 2000s comics, which were much better than the 1980s cartoons, which in turn were far superior to the artwork on the back of the toy boxes!

People make movies thinking they will make money. It rarely has anything to do with the quality of the story, unless it's an indie film. Hollywood folks are business people trying to apply formulas and patterns. At the top, at least. The real artists are down in the trenches, and they don't make the big decisions.


----------



## NotActive (Jan 24, 2011)

content


----------



## Mrs. K. (Dec 31, 2010)

tim290280 said:


> Absolutely no doubt. The average book runs, at what, 80-90,000 words and is thus several days worth of entertainment. A movie is no more than 2 hours. Just the shear difference in the physics of the two shows that a movie can never equal a book.
> 
> But what do you think of the original question? Do you think that movie studios would be better off not pretending they are using a book as source material?
> 
> Also I'd encourage people to have a listen to the panel discussion I posted, some interesting points are raised. It would be great to get some discussion on them here.


I think the movie studios would be better off if they dropped the pretense and told a companion story or an origin story based on one or some of the book's characters, and labeled it as such. Fans of the book would be getting that "something extra" they craved, while moviegoers would get a taste of the world the author wished to create without potentially altering their feelings about the parent book or spoiling it altogether. To me, that would be why I'd bother.


----------



## tim290280 (Jan 11, 2011)

Stephen T. Harper said:


> It's different with every film, of course, but "why bother" is sometimes an excellent question.
> 
> I once worked as an assistant to a writer/director who had been hired to write and direct a movie based on a book. I won't say which one, but the movie was released by a major studio about 10 years ago, in sucked and didn't do particularly well. Anyway, my first day on the job (this is pre-production) the writer/director (my boss) asked for my opinion on the script he had written. I had just read it and frankly, it was really bad. For starters, it was supposed be a serial-killer horror movie, yet no one dies in the first 30 pages and nothing even particularly scary or interesting happened either.
> 
> ...


Now this is confirmation of what I suspected happened all too often. Thanks for the reply Stephen!

Would you care to hazard a guess as to why he hadn't read the book and why the studio would pay $500k for him not to use the source material?

Also I think the point Lacy raised about the budget is prominent here. $500k is not a lot in comparison to the overall budget, it would probably be what they pay for catering for the shoot. So do you think the $$ involved means that they don't take the source material seriously?


----------



## purplepen79 (May 6, 2010)

Joseph Robert Lewis said:


> People make movies thinking they will make money. It rarely has anything to do with the quality of the story, unless it's an indie film. Hollywood folks are business people trying to apply formulas and patterns. At the top, at least. The real artists are down in the trenches, and they don't make the big decisions.


Your comment reminds me of a sad anecdote regarding a screenwriter I met a few years ago. This man had written ten original movie scripts which were bought by various studios. Now all his scripts, his creative work, is in complete limbo, sitting on shelves in Hollywood somewhere because probably 90% of the scripts studios buy the rights to never become movies. At least when a publisher buys the rights to a novel, they generally publish it. Not so in Hollywood. This screenwriter was pretty disgusted, and I can't say that I blame him. Probably part of the reason so few original scripts see the light of day is because Hollywood, like most of the rest of the world these days, is in pursuit of a big name and ready-made hype, not true artistry. Artistic merit has become an accidental by-product of the corporate machine.


----------



## DYB (Aug 8, 2009)

I don't know if there's a simple answer to this question.  But, conversely, I've always wondered why anyone bothered to write novelizations of movies.  They tend to be pretty straight-forward retellings of the movie.  I fail to see the point.  But obviously publishers think it's worth the investment...

As far as why movie studios do it...I'm in the entertainment industry and it's a bit complicated, but everything can be boiled down to this: people who hold the purse strings don't have an imagination and are too afraid to invest in something that hasn't already even been modestly successful somewhere else.  When someone brings them a "best selling" (it's a very loose term) or "critically acclaimed" (also a pretty loose term) novel these people feel safer than if someone brought them an original script by someone the studio executive hasn't heard of.  It's not just selling this product to the public, it's also attracting talent (actors) to it.  Many actors would love to be attached to some "high end" best seller (these are often considered to be "prestige" projects) - and wouldn't give a second glance to an original script.

There's also the issue of copycatting.  If one Thomas Harris adaptation does well - studios will snatch up all of his novels (I'm using Harris as an example; this works with every writer) imagining that they will all be as successful as "The Silence of the Lambs."  Things rarely work out that way, of course.  Studios also snatch up rights to every book that somehow has a passing resemblance to Harris' writing - because these might also be successful.


----------



## DYB (Aug 8, 2009)

purplepen79 said:


> Your comment reminds me of a sad anecdote regarding a screenwriter I met a few years ago. This man had written ten original movie scripts which were bought by various studios. Now all his scripts, his creative work, is in complete limbo, sitting on shelves in Hollywood somewhere because probably 90% of the scripts studios buy the rights to never become movies. At least when a publisher buys the rights to a novel, they generally publish it. Not so in Hollywood. This screenwriter was pretty disgusted, and I can't say that I blame him. Probably part of the reason so few original scripts see the light of day is because Hollywood, like most of the rest of the world these days, is in pursuit of a big name and ready-made hype, not true artistry. Artistic merit has become an accidental by-product of the corporate machine.


This is very true about countless screenplays existing in "development limbo" (or "development black hole") in Hollywood. Studios will spend years "developing" screenplays. For example, the script for "Brokeback Mountain" (an adaptation) bounced around Hollywood for years and various talent had been attached to it at one point or another. Joel Schumacher was supposed to direct it. Joaquin Phoenix and Mark Wahlberg (can you imagine?) expressed interest. (Wahlberg wanted to do the movie, but without any any man-on-man action.) Even Jake Gylenhall was approached about it a few years before the movie was made and turned it down. Then lightning struck and someone gave the script to Ang Lee - and the rest is history. Now, if a script co-written by Larry McMurtry doesn't get fast-tracked, what does it say about scripts by unknowns. Heck, it doesn't even have to be unknowns; just someone not as famous as McMurtry.


----------



## DYB (Aug 8, 2009)

I just thought of something: have you read (or seen) "The Player?" Good novel by Michael Tolkin and a great movie by Robert Altman. This Hollywood satire might answer some of the questions raised in this thread.


----------



## tim290280 (Jan 11, 2011)

DYB said:


> I just thought of something: have you read (or seen) "The Player?" Good novel by Michael Tolkin and a great movie by Robert Altman. This Hollywood satire might answer some of the questions raised in this thread.


Actually rather than answer the questions raised it made me think how accurate the movie/book is (too close to the truth or not close enough?). Can't say I've read the book, but the movie is my favourite Robbins film.

Thanks for your points. I can see that the vetting of a novel by its success does allow the studio to greenlight a production. Do you reckon the reason the screen writer goes and writes something completely different is because of pressures to conform to the whims of others? If star X is attached and hasn't read the book but has demands, then the writer has to adapt the story, like say Arnie playing Hamlet.

Also your point about buying up similar stock is rife. I've heard of some very substandard work being picked up by studios just because that general genre was regarded as a "bestseller", regardless of the actual book itself. Worst one I heard of was a bio about a group of completely talentless sisters who had a band which was picked up by Tom Cruise's company. Terrible idea as the sisters and everyone around them thought they had talent, so there are only two ways that film can go, and both are insulting.


----------



## DYB (Aug 8, 2009)

tim290280 said:


> Actually rather than answer the questions raised it made me think how accurate the movie/book is (too close to the truth or not close enough?). Can't say I've read the book, but the movie is my favourite Robbins film.
> 
> Thanks for your points. I can see that the vetting of a novel by its success does allow the studio to greenlight a production. Do you reckon the reason the screen writer goes and writes something completely different is because of pressures to conform to the whims of others? If star X is attached and hasn't read the book but has demands, then the writer has to adapt the story, like say Arnie playing Hamlet.
> 
> Also your point about buying up similar stock is rife. I've heard of some very substandard work being picked up by studios just because that general genre was regarded as a "bestseller", regardless of the actual book itself. Worst one I heard of was a bio about a group of completely talentless sisters who had a band which was picked up by Tom Cruise's company. Terrible idea as the sisters and everyone around them thought they had talent, so there are only two ways that film can go, and both are insulting.


Screenwriters in Hollywood are guns for hire. They must write whatever they are told. If they don't, someone else will do it for them. Often the changes are demanded by stars ("I don't want to be such a bad guy; can't there be some emotional scene to make me more likable and stuff?"), and other times changes are made by committee. There are not many directors who can do as they wish; studios will impose changes on the script, casting, etc. because their research tells them it's what the public wants right now. It's like those moments in "The Player" (seen in the trailer) when they pitch their ideas and throw out "Julia Roberts! Bruce Willis!" for everything because they were the hottest stars in Hollywood at the time. (Julia Roberts was supposed to be in "The English Patient.")

For some reason "All The Pretty Horses" jumps into my mind. A magnificent novel by Cormac McCarthy. Miramax adapted (screenplay by Ted Tally, who also adapted "The Silence of the Lambs" - which could be a good thing, or mean nothing at all.) Their director of choice was Billy Bob Thornton, still hot after "Sling Blade." They cast Matt Damon and Henry Thomas. From the get-go that seemed like a bad idea to me because the characters Damon and Thomas are playing are 15 and 16 years old, respectively, in the novel. Damon and Thomas were twice that age. Clearly Harvey Weinstein - who has overseen his share of great films - was making his decision not on what the author of the original material envisioned, but what he thought public would want. I was at Miramax at that time and Thornton's original cut of the film was something like 5 hours. That's not what was released. What was released was a bad movie. Why did they bother making it? Well, they screwed it up from casting on. As Sidney Lumet once said about his adaptation of _The Wiz:_ "It looked good on paper."


----------



## S.J. Harris (Feb 10, 2011)

But it's nice when an adaptation turns out great. No Country for Old Men, Atonement, Mystic River, Silence of the Lambs...there's a bunch of them.


----------



## DYB (Aug 8, 2009)

S.J. Harris said:


> But it's nice when an adaptation turns out great. No Country for Old Men, Atonement, Mystic River, Silence of the Lambs...there's a bunch of them.


There's a lot of great films adapted from books! The list is long.


----------



## tim290280 (Jan 11, 2011)

DYB said:


> Screenwriters in Hollywood are guns for hire. They must write whatever they are told. If they don't, someone else will do it for them. Often the changes are demanded by stars ("I don't want to be such a bad guy; can't there be some emotional scene to make me more likable and stuff?"), and other times changes are made by committee. There are not many directors who can do as they wish; studios will impose changes on the script, casting, etc. because their research tells them it's what the public wants right now. It's like those moments in "The Player" (seen in the trailer) when they pitch their ideas and throw out "Julia Roberts! Bruce Willis!" for everything because they were the hottest stars in Hollywood at the time. (Julia Roberts was supposed to be in "The English Patient.")


Another example from the music industry springs to mind. During the recording of Silverchair's most successful album (Silverchair are an Aussie band) the record company A&R guy was pushing for the singer/guitarist to record a section in a different manner. He flat out refused to even entertain the idea because he had done it previously and had been forced to use the version he didn't like. So obviously there are loads of examples of this happening.

It would be really cool if Hollywood players started demanding really weird things in films. Like putting Brad Pitt in a chicken suit for his next film or have the next Transformers film made using stop motion animation of the toys from the 1980s.


----------



## jason10mm (Apr 7, 2009)

I think they opion novels as a start point, even if the film ends up ebing much different, because the novel will have done SOMETHING to distinguish itself, whereas all scripts are unknown factors, even if penned by an acclaimed writing team. The novel inspires at least some folks, since I've never seen poorly reviewed, poor selling books made into movies (poorly reviewed, BEST selling books however....), so the film team knows that there is some gold in there. Of course in the book to screen process often the gold is lost unwittingly since the folks making the film are rarely FANS of the book, thus they don't know WHY the book was popular, just that it WAS popular.


----------



## QuantumIguana (Dec 29, 2010)

Sometimes it is because the novel has a built-in core audience. This is obvious when we are talking about something like Lord of the Rings or Harry Potter. But even with less well-known works, there is a core of people who are quite excited about one of their favorite novels coming to the big screen. There are some who are wary of a book they enjoy being made into a movie, but there are also those who really look forward to it.

But there's another reason, a novel is basically vetted as a good story. They could go through thousands of scripts and try to guess which ones could be good, or they could take a look at novels that have already shown themselves to be things that the public likes.


----------



## Debra Purdy Kong (Apr 1, 2009)

An interesting topic. The two movies that really didn't do the books justice (and I wondered, why bother?) was the first time Dune was made into a movie, the other one is The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. If you've never read the books, you might think that the movies are okay on their own, but as has been already been mentioned on this thread, they are two different mediums with two different approaches to storytelling. Still, it's hard for me to forget the book when I'm watching the movie.

On the other hand, I also think that the Lord of the Ring trilogies were more enjoyable than the books, so there you go.

Debra


----------



## Stephen T. Harper (Dec 20, 2010)

tim290280 said:


> Now this is confirmation of what I suspected happened all too often. Thanks for the reply Stephen!
> 
> Would you care to hazard a guess as to why he hadn't read the book and why the studio would pay $500k for him not to use the source material?
> 
> Also I think the point Lacy raised about the budget is prominent here. $500k is not a lot in comparison to the overall budget, it would probably be what they pay for catering for the shoot. So do you think the $$ involved means that they don't take the source material seriously?


Tim, the reason they bought the book was that the producer saw the paperback in an airport, liked the title and asked the studio where he had his deal to secure the rights. 
I'm not kidding. The really funny thing is that the title was just one word, a very common word referring to a common event. Again, sorry to not be naming names, but the point it, I doubt there was even any necessity to buy the book. But that really is how things work in Hollywood. Sometimes. I should say that it's how certain aspects of Hollywood work. It's not all the same and it's not always silly. But sometmes, the waste of money and talent is astonishing. That movie was made for about 10 million. SO half a million was not insignificant. On the one hand, they may have just been covering their butts and that novelist just got a lucky windfall, on the other hand, if the studio is in for 500k to start, it does make the project more likely to be seen through to production and release. But it's still bizarre and sad any way you slice it.


----------



## purplepen79 (May 6, 2010)

DYB said:


> This is very true about countless screenplays existing in "development limbo" (or "development black hole") in Hollywood. Studios will spend years "developing" screenplays. For example, the script for "Brokeback Mountain" (an adaptation) bounced around Hollywood for years and various talent had been attached to it at one point or another. Joel Schumacher was supposed to direct it. Joaquin Phoenix and Mark Wahlberg (can you imagine?) expressed interest. (Wahlberg wanted to do the movie, but without any any man-on-man action.) Even Jake Gylenhall was approached about it a few years before the movie was made and turned it down. Then lightning struck and someone gave the script to Ang Lee - and the rest is history. Now, if a script co-written by Larry McMurtry doesn't get fast-tracked, what does it say about scripts by unknowns. Heck, it doesn't even have to be unknowns; just someone not as famous as McMurtry.


Interesting story. It's no wonder the writers go on strike in Hollywood periodically. It also goes to show how incidential and random our entertainment industry is, and thus, how incidential and random success can be in that industry.


----------



## mooshie78 (Jul 15, 2010)

I enjoy films more than books, so I'm always interested in seeing how they turned the source material into a film.  I don't mind changes--I tend not to like movies that are too much like the book or vice versa as there's not much point in consuming both versions if they're nearly identical.  In such cases I usually stick with the movie.

i.e. if I watch a movie and hear it was a spot on adaptation of the book, I probably won't bother reading the book.  If I hear they changed a lot from the book, I may read the book.

If I've read the book first, and liked it, I'll usually see the movie since again I'm a huge lover of film.


----------



## TrevorBloom (Jan 29, 2011)

I'm new here, and new to Kindle but it's an interesting subject.

Seems to me that the drive behind film making is profit maximisation and risk reduction. It's a business and a big one. It's also a collaboration involving many vested interests. This inevitably makes film-making parasitical because the industry has an insatiable appetite for for new story ideas.

Writing books on the other hand is a highly individual activity. Decision-making is down to the novelist. And a writer trying to get a novel out can afford to be more inventive and less constrained by what is likely to be commercially successful. I adore film but I think the creativity in film-making usually lies in the performance and execution, not the story.


Amazon.com The Half-Slave
Amazon.co.uk The Half-Slave


----------



## tim290280 (Jan 11, 2011)

Some great points have been raised here, thanks everyone!  

I was having a discussion with my wife this morning about how arbitrary a lot of media is. As scientists we both tend to be a lot less arbitrary in our decision making or in the media we consume. While we understand the limitations and biases of the media, they do still tend to go with what sells, or what they perceive will sell, rather than the best course. As such there seem to be arbitrary lines drawn on things, just look at Robert Downey Jr's career - one minute he is the laughing stock the next he is the greatest actor of his generation. Personally I look at a guy that dresses up as Wonder Woman to snort lines of cocaine off a hooker's leg clearly needs an acting role to give him something better to do with his time.

I wonder when the industry will wake up to themselves a bit. TLOTR was hailed by everyone as a great adaptation, not for its overlong narrative and half-a-dozen endings, but for staying as true to the book as possible. Hollywood should learn a bit of respect for books and writers.


----------



## DYB (Aug 8, 2009)

tim290280 said:


> I wonder when the industry will wake up to themselves a bit. TLOTR was hailed by everyone as a great adaptation, not for its overlong narrative and half-a-dozen endings, but for staying as true to the book as possible. Hollywood should learn a bit of respect for books and writers.


Jackson remained faithful to Tolkien's novel - but only to an extent. He made a great number of changes that irked the most fanatical fans, but most fans embraced Jackson's vision. It wasn't because people recognize that film is inherently a completely different art form and can not recreate things that can be done on the page (or on the stage, for that matter.*) The reason I think most Tolkien fans didn't object to the changes Jackson made is that Jackson remained true to the _spirit_ of Tolkien's writing. That counts for something. Another recent example to me are the adaptation of the first two "Harry Potter" books directed by Chris Columbus. Columbus was much too faithful to the books and as a result drained them of their magic. There was so little imagination in Columbus' vision because it was all Rowling's vision, which was intended to be read. It was only with Alfonso Cuaron's "Prisoner of Azkaban" that the series took off. Cuaron made significant changes to Rowling's story, but remained true to her spirit...and made a great film.

*When I say film "can not recreate things" I don't mean that literally - with CGI they can do anything, but film is the most literal of all art forms and flights of fancy can be difficult to pull off. Look at Mike Nicholls' adaptation of "Angels in America." It's weird seeing a guy walk into a refrigerator and come out in some alternate reality. On stage, however, it didn't raise an eyebrow. Fantasy in books and on stage is common (Hamlet set on the Moon? Why not!), but on film these things look too weird and you would end up with an "experimental" film. Almost all fantasy on film is deeply rooted in realism, almost by necessity. Which is why I think a lot of adaptations fail, certainly in the eyes of fans of the books.


----------



## tim290280 (Jan 11, 2011)

DYB said:


> Jackson remained faithful to Tolkien's novel - but only to an extent. He made a great number of changes that irked the most fanatical fans, but most fans embraced Jackson's vision. It wasn't because people recognize that film is inherently a completely different art form and can not recreate things that can be done on the page (or on the stage, for that matter.*) The reason I think most Tolkien fans didn't object to the changes Jackson made is that Jackson remained true to the _spirit_ of Tolkien's writing. That counts for something. Another recent example to me are the adaptation of the first two "Harry Potter" books directed by Chris Columbus. Columbus was much too faithful to the books and as a result drained them of their magic. There was so little imagination in Columbus' vision because it was all Rowling's vision, which was intended to be read. It was only with Alfonso Cuaron's "Prisoner of Azkaban" that the series took off. Cuaron made significant changes to Rowling's story, but remained true to her spirit...and made a great film.
> 
> *When I say film "can not recreate things" I don't mean that literally - with CGI they can do anything, but film is the most literal of all art forms and flights of fancy can be difficult to pull off. Look at Mike Nicholls' adaptation of "Angels in America." It's weird seeing a guy walk into a refrigerator and come out in some alternate reality. On stage, however, it didn't raise an eyebrow. Fantasy in books and on stage is common (Hamlet set on the Moon? Why not!), but on film these things look too weird and you would end up with an "experimental" film. Almost all fantasy on film is deeply rooted in realism, almost by necessity. Which is why I think a lot of adaptations fail, certainly in the eyes of fans of the books.


We're definitely agreed on the subject.

Someone raised the point before about the difference between the mediums of film and novel, and it takes a lot to get to the heart of the novel in 2hrs, which the book may take days to do. The Prisoner of Azkaban was the first Potter film to actually feel like a real narrative. I remember watching the Chamber of Secrets and decrying the ending. It was then explained to me that the book covered that (I only read it later). How can you make a movie and expect the audience to remember details from a book they may or may not have read?


----------



## heavycat (Feb 14, 2011)

The movie maker wants all of the benefits with none of the costs.

It's amazing how many multi-multi-multi-million dollar projects (movies, games, etc.) could be dramatically improved by hiring even one actual writer.

At the same time, a writer has a fairly significant advantage, because with words alone, a writer has an unlimited special effects budget.


----------

