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Books To Movies

Good Morning Everybody,

Ever noticed the influx of movies that are based on books? Maybe this has been a trend for a long time, but lately I've been noticing it more than ever.

For instance, Where The Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak is a beloved children's book, one that I've read and many of my siblings have read and come October 16th it'll be a movie.

I found out that Cloudy With A Chance Of Meatballs is an actual children's novel (by Judi Barrett). I discovered this one day when walking around Barnes & Noble.

The Twilight Saga is expecting the second installment on November 20th (New Moon) and the 3rd one on June 30, 2010 (Eclipse) and there's different speculation about the 4th book (Breaking Dawn) becoming a movie (perhaps in 2 parts). Then, if you go to Stephenie Meyer's website, you'll find out her adult sci-fi, The Host is in the early stages of movie planning.

Not to mention how many Nicholas Sparks books have become movies. To name a few, Message In A Bottle, A Walk To Remember, The Notebook, Nights In Rodanthe; there's 2 more coming out probably in 2010. The Lucky One is in production.

Also, if you look around, you'll find there's various renditions of Jane Austen novels, Pride & Prejudice, Persuasion, Northanger Abbey, Mansfield Park, Sense & Sensibility, to name the titles I've noticed...there might even be more out.

I've also found out a book I recently read and loved (and do recommend), Alex Flinn's Beastly is due in theaters on July 2010.

What is it about books that makes people want to make them into movies? Is it the fan base? The storyline? The potential expanded readership/viewership? The expanse of choices out there? I think it's all of the above.

Sometimes people like the book better, and on a few occasions, there's those who prefer the movie over the book.

There's some authors who have no desire to sell their rights to film makers. There's others who jump at the chance to see their characters come to life on the big screen. But sometimes it's exciting to know that a book you liked becomes a movie.

So, what are some of your favorite books to movies? What did you like about them? Would you mind having your books become movies (whether you're published or unpublished) or do you care?

Personally, I'd make that decision if and when the question arose. For now, I'm just concentrating on the writing and creating. Like I said, if the question of a movie of my stories comes up, I'll make the decision then.

Have A Merry Monday!

Comments

Marsha Sigman said…
I have always liked the book better than the movie. I just do not think they can fit all the detail of a novel into a standard two hour format and it kills me when they cut anything.
But they did a great job with Stephen King's The Green Mile and the first Harry Potter. I guess those would be my favorites that I can think of right now. Have a great day!
Bethany said…
Marsha,

Yeah, that does happen--it's hard to fit a 300-400 page novel into 2 hours, so things are bound to be cut or changed. However, I've noticed in some cases, some of the things are there--just not exactly the same, or the spirit of the book is there--like in "A Walk To Remember". I thought that was very well done. In the book he never comes out and says whether or not one of the characters dies, but I always took it to mean that the character did, but others didn't think the character died. Nicholas Sparks leaves it up to the reader when they read the book. So, I liked both.
Joshua McCune said…
Bethany, I think it's the idea of making an easy buck. 'Let's take this successful book and turn it into a movie.' Same goes for remakes of old successful movies. Not that I see anything wrong with this...

As for favorite books 2 movies... definitely LOTR.

Conversely to Marsha's point, I'm amazed when they can take a short kid's book (e.g., CwaCoM) and extrapolate it into a feature length film.
Marsha Sigman said…
Ok I do have to agree with Bane there, they have taken children's stories and made amazing full length movies out of them. I also completely blanked on LOTR. Those were incredible.

Having said all that, I would have no problem selling movie rights to my novels. It would be a financial decision...I would also like some say in casting.LOL
Bethany said…
Bane,

I was thinking of LOTR yesterday. They were very well done.
Bethany said…
Marsha,

Stephenie Meyer got lucky and has had input on the movies based on her books. I think "New Moon" is going to be really good. She seems happy with them and the way I figure it is if the author is happy, then that's probably the most important because in general the author knows the story and characters better than anyone in the sense they've spent the most time with them...but sometimes readers think of things that never occurred to the author--most of them are really interested in what the readers come up with (like Lynn Kurland). Laura Childs has always been really nice to me about her stories, as well :-)

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