Turning Books into Movies
Monday, January 21st, 2008It amazes me how many movies will have a small note somewhere in the credits, “based on the novel by…” It seems that a very good percentage of the best movies started out as books. I can think of a few off the top of my head: Lord of the Rings, the Notebook, Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants, Pride and Prejudice, and that epic series about that boy wizard (we all know who I mean).
It also amazes me how many people whine and complain when the movie differs from the book in any way, shape, or form. Yeah, the book is going to be better. It’s the original… worded exactly how it was supposed to be. Or maybe you imagined this character or that to look completely different. I guess that’s sometimes the case, especially with classics and best-sellers.
There’s been a lot of movies, though, that are based off of books I’d never heard about, and caused me to later look for the book and read it… and it seems like those lesser-known books are made into movies that people don’t tend to complain as much about.
Do you think the book is usually better? Is there any book-turned-movie in which the movie was way better than the book? Worse?
