why are so many excellent books made into such awful movies?

Question

is there something that film producers could be doing differently? do they underestimate the intelligence of their audiences? does it depend on the genre (type) of the material?

extra credit::: can you give a happy example where the movie was as good as or BETTER than the book, in your opinion?

Answer 1

This is an excellent point, Patz, and one that has long bothered me about Hollywood (don't get me started, lol). Beyond the fact we have to put up with endless retro movie versions of lame old television series, there is the issue of terrible screen adaptations of great novels. Admittedly, some books are unfilmable. But in such cases it makes more sense to me to not even try! But where there's a buck to be made...

Several of your follow-up questions were spot on and warrant responses. Hollywood very definitely underestimates the intelligence of their more literate audience (not, I fear, their entire audience). Those of us who read and appreciate the classics can and do handle quality adaptations of same. Emma Thompson, for example, offered up an exquisite screenplay of Jane Austen's 'Sense and Sensibility,' which I thoroughly enjoyed (and for which she won the Best Adapted Screenplay Oscar). So it DOES sometimes happen.

But for the most part, yes, Hollywood feels compelled to dumb down any literary works in order to pander to the widest possible audience. This is classic LCD thinking and it can be seen throughout our wondrous (satire alert!) culture, from film to television to music to politics (the vile bush administration demonstrates this on a daily basis). So basically, with the exception of foreign films (yep, the ones with subtitles) and other so-called "art house films," modern screen versions of literature tend to be rubbish.

What Hollywood producers could be doing differently is considering raising their target audience's intellectual and cultural tastes instead of lowering them even further. They could stop thinking ONLY about box office receipts and actually contemplate film as art! Independent filmmakers do this all the time. Our European friends manage it. Canada, Australia, Japan, Brazil and others manage to pull it off. But the major studios out in bloody Hollywood? Forget about it.

The genre of a film doesn't matter too terribly much because the Hollywood mentality is all about filling seats in theatres. If a (raped and pillaged?) satirical novel will bring that about, great. If it's a (sanitized and stripped?) spy novel, fine. A (putrefied and modernized?) love story, A-OK. Doesn't matter. Hollywood is an artistic and cultural vacuum. Creative, original, thoughtful and intelligent people enter and are either corrupted or destroyed. (See the Coen brothers' 'Barton Fink' or Robert Altman's 'The Player' to see precisely how this is done.)

As for your extra credit query (which I've touched on earlier with my reference to Emma Thompson's Jane Austen adaptation), I can give you several happy examples, again, NONE having much to do with Hollywood. Ridley Scott's adaptation of Philip K. Dick's '60s sci-fi classic, 'Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?' (which someone asked as a YA question way back when ;-) ) was brought to the screen in 1982 and instantly became one of my all-time favourite films, 'Blade Runner.' It is not merely faithful to the book, it is actually superior. This was a British production, btw.

More surprisingly, the quintessential film version of Charles Dickens' holiday masterpiece, 'A Christmas Carol,' originally released as 'Scrooge' (1951) in Britain, is actually BETTER than the story. I know my fellow Dickensians are likely freaking out but please hear me out. I've read the story several times and seen this particular film version (a family tradition on Christmas Eve since my days as a young altar boy) at least 25-30 times and I can tell you that there are some beautifully realized elements in the storyline that the film fleshes out to perfection. Even more astonishing, the screenwriter, Noel Langley, actually IMPROVES on the Master's work by adding several scenes and subplots that are so in tune with the author's original that I feel sure (dead cert, in fact!) that Mr. Dickens would have approved wholeheartedly. The whole spirit, look and feel of Dickens' London is all there on the screen and it is by far the happiest and best example I can provide you in support of my answer. Oh, and it is yet another non-Hollywood production, having been produced and filmed entirely in England.

Thank you for asking this fantastic question, Patz! It was an absolute JOY to answer! :)

Answer 2

Film produces change the book to make the most money and appeal to the mass audience. Such as Troy totally not like the Iliad, but the audience wants to see hot people and big fighting, not Gods scheming.

I'm thinking a good example of where a movie and a book were good is To Kill a Mockingbird.

Answer 3

Action/adventure by Ernest Hemingway: 1. The Sun Also Rises. 2. The Old Man and the Sea Western The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance was adapted from a short story by Dorothy Johnson. Directed by John Ford and starred John Wayne and Jimmy Stewart.

Answer 4

I think that the big problem is that you have in your mind and idea of what things should look and be like. No director is ever going to have the same vision as you. You also can't fit 450 pages of detail from a book that took weeks to read into a movie that is only going to last 2 hours. I think they did an ok job with Memoirs of a Geisha, but that may just be because I like Zhang Ziyi so much.

Answer 5

I do think it is because the producers underestimate the intelligence of their audiences!!!! They think we are all morons. And some of us do not disappoint!! But for the those of us that have some good since I think To Kill a Mockingbird was a good movie. The Green Mile also.

Answer 6

I haven't seen a movie that comes close to being as good as the book. Steven King is a good example that Ming used. Take Pet Semetery for example. In the book the cat was wicked and evil and had a lot to do with the story. In the movie,was there even a cat in it? I think that books tend to be better because we can use our own imaginations and it makes it so much more realistic in our own mind.

Answer 7

Because thats what happens when Hollywood tries to make a good novel appeal to "today's" audience by making it more racy. I think Gone With the Wind was better on screen, and Harry Potter books get me just as interested as the movies which is saying something! so they are Equal by some means.

Answer 8

Good question, not all books should be movies,the good books should stay just that. But cheap people decide to make movies out of them so that their kids dont have to read it. and they skip all the good stuff.. for instance if youve only seen the Harry Potter movies and you have not read the books then your missing more than half the story...you know their making Bridge to Terabethia into a movie now???? Isnt that crazy...

Answer 9

that is because u try to put so much in such a short frametime. u skip out a lot of part which might not be essential but add on to the the whole charm. Note book was one move which did justice to the movie

Answer 10

it is often hard for producer to grasp the full detail of a writers point of veiw because producers often not are writters and some
lack the imagination of the creative thinking process. take steven
king for instents. while reading one of his tales you could almost
visualize what is going on in the story. but now you have to bring
it to life. and not only do you have try to create somthing close to
what is being read but cost , people and other resorces come into
play and somtime serverly. degenerate the impacted of a story line. take the tommynockers for example. fantastic book. terrible
movie.

Answer 11

i thought the da vinci code was better than the book mainly bc i saw the movie first. i think its because its hard toget every word in a long book into a movie. but another goody was the lion the witch and the wardrobe that was excellent. bad ones are just like uhh like harry potters were good movies but more aren't as good as the books like sahara...etc.