Book Adaptations: Huffington Post Readers Pick The Most Unfilmable Books (PHOTOS)

Book adaptations are always an engaging subject. Last week, we posted a slide show of 'unfilmable books": texts that simply would not adapt well to the silver screen. We asked: Is it true that some books tell a story that no matter which way Hollywood cuts it, it just won't work as a movie?

Readers went wild in response to the piece and we took notice. From science fiction to literary masterpieces, you recommended many more books that would not work as movies. So, here are 7 more 'unfilmable books.' But let us know if there are more out there!

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"The Front Runner"

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by Patricia Nell Warren Milk McAllister recommended this book.

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by Patricia Nell Warren

Milk McAllister recommended this book.

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Rank #2  |  Average: 4

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Comments

[StarWarsHippie]

04:18 PM on 11/30/2010

How about any Vonnegut novel, they've made them but they don't really work well. Jerry Garcia owned the rights to make Sirens of Titan but just wasn't a makeable movie.

[Jakesmom]

03:44 PM on 11/23/2010

Obviously, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy is a book that has proven to be unfilmable, although I would still like to see it happen at some point. I loved the book, and fell asleep during the movie.

[ESerafina42]

08:37 PM on 11/23/2010

Have you ever seen the BBC-TV version? Primitive special effects, but even so, a lot better than the theatrical movie.

[Hypocrites are Watching]

10:16 AM on 11/24/2010

the one that started it all the original radio play is even better

[StarWarsHippie]

04:23 PM on 11/30/2010

I enjoyed the movie and BBC production; the book was of course imposible to do but I think they did all right. In the new movie I loved when they were made of yarn and Arthur threw up-- still laugh thinking about it.

[Dunkleberger Karl]

04:09 AM on 11/23/2010

Hp  Lovecraft, all have failed miserbly

[c-tom]

02:16 AM on 11/23/2010

Which of these novels would become filmable if they add brain-eating zombies? 'The Catcher in the Rye with Zombies' is a film I'd almost have to see.

[Dunkleberger Karl]

04:10 AM on 11/23/2010

"Yellow submarine with screen doors" a Polish short , if Im Mistaken

[Alayna Davis]

10:09 PM on 11/22/2010

She's Come Undone by Wally Lamb. Impossible to be done.

[Angelus2007]

05:08 PM on 11/22/2010

I would say House of Leaves would be difficult, due to the way it was written.

[DanielAdler]

12:17 PM on 11/22/2010

gravity's rainbow is far too postmodern to become a movie: http://dadsinternetwarehouse.blogspot.com/2010/11/postmodernism-began-in-1968.html

[Pandoras Folly]

08:09 AM on 11/22/2010

i gotta say Dhalgren IS unfilmable unless you have like 4 audio sources and three screens running at once, it would help if we could bi locate our conciousness. Maybe two tiny screens running different pictures one fitted for each eye? that might work, but still some woman unexplainably turning into a tree at the begining of the novel? more like french surrealism than sci fi.

[BMcCue7]

09:01 AM on 11/22/2010

I really liked that book.

Some of the most original Sci-Fi I've ever seen.

[c-tom]

02:07 AM on 11/23/2010

There is no real ending no way Hollywood would allow that.

[Lisa Shields]

08:02 AM on 11/22/2010

I would love to see "Stranger" attempted...but i think it would fail.

No less than five religious groups would have FITS...but the book will always be a classic.
We gave our daughter her own copy at 14...and she loved it as much as we do.

[Bobio]

08:29 AM on 11/22/2010

Agreed

[trythisonyourpiano]

08:01 AM on 11/22/2010

Gravity's Rainbow should have made the list.

[Unreadable]

07:52 AM on 11/22/2010

Where shall I begin? I guess I agree with Marcos's "One Hundred Years of Solitude". Here are some more books in no particular order.

Marcel Proust, "In Search of Lost Time"
Hermann Hesse, ""The Glass Bead Game"
Alexander Pushkin, "Eugene Onegin"
Mikhail Bulgakov, "Master and Margarita" (though this one may have gradually become somewhat filmable)
Julio Cortazar, "Hopscotch"
Georges Perec, "Life: A User's Manual" and "A Void"

To this list, my wife, a fantasy fan, adds "The Chronicles of Amber" by Roger Zelazny.

[Pandoras Folly]

08:21 AM on 11/22/2010

Amber Chonicles would work, but again only as an HBO miniseries to do one book 14 hours i think god knows how long to do them all.

[rundown]

10:58 AM on 11/22/2010

I would love to see Amber as a series, if it were done to the highest standards. Otherwise, it would just be depressing.

Proust? Dude, Your standards are way too high.

[Brautigan]

06:17 AM on 11/22/2010

Finnegan's Wake needs to be at the top of this list, duh.

My namesake has one too, Trout Fishing in America.

[rundown]

04:21 AM on 11/22/2010

My nominee for most unfilmable novel, proven by it's own film adaptation:

Breakfast of Champions.

[TomInJax]

07:20 AM on 11/22/2010

I would say pretty much anything by Vonnegut. Slapstick was pretty bad too.

[rundown]

10:38 AM on 11/22/2010

Yeah, Kurt definitely didn't write with adaptation in mind, thank God.
He's No Micheal Crichton!

[rundown]

04:13 AM on 11/22/2010

I'm far too ashamed to admit how few of these I have read. (Slightly more than one.)
That being said, I totally think Maus is 'filmable', in the style of Persepolis (animated).

Stranger In A Strange Land (an all-time favorite of mine, which I've probably read 4 times) could not be done justice in a single film. Maybe an HBO-type series of several episodes.
Never happen, of course.
Too bad, considering all that the story has to say about the genesis of religions.

[Pandoras Folly]

08:04 AM on 11/22/2010

yeah it would have to be 18 hours of run time easy, about a quarter of the time needed to explain a single Dune novel I think.

[rundown]

10:35 AM on 11/22/2010

Ha! Fanned for the Dune reference.
Very timely coincidence, since finally got around to reading Dune recently (in-progress actually.) I had heard that Dune was once spoken of as unfilmable in all it's glorious epic-ness.
And, although I am enjoying the read, I must say that at over halfway through the book, I have not picked up on any ideas that I didn't get from the Lynch movie.
Stranger has enough big ideas for four Dune novels.

[dubbleplusgood]

03:58 AM on 11/22/2010

Ethan Frome. Hands-down the most dreary, boring, and depressing book ever written. Sadly, it's been put to film already when it should have been put out to pasture.

[ESerafina42]

08:36 PM on 11/23/2010

Maybe not boring, but I'm definitely with you on the depressing part. If I'd been depressed when I started it I would have been suicidal by the end.