Hey everyone, Brandi here.
Ilona Andrews are currently crunching to meet their deadlines, so in the meantime I’ve been tasked with updating the blog. I was trying to find something entertaining to talk about, and I remembered something I had thought about earlier and wanted to hear yall’s opinions.
Recently, I saw a trailer for The Kid Wh0 Would Be King. Now, I am aware that The Kid Who Would Be King does not derive from a book. However, its campiness and YA-oriented approach reminded me of what I personally consider to be one of the worst book-t0-film adaptations in existence.
I’m talking, of course, about the movie adaptation of Rick Riordian’s Percy Jackson & The Olympians. The book series had been an actual page turner for me, each novel being better than the last. I was so disappointed when all that promise was somehow dwindled away by a cheap and lazy rendition on the big screen that didn’t reflect or even really resemble the novel at all.
It wasn’t so much the casting that bothered me (personally, I loved Brandon T. Jackson as Grover) but the complete and utter disregard of the original plot and details. I was so frustrated as I watched it, because I actually went to the theater to see this and had been expecting one of my favorite books come alive visually only to be wildly disappointed.
I feel like movie renditions of books can either be absolutely amazing or completely horrible. I imagine a big reason behind this is the pressure to appeal to a mainstream audience who hasn’t read the books but may see the movie. But then the question is who are you really making the film for? Do you take a chance on that mass appeal or do you want to at least get the core fans of the books to buy a movie ticket?
The fans appreciate the attention to detail. With realistic expectations, we understand that it’s impossible to completely recreate the novel with actors because of the length of the narrative and books being a different media. But we want filmmakers to at least try. We still want a good story, not a patchy mess of random scenes from the book jammed together into an hour and a half of screen time.
I suppose my question for y’all today is what novel series would you hope to see one day as a feature film? And which already existing book to movie adaptation would you like to see redone, and why?
Thanks,
Brandi out!
Last of the Mohicans is a far better movie than the book. The only thing they kept was the title. The hero’s name was changed from Natty Bumppo to Hawkeye. The plot was changed to a love story. The book was so bad that Mark Twain wrote a hilarious review about all its literary shortcomings.
I would really like to see a movie or better yet, a series of Ben Aaronovitch’s Peter Grant series. It would have to be a BBC production, though and I would be worried that anyone other than the Dr. Who people might miss the funny, funny way they are written.
I didn’t think The Dresden Files were so bad, but the series was ended way too soon, before the characters could grow.
And any AuthorLords books or Pern or Michelle Sagara’s Chronicles of Elantra would be great. I also wonder if it might be possible to do Ann Leckie’s Ancillary Justice series — the books are marvellous in how the gender usage is turned on its head and I’m not sure how that would translate onto the screen.
I have to say, though, that I worry when a book I love gets on the big or small screen. My mind already has its own viewpoints about characters, etc. and seeing it crystallized by someone else doesn’t always work.
+one on the Elantra chronicles but it would have to be done right! With the authors approval!
Big +1 on the Peter Grant series!!!! Wouldn’t Trevor Noah be terrific? I don’t even know whether he is an actor but it’s his voice in my head for Peter. Not sure about Nightingale, maybe Edward Petherbridge. He was a wonderful Kord Peter Wimsey.
Lord!!! Peter Wimsey
+one on dragons of Pern, but a negative for Elantra for me. At book 10 I got to the point I really started to dislike the main character’s inability to grow up.
I would love to see the Elentra books as a Netflix series. You need time to build that fantastic world and a 90 min movie wouldn’t do any of the books justice.
Totally agree with this! Netflicks might also be able to put some character growth by the end of the series too ?
I second (or rather third) the suggestion for the Elentra series to made into a TV show (preferably on Netflix) over a move series. It’s definitely one of those book series that would benefit from an extended telling over all at once in a 2 hour movie.
I loved the Percy Jackson, it was the reason i picked up the book series. I’m not saying the movie was a very good adaptation, but as a movie it was really good and made you want to read the books.
Worlds worst adaptation in all of history is the live action remake of Avatar the Last Airbender!!! Good god that was horrific! Main characters were the wrong race, names pronounced the wrong way, the dialogue was horrible, the actors were wooden, they threw information at us, condensed a full 20 episodes into and hour and half film. But its looked pretty.
Followed by the atrocity known as Ella Enchanted. Loved the casting, but they butchered the story.
I would like to see both redone, and im getting my wish with airbender. Thank you Netflix!
I would like tamora pierces tortall series adapted, but not as a movie, a nice mini series. Per quartet of course. Same goes for Kate and Innkeeper.
I would love to see Tamora Pierce but I can see them ruining it too easily.
If Studio Ghibli made movies of Grace Dravens books Eidolon and Radiance I think they would be amazing!
+1!!!!!
Studio Ghibli made Howl’s Moving Castle, and, beautiful as the movie was, they butchered the book. Almost nothing of Diana Wynne Jones’s world-building and ideas was left. So be careful with that wish.
Hayao Miyazaki and Studio Ghibli often said in the interviews that there are two ways to go from a book to a movie:
1) take inspiration from the book (of the created world) and create one’s own story
or
2) to adapt the book and, in this case, to respect the flow as close as possible to the chapters.
Hayao Miyazaki always asked to note “inspired” on the film posters. He was honest with that.
I checked a bit. Movie posters say “based on”, not “inspired”. Wikipedia says “loosely based on”. I guess that’s fair enough. Character names were the same, there was a moving castle and a curse.
Castle in the Air wasn’t even recognizable
Actually on howls moving castle I was disappointed with the book when I read it since I love the movie ? the book is definitely completely different, and if I hadn’t loved the movie so much as it was I would have liked the book more.
The Totoro book is the same, but I’ve hesitated to read the books from all the other movies!! I dont want to ruin either one lol
Ooo good one! +1
Question for discussion: Was there ever a movie adaptation that you enjoyed more than the book it was adapted from?
For me personally, while I enjoyed Neil Gaiman’s Stardust as a book, I loved the movie adaptation so much better! And I’ve already seen it like fifty times…<3
The Princess Bride was a mediocre book, but a very entertaining movie,
Sadly, the only book I thought was a better movie was The Polar Express. Yes, I know it was a children’s book, only 12-13. pages. Lol! Leave my books alone, please.
I agree on The Polar Express! I really didn’t like the book but “had to” watch the movie with friends – and loved it! It felt like they actually added something to say to the story 😀
I just hate the Polar Express the characters look too human for animated and really are off-putting to me that I just can’t watch it 🙂
Who Framed Roger Rabbit was a great movie. Who Killed Roger Rabbit was a very mediocre book.
The original Blade Runner. It is a fantastic movie.
I’ve always wondered how someone read Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep, which was a total snooze fest (imo), and turned it into such an amazing screenplay!
Good examples offered so far. I have to say the 90s version of The Man in the Iron Mask. Mostly unrecognizable but I HATED the book. I was dragged to the movie by friends and pleasantly surprised. I really like that movie.
I agree! And I like how Neil gaiman approvednof the alternate version of stardust!!
I was very disappointed with the tv rendition of sword of truth series. If they had only talked to me first… I also hated what they did with the Midnight, Texas series. Man I loved every one of those books and series. So disappointed. Now True Blood was pretty good even though they departed from the books. The acting was great and the stories were good until they ran out of ideas. I will nevah forget Russell Edgington. He was such a hoot.
Like to see:
Megan Whalen Turner – The Thief series
Lois Bujold -the Vorkosigan series AND the world of the five gods books
Lloyd Alexander – the Taran books
Seanan McGuire – the Incryptid series
Redone correctly —
The Wizard of Oz
any classic book that has been “Disney-fied”
MWT’s The Thief series is in my top 5, but I don’t know of any actors other than Robert Sheehan who could play Gen.
Lois McMaster Bujold, absolutely. Tho it would probably take a Peter Jackson to meld all the connected stories. Wouldn’t that be fun?
But at least we‘ve seen a Miles out there. Peter Dinklage, although they would have to hurry up with filming- he’s in his forties now and the first books with young Miles … difficult.
Disney butchered the one Lloyd Alexander book from the Chronicles of Pyrdain, The Black Cauldron. The book is about growing up during war and learning about true honor and sacrifice. The pauper prince who is so obnoxios about his station making him better than others tries to steal credit for retrieving the cauldron then redeems his honor by sacrificing his life to help defeat the big bad. Disney completely cut out his character and another who died on this quest. Instead they kill the non-human semi pet character Gurgi who had nothing needing to be redeemed.
I’d like to see this series redone as a miniseries but only if they can get the central themes right.
I always worry when a book I love gets made into a movie. I usually try to see it and keep in mind it’s not the book. (I told my Mom after seeing the Bourne Identity that it was a good movie if you just kept in mind it wasn’t the book.)
My favorite movie adapted from a book was Dashiell Hammet’s Thin Man. There are parts where the dialog is verbatim from the book. William Powell and Myrna Loy were fantastic in the movie, their chemistry was wonderful. Plus she was shown as his equal in the marriage in the 1930’s! Hollywood created multiple sequels and whoever wrote them really got the characters right especially since there was only one book to work from.
Yes to Miles!!! And I really would love to see Caz and Isa on screen too!!!
I would love to see J D Robb’s Eve Dallas brought to the screen with the actress who played ‘Jane Rizzoli’ playing Eve. Who would play Rourke though is a puzzle.
Huh huh. No way. I don’t think she is an Eve Dallas.
But I do agree about the movie.
This one would be very nice. The problem I see, is that the character of Eve Dallas grows over all (!) the books. There are 46 and counting … I would be afraid they would try to put all the development into one movie, but as a crime series I guess it would be wonderful.
Ooh.. I would love to see JD Robb’s Eve Dallas books in a movie or a series even. I have to agree that a series probably has more potential to do justice to the books.
My favorite book adaptation has to be The Stand by Stephen King. The mini-series was amazing.
Thinking about it, maybe a TV series would be better!
RE Eve Dallas: No, No, NO!!! As stated by others above, I, too, have mental pictures of all the characters in this continuing series, and I want to keep them and their wonderful-ness as I have imagined them while enjoying each book over the past 24 years . Selfish? Yes!, but let me keep “my” Eve, Roarke, Peabody, Mavis, McNabb, etc.
Daniel Craig
Too old to play Roarke, but he’d make a fantastic Chief Tibble.
I’d love to see either of Sarah J. Maas’s two storylines on either TV or the movie theater. I understand that her Throne of Glass series has been optioned; don’t know if anything has been done on that yet. I hope so!
I don’t want to see any of my favorite books on film, because in my experience, there is a 90% chance (or more) that the film will suck, or will at least disappoint me. I agree with others that Innkeeper and Hidden Legacy could be great if done properly, but since I am pessimistic that it would be done “properly”, I hope that no IA stories are done on film.
Maybe some creative genius could take a crappy book with a few promising points and make it into a good film.
Apologies to the authorlords, for wishing away a potential source of income. On the positive side, my wishes don’t appear to hold undue influence on the universe. LOL
Hands down it has to be Carrie Vaughn’s Kitty Norville series. All those great werewolves and vampires somehow just making it through another crazy day. It’s always a fantastic story of Kitty just being true to herself—and standing up for the underdogs (no matter their species!). Each book is a fabulous adventure into itself. I think that the grit and love could totally come off on-screen…I’d love to hear/see her show ‘Midnight Hour’…Kitty the werewolf just helping out…
I go back and forth on this. In the end, I think some books are ‘too much’ for a movie.
It’s a delicate trade off. In a movie you have big budgets for flashy fx, but limited time so things are squished and condensed. A tv series allows tine to fully flesh out a atory, but you sacrifice the fx budget.
And if a series is massive, you run into other potential pitfalls as you won’t keep the same writers, producers and directors which can cost you in continuity. For a recent example, look at The Force Awakens and The Last Jedi. If you were to take a popular series like Kate Daniels or The Dresden Files, you would likely end up with a mess after the third or forth film.
Then you have the question of whether of not the person adapting the series knows the material. For a good example, look at The M CU. It’s spear headed by a comic book geek who grew up into a producer/director. He knows and appreciates the heroes and does his best to do a faithful adaptation. If you gave something like Dresden to someone who only bothered to read Storm Front because that was the book he was adapting and didn’t bother to hire a fan of the material for continuity he’d likely do something stupid like merge Karin Murphy and Susan Rodriguez into one character because he didn’t realize that their story archs in the following books make that impossible.
For film, stick with single of short series. Nevada andRogan would do well as a trilogy of films. For longer series with the glut of characters that come from them, go with television or leave them in the mind.
I’m looking forward to to The Rook series and hope any of the series I love only get made on Netflix or HBO types of channels or SyFy. I really enjoyed the first Twilight movie but maybe not the rest.
Wait, what? The Rook series? Is that the book by Daniel O’Malley or something else entirely? Because I LOVE his books, that would be AWESOME!
Well said, couldn’t agree more.
Ursula K Le Guin’s A Wizard of Earthsea is a story I think all young teenagers should read. I was so excited for the film, however SciFi slaughtered it! They tried to make it a Harry Potter rip off rather than the amazing story it is. I’d still like to see it done right. It’s a novella, so it’s about perfect for a movie!
Is Wizard a novella? I always thought it was “fantasy novel for kids” length. Just like Lloyd Alexander’s Prydain books or the Narnia books.
There are far too many that miss the mark. Primarily due to removal of important storyline and characters, bad scripting, poor casting, and even worse directing and editing. But I’ll just moan about the two most recent for me that left an after taste:
1. The ghastly waste called the live action The Last Airbender movie. Extremely disappointed!!! I appreciate the attempt but I wish it had never happened. I think some things might always be better in animation versus live action anyway.
2. Another HUGE, GROSS INJUSTICE for me was the lamentable, over simplified screen version of one of my top three favorite books. When I heard there was to be a movie (in my lifetime no less) I was so flipping excited. But I told everyone that even with the magic of CGI and digital clarity I seriously doubted it would be done well. I was so right. I ABSOLUTELY loathe what they did with Orson Scott Card’s ENDER’S GAME. The omission of his siblings, their complex relationships, and their genius socio-political scheming on a galaxy scale was so glaring. That’s at least half of the book. This book sparked the wonderful series Speaker For The Dead. The movie watchers don’t get even a hint of what else there is they are missing out on. *sigh*
For the ones I want to see on screen if done very well:
1. Would love to see Anne McCaffrey’s Pern world come to life.
2. Also any of the three Ilona Andrew’s series but in this order: The Edge, Kate Daniels or The Innkeeper.
3. David Weber’s War God’s Own series with Bahzhell Bahnarkhson, or an Honorverse story or one from Saganami Island series.
4. Mercedes Lackey’s Valdemar world, especially Arrows of the Queen series. Or the Joust series with its dragons.
5. Patricia Briggs’ Mercy Thompson or Omega series.
6. Anything of Octavia Butler, Marjorie Liu, and Eileen Wilks.
7. Grace Draven’s Radiance and Eidolon books.
8. Re-do of Dune, Battlefield Earth and Dresden Files but as a movie. And Star Wars chapters 1-3 and now 8. hahahaha
A re-do of Dune is supposedly already on its way! https://www.popularmechanics.com/culture/movies/a25889196/dune-rumors-news/
Yippee! Thanks Maria! Keeping fingers crossed that it is so much better.
Strangejoyce if you have Netflix I would suggest looking up their version of avatar the last air bender. Not sure if it is currently airing or in the process of being created, but I here it is going to be amazing.
I think if anyone did the Kate Daniels series it would have to be something like HBO or Starz because there is way too much in each book for one 2 hour movie.
Okay, Valdemar would make a great series. The hard part would be deciding which set of books.
Mercy Thompson would be a good one as well. Much for the same reason as I would like to see the Kitty Norville books adapted. I like the idea of taking on the introduction of the preternatural world to the normies.
At the risk of offending the purists, I like what they’ve done with GoT. A lot has been wither left out or condensed, but the show is still enjoyable. With the right production crew and a home that will allow for flexibility in how many episodes you need for a “season” along with a sufficient budget, any of the above three could be done well.
I became a book worm at the age if 12, we had just moved country’s where I didn’t know the language or anyone, it was the summer and this was before cable and the internet. There was on TV a BBC series Jane Eyre with Roger Moore in it. Only problem I would miss episodes. When my Gran came to visit i asked her to bring books, Jane Eyre being one of them, same lot of books included the first three Discworld books by Terry Pratchett. I still sometimes see a movie or a TV show and then read the book. Bernard Cornwell’s Sharpe series, the tv mini series they did starring Sean Bean was very entertaining but very different from the books but it did introduce me to the books I wouldn’t have read otherwise.
The Narnia movies were very well done i think. I think Pern would be amazing on either Tv or movies, makes me really hope that happens. Wheel of Time…if it got the same type of treatment that GoT received then maybe but on the whole i dont think it would work to many different cultures, there would be a lot of editing.
I would love to see a remake of Willow, maybe…i still love the original story and acting but the special effects while cutting edge at the time are cringe worthy now.
Ok so the movie of Ender’s Game was bad bad bad but what if they were to make either movies or a tv series of Ender’s Shadow? I think that could be really good if written well.
Yes, Bean’s story is fascinating on its own. A series would be better not just a single movie.
“which book to bring to the big (or small) screen?” is a good way to waste some time and have some fun, but the important question is “who will bring it to the big (or small) screen?”. There are thousands of books, or series, that could make great movies (or TV shows) but the odds of getting a Peter Jackson Rings Trilogy quality product are very small.
Brandi, I agree with your take on the lightning thief (did you watch the sea of monsters?). I would love for the to do to the Percy Jackson series what they did for the Mortal Instruments series. I wasn’t a fan of the city of bones movie, but what I saw of the tv series was great.
I can’t think of any books or series that I want to be made into films ( mainly because all my favorite novels already are films as well).
I knew going into it that the movie The Seeker: The Dark is Rising was going to be bad, but I loved the books by Susan Cooper and wanted to at least support an adaptation attempt. I shouldn’t have bothered, it
I am not a big movie go-er, and usually if I’ve read the book I skip on the movie! But if I had to vote on a book that might actually tempt me to go see the movie, it would be Exo, the continuation of Steven Goulds Jumper series. Not only is it all “rah! Girlpower!” But I thought the ideas/ambition of the main character was terrific. And let’s face it, I wanna be Cent…or Cory….or Cent! Heck I’d be willing to be any of Cents friends 🙂
I think books that are series are best as a tv series rather than a movie. Movies cannot do a book justice. Google says that the average movie manuscript is 90 to 100 pages – a page is 1 minute of screen time. That just isn’t enough time to flesh out a book. Then there are all the focus groups which change characters around until they are not recognizable until the only thing the movie and book have in common is the same title.
So I think tv series are the way to go – time to play out the plot lines, character and world growth etc. but I think they should have a planned arc with a final date in mind rather than “jumping the shark” and driving it into the ground.
I’d love to see any of my favorite authors made into a tv series – Ilona Andrews, Grace Draven, Faith Hunter, CE Murphy, Patricia Briggs, Jeaniene Frost. Also DB Jackson’s (The Thieftaker) and Sam Witt (Horror genre – Pitchfork County)
Patricia Briggs’ Alpha and Omega series would be a great tv series. If the casting were right. And talk about the old days Andre Norton’s Witch World series could really be something special.
I can’t find my comment to post this under, but I had a silly thought. If KD ever gets picked up (no matter the format), and Ilona Andrews retains some sort of creative control (I’m imagining a perfect world here), can I just say +1000 for Nathan Fillon for Beau the Sherriff? I was thinking about casting, and immediately started giggling when this popped in my head. Benedict Cumberbatch would make an excellt Saimain too, imo.
Can’t text
Too busy cackling!
They need to redo Vampire Academy & Eragon.
Two of my favorite series and the movies completely ruined ’em.
They did not catch the essence of the books at all and lost an awesome chance for several movies, respectively.
As a child, I remember thinking that Ella Enchanted by Gail Carson Levine would make a marvelous film. I was equally excited when they announced it. Yet it had to be the absolute worst rendition of book to screen I have ever seen. They changed the entire film and plot to seem mainstream, while failing miserably.
I also couldn’t get past the change of character relationships in Michael Crichton’s Timeline. I felt that changing the relationship between characters was completely unnecessary and changed the entire plot in a negative way.
I would love to see Tamora Pierce’s work on the big screen, but I could see it going horribly wrong, as mentioned above.
I would also like to see Sherwood Smith’s Crown Duel / Court Duel made into a mini-series. It has potential.
OMG Ella Enchanted was the worst ever!!!!!
I used that book in my classroom for years to help girls see strong women in fairy tales and introduce writing your own version of a fairy tale. Was so excited to see it made into a movie. It was horrible!!!
Favorite book to film: Outlander! Starz has done an excellent job! I don’t think it would have translated well to just a movie because we needed 12 hours for just the first book.
Worst: Most of the Stephen King movies. Stand by Me and Delores Claiborne being the exceptions.
Dolores Claiborne is just a harrowing movie. That really threw me for a loop. Kathy Bates was amazing.
I would love to see the first three Kate Daniels books. As much as I love the entire series, I think they (being “Hollywood” with quotes and a capital H) are guaranteed to screw up anything after Magic Strikes. If you think on it the first three books with the addition of dinner scene where Curran shows up and panties with bows are admired would be a great trilogy. Not to mention every time I see Iron Man or Winter Soldier I think a Scarlett Johansen could totally nail Kate ( a decade older is fine… I think a little experience on a woman is good) I got no ideas for Curran though… maybe Chris Evans? No not a&%hole enough… Just a thought.
I like how Neil Gaiman gets involved in his screen adaptations even when the changes are made like stardust he approves them! I love his books!
Worst adaptation ever: Eragon. I hadn’t read the books yet and watched the movie saying ok too much time on that… you skipped something here… ok nope a lot of something and I don’t know what but it was important!!! And hated the movie!!!
I’ve also found that a movie doesn’t have to follow the original book closely, as long as it captures the feel and intention of the book. That’s why I love the Lord of the Rings and even the Hobbit films. They manage to capture Tolkien’s spirit. I would love to see more Dark Tower films, or a TV series. Because, again, they did not follow the plot in the books, merely a possible plot because we know that there are many realities where Roland tries and each time he fails, the quest restarts.
Sorry, forgot to leave my name.
Hi Brandi, after the fantastic effort of Peter Jackson with Lord of the Rings, I looked forward to The Hobbit. Sadly, in trying to emulate the epic journey of the Lord of the Rings, they missed the wonderful story that was included in The Hobbit.
For me the worst adaptation of book to movie was Host. Host was a wonderful and thought provoking novel by Stephanie Meyer. Her own fame got in the way though from the Twlight hooplah and the wrong readers picked up the book. The novel was beautiful. The movie was so very bad I had to turn it off.
I have always thought that Inn Keeper would translate magnificently to the big screen or even Netflix or HBO. I’d love to see that. I remember the blog posts about which actors and actresses would cast best. That was fun!!!
I know the Naomi Novik Temeraire (Napoleanic military dragon) books have been optioned by Peter Jackson a decade ago- that would be amazing.
I felt personally attacked by what they did to Phillip Pullman’s Golden Compass…just…whyyyy?
Did you know that BBC is doing a series of Phillip Pullmans trilogy??? And that James Mcavoy plays the uncle and Eleven from Stranger Things plays Lyra!!
My choice for film adaption would be the Dragon Riders of Pern series. I do know that WB tried to purchase it at one time and was shot down because of their campy plans for it. It would have to be multiple movies or an excellent TV series to encompass it all.
My wish for a remake of a bad version would be Relic. I can only say, I’m glad most of the important characters were killed off so they couldn’t do any of the other books in the series.
Yeah, the WB is not the place for more ‘serious’ and ‘adult’ sci-fi and fantasy. They’d make a hash of it.
I doubt anyone will read this but I finally figured out why so many movie adaptations are so bad. It was a 2 stage process.
First was an appendix on a reprint of Blood Debt after the tv series came out, basically the original adaptation by the author and it’s devolution as the committee brainstormed until only 6 lines of the original remained. (The series at least remained fairly true to the spirit of the books so I can’t complain too much).
The second stage was seeing the special feature attached to the studio Ghibli version of Howl’s Moving Castle, in which the US producer was raving about Miyazaki’s genius…except every detail he mentioned was something from the book. And I realized that he not only hadn’t read the book, he didn’t know it existed!
And that’s why Hollywood adaptations suck rocks: Hollywood is illiterate, they don’t read the book – only the screenplay, and then they brainstorm until the screenplay is unrecognizable.
This doesn’t happen with every movie adaptation. Adaptations made in other countries tend to get it right – the BBC version of Pride and Prejudice, for example is outstanding, and of course there’s LOTR. But Hollywood fails repeatedly.
I would like to see movie adaptations of many books, with The Cloud Roads by Martha Wells at the head of the list…but not by Hollywood.
My rule-of-thumb: if the book comes first, read the book; if the movie comes first, see the movie. There are rare exceptions in which they are equally good in their own right (the BBC Pride and Prejudice, LOTR, Captain Blood, and Man on Fire come to mind), and most rare examples where the movie adaptations are better than the book (The Princess Bride, The Ghost and the Darkness, the 90s version of Man in the Iron Mask, and the 90s version of Last of the Mohicans) but in the vast majority of cases the adaptation, whether book (The Lost Boys) or movie (all those pointed out in previous posts) are most likely to be a big disappointment.
Wow there are some great ideas posted here Brandi!
I think , The Ship who Sang, another Anne M .book would make great si fi film
Kate Daniels series would be lovely, casting would be key and a great screen play.
I agree Radience , would be cool as a film ,it’s such a super beauty and the beast twist,I loved the book.
As the worlds biggest Innkeeper fan I would love those ,casting is key again and a good screen play….
I went nuts with all the story changes in Charlain Harris’s Sookie Stackhaus series in the TV, True Blood.I loved the books they had lots of humor,it was all lost ….
I kept thinking,he does not do that,she does not do that…it drove me wacky!
I hate the Lee Child , Jack Reacher movies,the reason Reacher can do what he does is his size , blond and speaks French…Tom C is just not Jack Reacher casting is big!I love most of the books…peter Jackson did well with the Hibbit and the lord of the rings,and the Harry Potters were well done in film version…
I’m torn on this subject. I’m almost always disappointed in the movie or TV series if I enjoyed the book(s). I would love to see KD as a premium cable or streaming series, but I’m afraid of what they would do to it. For instance, the “Women of the Otherworld” series that began with the book “Bitten” was completely butchered when shown on TV. The LOTR series had terrific production values but I think too much was omitted or changed around. Had I never read the books, I might have liked the adaptations better.
BUT. If somebody filmed KD and they stuck exactly to the books, there would be nothing new to watch. Would we really want that?
For the first either Honor Harrington’s series, Bujold’s Vorkosiegan or the Alera codex. The second question definately the Dresden Files
Some very good book to film adaptions (though not UF)
Miss Fisher (Kerry Greenwood),Nero Wolfe (2000 PBS version).
The hard part with book to film is I am so rarely engaged in the film medium.
IA’s I think Innkeeper would make a wonderful movie series, KD would be fun as a series.
Sherrilyn Kenyon’s Dark Hunters could be interesting as a showtime or HBO series. A lot of lore and differing characters and lots of sex and romance and killing for them.
YA – Tamora Pierce’s series just because you have so many strong self-sufficient women especially in the Tortall books. Meredith Ann Pierce just because, though those may be far more difficult to pull off correctly. Diane Duane’s Wizard series (and the Cat wizards)
Personally I found True Blood too far from the series in the focus moving from more of a first person view point to an ensemble cast.
I would like to see “Downblow Station” by C.J. Cherry as a mini series.There is so much going on in that universe. Also the House War series by Michelle West (Sahara) which covers about an 18 year span.
I think that to truly make a proper adaptation the writers/director have to truly believe in and love the source novels.
Game of Thrones is the classic example: completely involving the original author and editing down and compressing the storyline into something that works incredibly on screen.
I doubt I’ll ever read the books but by the deities I love the show.
What I don’t get is why, when GOT is probably the hottest property in 10 years, why isn’t someone developing Dragonriders of Pern? Pern done with the same production values as GOT would go stellar!
I’d love to see Innkeeper on screen. Dina creating rooms just by a thought – the SFX guys would have a field day. But I don’t think the studios would ever “get” the concept.
And as someone mentioned above – Princess Bride is an example of film totally rising above, while still staying true to, the source material.
Miss Fisher Mysteries. Absolutely love the books.
Post WW1 Australia–no CGI necessary. 3 seasons-really good casting, FABULOUS costuming. Scriptwriters should be shot…they took the book pages, shredded them, and tossed in air to land on pre-glued sheets. Added new characters, ignored other characters, changed some relationships.
Visually great, period language, but does not resemble the books at all.
Andre Norton’s ‘Beastmaster’ was a classic sci-fi turned into sword&sorcery-absolutely the ONLY thing brought from the book was animal communication ability. And they made 3 of them ?.
Personally, I would love to see the Percy Jackson series and the movie Eragon redone. Especially Eragon. I loved all four of the Inheritance series and was absolutely thrilled to discover the movie. But when I finally saw it, i realiZed that it didnt cover even one-tenth of the book. It was the worst movie adaptations of all times, even worse than the Twilight series, i would say..
The worst adaptation I’ve ever seen was Blood and Chocolate. The movie itself wasn’t bad on it’s own, (I’d have to say that falls to movies like Percy Jackson or The Immortal Instruments), kind of an indie film feel to it, but compared to the books…. so many things done wrong/utterly changed.
They made the bad guy who tried to kill the MC into her love interest, the surprise hero helping the MC behind the scenes into a murderous bad guy, turned the MC’s parents’ accidental death into a murder done and/or covered up by her pack, and changed the message of the book from Accepting All Parts Of Yourself into… I’m not even sure what. The main plot of the book was the MC thought she was blacking out and killing humans, and so was struggling with telling her pack, knowing they’d have to put her down if she was, with an underlining storyline of her trying to find the balance between her human and wolf side, both of which she loved and found beauty in but hadn’t quite figured out how to properly mesh. The main plot of the movie was a werewolf pack makes a monthly habit of hunting humans for fun/sport and the MC, who’s always hated being a werewolf, decides she doesn’t want to anymore, thus confirming the fact that all werewolves are evil and she’s right to reject her heritage and ignore it in order to live strictly as a human, all while falling in love with the human boy who tried to kill her in the books.
I really want them to redo the Percy Jackson books and actually do them right. And with the rise of streaming services doing to short series, I’d love to see them do the books like that.
I typically don’t watch movies, especially if they were originally a book. However, there 2 I can think of off the top of my head that I’ve seen. The Horse Whisperer was much better as a movie than the book, but still can’t say I actually liked it. I greatly enjoyed Sahara written by Clive Cussler and was rather disgusted that I even spent the money to go see it when turned into a movie.
There really isn’t anything I’d actually want to see turned into a movie or series as it never fails that it gets butchered.