Great Books turned into bad movies

[LynneSin]

I know I was so looking forward to "Memoirs of a Geisha" when it came out as a movie and well, it was just awful. The actresses they used for the main 3 female roles were all very talented but none of them were Japanese and from what I read both the Japanese and Chinese were upset about that (Japanese - why couldn't they use Japanese actresses, Chinese- how could Chinese actresses be a part of a Japanese movie). And several of the key plotlines were just ruined. But I will say that the cinematography and costumes used were just amazing.

What favorite books of yours were ruined by the movie made.

[hifiguy]

1. Hannibal.

It's not so much that the movie was bad - but it was grossly incomplete. And the ending of the book, which was the only possible resolution of the relationship between Starling and Lecter given everything Thomas Harris had written about these two characters, was discarded in its entirety. It has been said that the proper ending is unfilmable. This is so only if one places, as is the usual practice, commerce above art.

I never had any problem with Julianne Moore as Starling - I thought she was excellent in the role and Hopkins was Hopkins, but the ending just felt tacked on compared to the creepy psychodrama of the book.

[dogknob]

10. Not to mention the complete omission of Verger's sister n/t

[ohiosmith]

2. The Choir Boys. Not a great book so much as a great read. The movie was an exercise in mediocrity.

[NRaleighLiberal]

3. Quite a few....

Hotel New Hampshire (John Irving)
World According to Garp (ditto) - not awful, but no way the book could be matched
The Stand (Stephen King) - didn't care for many of the choices for actors/actresses, again - no way a movie could possibly be made of such an incredible book

Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress - amazing book, quite a bad movie.

probably others, but those come to mind first!

[LynneSin]

4. I think it's impossible to do a good John Irving book adaptation

I mean the casting for both Garp and Hotel were perfect but Irving books are so full of small details that Irving movies tend to lose those details. I loved Glenn Closs as Jenny Fields (Garps Mom) and John Lithglow was divine as Roberta Muldoon (former Philadelphia Eagle Tight-end now cross dresser friend of Jenny Fields).

I think they almost came close with "The Cider House Rules" but I thought they made Candy a bit too raunchy which ruined the love affair between Candy and Homer. I thought in the book it was a very tender love affair whereas the movie made it seem like 2 horny kids.

The adaptation for "Prayer for Owen Meany" was so bad they changed the name - I think it was "Simon Birch". There seems to been 2 movies about a boy who had stunted growth right around the same time.

[NRaleighLiberal]

16. I loved Cider House rules movie - but just adored the book.

And I read Owen Meany and loved it - but when we listened to it a few years later as a book on CD....just remarkable.

Actually, I even love Irving's Water Method Man - wonderful book (hilarious in parts, so sad in others).

Irving has a way of really tugging at my heart!

[Logical]

71. Cider House Rules is one of my favorite movies ever!

[sarge43]

5. I, Robot n/t

[Neoma]

67. They pretty much took the name and ran with that one.

[Taverner]

6. Owen Meany (which became Simon Birch)

The Mambo Kings

House of the Spirits

[Justice wanted]

7. Girl with the Pearl Earing. They could have done that movie so much better. The Other

Boylen Girl was another one.

[Cass]

8. The Sicilian (Mario Puzo)

The movie was god-awful. Really disappointing because the book was very good.

[Bruce Wayne]

9. DaVinci Code was ruined by being too faithful to the book.

Some books-to-movies I'm eager to see--Watchmen, Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, Water for Elephants--because I want to see how a director takes the themes of the book and interprets it only the screen. I can usually know "who dunnit" and still get pulled along by a compelling interpretation.

The DaVinci Code was different by not being any different from the book. Ron Howard didn't bring anything new to the story. Nothing surprised me, nothing looked different from how it was already laid out in my head from the first reading. It was meant to be a big budget event movie, but it ended up boring me.

[dogknob]

12. Dan Brown is such a mind-bogglingly shitty writer...

... that The Da Vinci Code is one of the few instances where the film was actually superior.

Brown's gift is his ability to relate complicated subject matter to an audience who, as we are seeing from the racist reactions to the casting of The Hunger Games, apparently need plot and character details spoon-fed to them over and over... and over again before they (maybe) sink in.

[Bladian]

14. I like his books.

maybe I'm just low-brow. Heh.

[dogknob]

20. Hey I read the whole thing...

...and read one of the sequels. The subject matter itself is fascinating. It's the remedial high-school-lit-class presentation that sucks.

[NRaleighLiberal]

27. Yes, I agree. And casted as Hanks and Tautou....yikes!

[NRaleighLiberal]

17. Dan Brown wants so bad to be Robert Ludlum...but isn't within a light year.

Laughably funny books, really, in how hard he tries...and misses!

[Phentex]

26. Agreed!

Dan Brown novels are too predictable.

[Chan790]

28. Dan Brown is a character in Foucault's Pendulum. Not a compelling one.

That was Umberto Eco's response when asked in an interview if he'd read The DiVinci Code and what he'd thought of it, to compare his book to Brown's in terms of content and subject.

He refuses to read it, thinks nobody else should either.

Edit: He doesn't literally mean that Dan Brown is one of the characters, he's saying something akin to "Dan Brown isn't a serious writer or scholar. He's an idiot who believes his own imaginary theories."

[myrna minx]

50. Is Brown a cretin, a fool, a moron, or a lunatic?

[DFW]

11. Prince of Tides

Maybe it's just because I'm from the South and Barbra Streisand is not, but I feel she just totally
missed the point of the book and understood none of Pat Conroy's characters. I loved the book,
but hated the movie. For all I know, Streisand loved the book, too, but she was lost in trying to
make it come alive on the screen. For all I know, maybe anyone trying to do that would have failed
with that book.

[Bladian]

13. Eragon, hands down. nt

[Tom_Foolery]

15. The Bible...

Just sayin'!

[Dragonbreathp9d]

52. I liked Jesus Christ Superstar though

[Tom_Foolery]

82. Good point!

[Blue_Tires]

62. Ben Hur kicked ass...

Oh, wait...

[Tom_Foolery]

83. Haha!!!

[NRaleighLiberal]

18. I think that they are finally shooting Ludlum's Matarese Circle (my favorite of his) - casting

Denzel Washington and Tom Cruise, from what I've read (though it was some time ago - could have changed that).

Remarkable book - all ready to be disappointed by the movie - the book is that good.

[KamaAina]

19. Bonfire of the Vanities

In fact, once elected, I will propose the "Bonfire of the Vanities Act" which makes this paractice a Federal offense.

[underpants]

21. I thought that Buck Henry did a good job with an impossible book - "Catch 22"

I live that movie. Plus it inspired "the only living boy in New York"ich is a GREAT song

[geardaddy]

37. Agreed.

That book doesn't lend itself well to a screenplay, but Henry pulled it off.

[pipi_k]

22. Just about all of them, IMO

but one of the worst as far as ruining my memory of the book was "The Far Pavilions".

Amy whats-her-face just didn't cut it as "Anjuli".

[dogknob]

23. Lawrence Block has taken a beating in Hollywood.

1. Burglar -- Casting Whoopi Goldberg as Bernie Rhodenbarr was already a complete 180 from the book, which is not necessarily "strike 1," but the screenplay was apparently written by people who used The Burglar In The Closet as a coaster rather than a reference.

2. Eight Million Ways To Die -- Jeff Bridges was probably born to play Matthew Scudder, Block's fractured avenging-angel private eye. Oliver Stone wrote the first draft of the screenplay. They probably had a great movie right there, but that's not what ended up on the screen. The production was apparently so submerged in cocaine usage that someone had the idea to change the setting to LA and introduce blow as a plot device. Director Hal Ashby (his final film) was in terminal free-fall while making this so-bad-its-worse film.

[banned from Kos]

24. 'The Magus' - on the Canon of the top 100 novels of the 20th century.

AAWWWFFUULLLLL MOVIE!

Worthless.

Read the novel though.

[IcyPeas]

25. Interview with the Vampire /eom

[Orrex]

29. Atlas Shrugged

Oh, wait. That was a shitty book turned into a shitty movie.

[OriginalGeek]

30. Every Heinlein book so far

with a semi-qualified, sort-of exception for Starship Troopers - the movie was still shit but it had Neil Patrick Harris in it and I love that guy.

[jmowreader]

31. Starship Troopers made you wonder...

why, after they got their asses handed to them on Big K, the Federation didn't start passing out 81mm mortars to the cap troopers.

[Taverner]

66. Paul Verhoven has a time machine, and that movie was an allegory on the Iraq War

http://www.cracked.com/article_19259_6-mind-blowing-ways-starship-troopers-predicted-future.html

[Dragonbreathp9d]

53. I'd love to see a good Stranger or Time Enough for Love

I'm thinking either Steve Buschemi or tommy lee jones for Lazarus Long

[PassingFair]

32. Lemony Snickett's "A Series of Unfortunate Events"

I much preferred reading these delightful books to my children
than the Harry Potter series.

They were smart, funny and well written.

The movie was a DISASTER.

I wasn't a huge fan of Jim Carrey before the movie, but he
really stank up the screen in this.

[taterguy]

33. HBO's version of A Bright Shining Lie really sucked.

You can't condense an 800 page book into a 2-hour TV movie.

And Bill Paxton was horribly miscast as John Paul Vann. He was just too damn tall. The role needed to go to a short guy, to capture Vann's Napoleanic tendencies.

[mikeSchmuckabee]

34. Anything by Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.

Particularly Breakfast of Champions, Slaughterhouse 5, and Slapstick.

'Mother Night' was a good movie, but I've never read the book. Same with 'Happy Birthday, Wanda June.'

[geardaddy]

36. Mother Night is a great book.

I agree with you on B of C and Slapstick. Slaughterhouse 5 was pretty bad, but of all the movies made from Vonnegut books, I think it's the best attempt.

[Canis Mala]

46. Mother Night is great.

I'm a big fan of the film version of Slaughterhouse 5. I think they did a good job conveying the key points.

[mikeSchmuckabee]

78. I didn't hate Slaughterhouse 5 (the film)

Really loved the book. I'll enjoy Mother Night soon. Thanks.

[mikeSchmuckabee]

77. I've read many Vonnegut books

and enjoyed them all. I will enjoy Mother night soon. Thank u.

[geardaddy]

35. Breakfast of Champions

They shouldn't have had Bruce Willis as the lead.

[Spike89]

41. Agreed, but that was tough material for film n/t

[geardaddy]

42. Yeah, it was.

I just couldn't visualize BW as Wayne Hooper.

[ceile]

38. The Good German

Wonderful spy novel turned into the biggest piece of shit ever. Made one of the main characters into a bad guy and left others out all together.

Devil In a Blue Dress was pretty bad too.

[arbusto_baboso]

39. Dune.

One of the greatest (if not THE greatest) science fiction novels ever written, with layers and layers of subtext and political allusions. Thoroughly ruined by the Dino De Laurentiis piece of crap in the 80s. The sci fi channel's miniseries did a bit better, but still wasn't great.

Of course, many of the things that make the book work so well can't really be translated to the screen...

[RZM]

43. Agreed. The Dino D/David Lynch version sucked.

The only place Paul Atreides should 'make it rain' is a strip club.

[Dragonbreathp9d]

54. I thought the SCIFI miniseries was great

Out of the entire book there was only one thing they skipped entirely which is pretty damn good. Plus the actors in both it and Children were great. I cannot even re-read the book without hearing The Baron Harkkonnen's voice from the flick.

[Spike89]

40. Even Cowgirls Get the Blues/The Postman

Last edited Wed Mar 28, 2012, 06:09 PM - Edit history (1)

It isn't my favorite Tom Robbins book, but I do think it might be the one most likely to have been made into a decent movie, but the movie was horrible.

I also hated what happened to The Postman. Again, not the best book by David Brin, but one of my favorites (it is set in Oregon). When the movie came out, I thought it might grab some of the powerful ideas from the book. Sadly, it not only didn't, in my opinion it seemed to show the opposite viewpoint in more than a few cases. I think that was the biggest disappointment in a book adaptation for me.

edited to change cowboys to cowgirls...oops

[RZM]

44. Most Stephen King movies, with the exception of the Frank Darabont ones

Granted many were made for TV and thus had low budgets and other constraints. And not all of the books were great either. I'd say 'It' is the worst one (movie that is).

[Doctor Who]

47. I second that..

Except Misery, Shawshank and Stand by Me. Love his books, most of his movies, not so much. Tommyknockers and Thinner were the worst by far, IMO.

edit: Still waiting for someone to take a shot at making The Dark Tower series.

[Dragonbreathp9d]

55. Misery and The Green Mile are my exceptions

And I thought rose red was decent (casting wise at least)

[RZM]

57. I liked a few of them

I liked Shawshank and the Mist. I wasn't all that into the Green Mile, but it wasn't bad (I never read it either).

Stand By Me is a classic. Probably the best Stephen King movie. Misery was good too.

The rest, not so much. The Langolier was atrocious, even Bronson Pinchot couldn't save that one

[Dragonbreathp9d]

58. Oh god the langoliers! Hahahahaha!

One of my all time favorite terrible movies

[Chan790]

65. I'm both anticipating and fearful that Ron Howard is making The Dark Tower.

I mean it's either going to be great or fucking awful. It's gone through about 4 studios and 3 producers thus far and not yet begun shooting. Javier Bardem is signed on to play Roland.

[Broken_Hero]

79. Dreamcatcher movie was the worst King book/movie adaptation

I saw the movie before reading it, and I left the movie theater with a "what the fuck did I just watch?" expression on my face. The book was a lot better, and things made a lot more sense. To its credit, the movie was half way decent til the introduction of Kurtz(Morgan Freeman's character).

[RZM]

80. Never saw it, but I've heard really bad things n/t

[Tabasco_Dave]

45. The Magic Christian n/t

[Denninmi]

48. 'Contact' by Carl Sagan.

The novel was very good. The movie with Jodie Foster was just a mess.

[Bertha Venation]

49. Agreed. n/t

[Iggo]

51. A Princess Of Mars.

All copies of the movie "John Carter" should be destroyed.

Also, The Iliad. "Troy" was just so very wrong.

[Dragonbreathp9d]

56. The Half Blood Prince

I about walked out of that shit stain

[XemaSab]

59. I thought the second part of Deathly Hallows was the worst

All the emotion was in the first part; all the action was in the second part.

The series driven by emotion, and Rowling, I love her but she can't write an action scene to save her life.

So what did they do? Played up the action.

It also bugged the hell out of me that they changed the part with Neville and the snake.

The whole thing felt like they brought Chris Columbus back.

I hate to say this because the casting was so brilliant, but it was evident sometime around the third film that they were going to have to remake THE WHOLE THING at some point.

(Seriously, I was fidgeting through the whole film. The fact that I'd finished "A Dance With Dragons" the day before probably also put me in a less-than-charitable mood. )

[Logical]

69. Jaws, The Godfather, Shawshank Redemption!

They all sucked!!!

[XemaSab]

60. Haunting of Hill House remake

What a turkey.

[lovemydog]

61. Bonfire of the Vanities

Tom Wolfe spent years researching his novel that captured the complicated tenor of New York City in the early eighties. The mush of a movie was so bad that an entire book was written about all the screw-ups. Starting with horrible miscasting.

The yuppie guy was supposed to be smart, greedy, venal and self-absorbed - not the overly likable 'everyman' Tom Hanks. The reporter in the book was a brilliant cynical hard-drinking old school journalist, a Pete Hammell type - not the preening, self-conscious Bruce Willis who repeated his tv show Moonlighting schtick. In the book, the judge is a liberal white jewish guy who is so sick of the overcrowded courts that he provides leniency to everyone, based on a real judge in the Bronx. The Hollywood suits wanted Morgan Freeman in something, so they rewrote the role and cast him instead, completely changing what was so interesting about the character. The worst miscasting was the society woman. In the book she was a 'social x-ray' - Wolfe's famous term for the ultra thin, seemingly bored super rich debutantes. This role was given to the bubbly, total L.A. - not at all New York - Melanie Griffith. One example of her horrendous disregard for acting - without telling anyone she went off and got noticeable breast enhancements halfway through the filming, causing them to have to re-shoot several scenes.

[Blue_Tires]

63. That CGI "Beowulf" from a few years back was a major WTF

[geardaddy]

86. I wanna know why they didn't do it in the orignal Anglo-Saxon

with subtitles.

[Mendocino]

64. A Separate Peace-OK book

But a truly terrible film.

[Populist_Prole]

68. Watership Down

The movie wasn't "bad" but seemed too superficial compared to the book.

[dogknob]

70. The film removed...

...nearly all of the spirituality and mythology from the book. By having Hazel-Rah as the hero instead of El-ahrairah, we are left with a depressing, violent story about a bunch of guys who realize they won't be able to continue their escape from tyranny across generations unless they round up some does.

[alphafemale]

73. Did you ever read Plague Dogs?

That was an even worse adaptation.

[dogknob]

89. Yeah. That may have belonged on that "most depressing movies" thread

...from a while back.

When I saw Children of Men, the ending reminded me of the end of the Plague Dogs film.

It would be interesting to see what sort of film would be made of either of those books (or Shardik) now, but that's just not gonna happen.

[tanyev]

72. The Dark is Rising by Susan Cooper

A children's classic that was mutilated beyond recognition in the movie The Seeker.

[Bruce Wayne]

74. How has this thread run three days with no mention of...

The Scarlet Letter starring Demi Moore? It's practically the archetype of classic-book-to-crap-crap-on-film.

[RFKHumphreyObama]

75. Looking for Alibrandi

American audiences for the most part wouldn't have heard of it but it was a very successful, well-written and touching coming of age novel written by an author named Melina Marchetta. It was given as a Christmas present to my sister but I ended up reading it and falling in love with it. It is currently studied in many high schools as part of the literature curriculum in Australia. Due to its popularity and its appeal as a novel, they decided to make it into a movie. Big mistake.

First of all, the movie was produced about a decade after the book was written -fair enough -but they changed the settings and popular culture contained in the novel to reflect the era in which the movie was made so as to appeal to modern teenagers. I can understand why they did that but it not only created some continuity issues (because despite modernizing the era in which the story happened, they kept in parts from the novel that were set in the original age that it was written, meaning that various historical facts about the characters were referenced didn't make sense -very poorly thought out by the scriptwriters). Also I thought that part of the charm of the book was that it fitted in so well into the times in which was written and much of that was lost when it was adapted into the modern age

Secondly, they moved a major event that happened near the end of the novel to the middle of the movie. The major event in question was a defining event in the book and its place near the end of the book was significant to the coming of age experience of the main character of the book. By moving it to the middle of the movie, it lost much of its significance and detracted from the character's evolution that worked so well by having it near the end of the book. I have no idea why they did this -it served no purpose

Thirdly, one of the highlights of me reading the book was how well-written the character of the mother of the main protagonist of the storyline was. Since the protagonist was a teenager and the daughter of a single parent, her mother played a crucial role in the novel and the way she was written was absolutely amazing. She was such a lively, fiery, passionate, amazing woman who had endured much heartbreak and tragedy in her life and yet had emerged from it even stronger and more self-confident than ever. Yet the actress they cast in the movie to play her did so terribly -she was wooden and lacked the depth and substance that made her character so amazing. It was so heartbreaking to see such a great character ruined

Finally, the novel left a number of issues unresolved. That was part of the charm of the novel -that everything was not resolved and wrapped up smoothly, that there was so many unanswered questions that left the reader with a lot to wonder and to think about. Whereas the movie felt the need to resolve every issue and spell it out for the audience. By doing that, it left the story without much of the intrigue that had made it so good.

It made me so furious. The author in question has written a few more novels since then -one of them in particular is just as beautiful and amazing as her first novel. I have learned that they are planning to make it into a movie. Here we go again

[RFKHumphreyObama]

76. An honourable mention should go to almost every Roald Dahl book adapted into a movie

In fact I have yet to see one that I can remember liking. Roald Dahl was a great author and storyteller with some very creative writers. Note to movie producers THAT MEANS THAT HIS STORIES ARE GOOD ENOUGH ON THEIR OWN WITHOUT YOU HAVING TO ADD YOUR OWN STUPID TWISTS TO THE PLOT

I probably should warn that there are some spoilers contained below for those who haven't watched the two movie adaptations of "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory" -the first one with Gene Wilder and the second one with Johnny Depp

Spoilers



















I know that the adaptation of "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory" with Gene Wildere gets panned a lot and not without good reason and I can see why Roald Dahl disliked it but, on the whole, I rather liked it except for one major thing -I didn't like the fact that they made Charlie and his grandfather join the rest of the kids and their parents in disobeying Willy Wonka's instructions. For me, it took away some of the qualities that made both their characters so likeable and was a pointless and unecessary twist which contributed nothing-and in fact detracted -from the movie

The second adaptation by Tim Burton was very good. His take on Willy Wonka and his character was challenging and thought-provoking and I admired how faithful he tried to be to the book and his plot (even though I didn't like his take on the Oompa-loompas) But then he went and added on this stupid backstory to Willy Wonka's life with his dentist father that to me was just lame and unecessary. But even with that, it still would have been great had he not ruined all his efforts to stay faithful to the book at the end by completely changing the moral of the original book to suit his own stupid backstory. He had been doing so well and then he goes and butchers the theme of the original book. It was just so stupid and it destroyed the whole charm of the movie for me

It was said that Roald Dahl never liked the adaptations of his books into movies (there may have been exceptions, I don't know). I don't blame him. For some reason they always feel the need to butcher his great storylines and the movie always suffers as a result

[Burma Jones]

84. I liked Wes Anderson's version of "The Fantastic Mr. Fox"

[PassingFair]

85. Oh, I LOVED Matilda.

My grown children are STILL afraid of "The Trunchbull".

I also liked "The Witches".

[sakabatou]

81. 1984

Ugh...

[dixiegrrrrl]

87. ANY Terry Pratchett/Neil Gaiman/tom Robbins book cannot translate to film.

Period.
It's the writing that makes the books, and that language is not do-able in a movie.

[Marrah_G]

88. Clan of the Cave Bear

I loved the books.... the movie was horrible.

[Codeine]

90. The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.

I loved the actors but what a complete steaming turd that film ended up being.

If we can include comic books then League of Extraordinary Gentlemen is right up there on the Shit List as well. Just dire.