Sometimes, someone at a movie studio will pick up a copy of a book, read it, and decide they need to make it into a movie. It’s usually a great idea, as long as they can pull it off. Look at the success of the Harry Potter series. All together, the seven films in the series made $7.7 billon at the box office. And let’s not forget comic books: the Marvel Cinematic Universe is another great example. As of November 2020, the MCU has a total worldwide box office revenue of 22.56 billion U.S. dollars. Of the 23 films in the series, the average revenue was estimated at 980.5 million U.S. dollars per film.
I like seeing the pages of my favorite book or comic come to life on the big screen. I especially like it when the director/producer/studio does the story some justice, and remains true to both the story and the characters. Every now and then, a film adaptation of a book is made that isn’t so great. Some would say the Percy Jackson movies should never have been made. I read The Giver when I was in middle school, and saw the film version years later…I wish I hadn’t. I read Dan Brown’s Inferno and I wish the film version had stuck to the ending in the book. At this point, every producer should probably give up any hope of giving us a great adaptation of a Stephen King novel, because those movies are either hit or miss (Dreamcatcher was a miss, The Green Mile was a hit).
There is one film adaptation that has become my favorite. The funny thing is, I saw the movie long before I read the book. How did this happen? The movie was released in the 1982, but the novella was published in 1938. I watched John Carpenter’s The Thing when I was a kid and it immediately became one of my favorite horror movies. At the time, I had no idea it was based on a book. I discovered John W. Campbell’s Who Goes There? many years later. His novella has been adapted into other films (The Thing From Another World, 1951 and The Thing in 2011), but John Carpenter’s version is in my opinion, the very best.
Campbell’s novella and Carpenter’s movie 
While The Thing From Another World didn’t use the novella’s “alien chameleon” idea, Carpenter’s The Thing remained true to the original story. Also Carpenter used the original character names. What made the story so unique is the idea of an alien that can imitate another species so well, you can’t tell it apart from the real thing. Carpenter captures this perfectly in his film. You don’t know who “the thing” is until it’s too late.
Campbell’s novella is available for purchase online, as a POD (print on demand) book. You may also find it in a few science fiction collections, for instance, They Came From Outer Space published in 1980 and edited by Jim Wynorski. This book contain 12 sci fi stories that were made into films. As for Carpenter’s The Thing, it’s available on DVD and Blu-ray. I own a copy of both the novella and the movie. I definitely recommend reading the novella and watching the movie.
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Reblogged this on ebunnygirl.
Excellent examples, Nicole!
🙂
I’m often worried, if I haven’t read the book, about how it will be adapted, or mutilated, by a film-maker.
I guess a famous example is the Harry Potter series, starting with the fourth book/film in particular, is the films veer off from the books.
But I loved the film version of Bram Stoker’s Dracula, until I read the book, and saw how much Francis Ford Coppola had altered it. Still, I guess film gives books more following?
Stay safe,
-Shira
You’re absolutely right about the fourth Harry Potter movie! Another one of my favorites is Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. The only movie to come close to the original story is Kenneth Branagh’s movie from 1994. Even the look of the monster is more accurate than most movies 🙂
Yes, I’d forgotten that film, I like it too!
I was thinking about this same topic a few weeks ago. One of the biggest issues I see is that too many people don’t view film versions as adaptations. They want to see the book on the screen, which is why so many people claim that the book is always better, when the reality is that these are two different mediums and need to be viewed separately. It’s like comparing a painting to a sculpture.
Three of my favorite book to movie adaptations take really different approaches. The Odd Thomas movie is almost exactly like the book. Stardust the movie follows the book closely, but is easily better due to some key changes, and The Princess Bride book and movie are almost nothing alike, but both are phenomenal.
I feel like I’ve never seen a perfectly accurate film adaptation of a book, but I guess it’s up to the director or producer to create their own “artistic vision” of the story. The “Harry Potter” movies were okay, but they didn’t quite capture the books. I would love to talk with some of the authors of the past, show them the movies based on their books, and get THEIR opinion!