Book Adaptations: Best And Worst (PHOTOS)

In recent years, there has been a continuing dialog that books were no longer a major source of intellectual properties for movies. Anecdotal evidence that seemed to support that included the fact that the audience was growing younger, their attention span shorter, and their bandwidth was convulsed with noisier and interactive media. Most of the studios abandoned their robust New York literary operations.

But a funny thing on the way to this demise -- Harry Potter and Twilight. Their celebrity proved to be another marketing tool for these film combines. Good old fashioned words on the page were becoming hits again. With books becoming franchises, like Potter and Twilight, and franchises being the holy grail of the movie business because of the seeming certainty they provided for a company's production slate -- everyone was digging and clawing -- not just for comics and graphic novels, but for hard covers. Their literary celebrity and business success fueled the interest of directors, stars and studios.

2010 movies, especially this year's hits, are rampant with book titles. The most successful book audience is tiny compared to the population a movie must generate to be successful. So, it's not just capturing the book's audience. It's corralling and iterating the book's creativity. A cautionary tale -- there are no guarantees. Turning 350 pages into 90 pages is a daring feat often alienating the old book audience and disappointing the new film audience. But, oh boy when it works!

There will always be an argument of the best and worst adaptations of books to movies. The list that I've created doesn't mean it is the best or worst movie, but that it is the best adaptation of a book to a movie.

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Best Book To Movie Adaptations

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Alice In Wonderland: Book title: "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland" and "Through The Looking Glass" Tim Burton can turn the dictionary with Johnny Depp and his wife in it into a hit.

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Alice In Wonderland: Book title: "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland" and "Through The Looking Glass"

Tim Burton can turn the dictionary with Johnny Depp and his wife in it into a hit.

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Comments

[Amber Troska]

08:49 AM on 01/10/2011

I was highly disappointed in Alice, but it was not a direct adaptation, but rather a sequel or "inspired by." The plot is Tim Burton's own and not to be confused with the books (Wonderland and Looking Glass), which is probably one of the reasons it was not very good. I usually love Burton's films, but this one lifted concepts from the originals without retaining any of their original absurdity. The film was linear and too "Disney." And why was Crispin Glover's body computer animated? That made the least sense of anything and distracted me through the whole film, that and Mia Wasichowski's (I'm sure that is misspelled) inability to realistically interact with anything on a green screen.

[Erzsebet Gilbert]

08:28 AM on 01/10/2011

How are the Lord of the Rings trilogy, Misery, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, and Remains of the Day not on here? All of the above are magnificently faithful to the original literature, and brilliantly acted and directed. LOTR is one of my dork-obsessions, Kathy Bates is terrifying, Jack Nicholson nails Randal P. McMurphy, and I could quite sincerely both read and watch Remains of the Day repeatedly and consecutively. Anybody on the same page, er, frame, with me here?

[RedDogBear]

12:43 PM on 01/10/2011

I think this is supposed to be just films from the past year or so.

[Erzsebet Gilbert]

12:54 PM on 01/10/2011

D'oh! I guess that explains some... Still, everybody ought to see and read those... :-)

[Querent]

10:28 AM on 01/30/2011

All of those movies were faithful to the books, and the best ever were the Lord of the Rings movies. Other books faithfully reflected in the movies were Dr. Shivago, The Razor's Edge (Bill Murrary version), and Lawrence of Arabia.

[Marklar]

11:49 PM on 01/09/2011

While I like the best and worst kinda lists usually...this was pointless. The only reason to flip through these photos was to see the wrong movie for Fair Game displayed.

[darkmark]

07:42 PM on 01/09/2011

huppa

[BlackJAC]

05:30 PM on 01/09/2011

Timeline was bad.  So was Cold Mountain even though it was marginally better than the book it was adapted from.

[LisaLisa1234]

10:28 AM on 02/08/2011

"Timeline" was one of the worst book adaptations I've seen. It took one of my favorite fluff books & mangled it beyond recognition.

[Rhonwyn22]

02:07 PM on 01/09/2011

Worst: Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief. They really screwed up a wonderful book.

[RedDogBear]

12:56 PM on 01/09/2011

I thought Burton's Alice was a big disappointment. It looked great but he took all the charm and wit out of the books and turned it into just another slay the evil CGI monsters movie.

[Michael A929]

02:13 PM on 01/09/2011

Definitely agree. This Alice is my choice for most overrated movie since Forrest Gump ... another superficial shlockfest.

I have no idea what Guber means by this list. Best adaptations of books to movies? Some were ok, but Fair Game? Guardians of Gahoole?

I think the list is just a compendium of random titles that he happened to see this week. It's incomprehensible.

[RedDogBear]

12:22 PM on 01/09/2011

Even though it was panned I thought The Men Who Stare at Goats (inspired by the book of the same name which was excellent) was very funny and entertaining. I think one reason a lot of people didn't get the movie is they didn't realize how much of it was actually based on fact, that the military really did blow millions investing in paranormal warfare over the years.

[BlackJAC]

05:31 PM on 01/09/2011

The book had a funny bit about how one Army official said that the rioter-subduing chemical goop used in Somalia wasn't a complete failure because it took the rioters twenty minutes to figure out they could climb over it rather than the original estimate of five minutes.

[benji85]

11:20 AM on 01/09/2011

I liked the Green Zone, but then again I haven't read the book.

Gulliver's Travels peaked my interest when I heard they were redoing it, but then I saw their add-ins to modernize it, along with Jack Black in it just turned me off. It is a great piece of art as the original and doesn't need altering.

[RedDogBear]

12:20 PM on 01/09/2011

I read Life in the Imperial City and I loved Green Zone. There was no way you could make a drama out of the original book without doing what they did. The movie was more an "inspired by" then an adaptation.

[HoustonBlogger]

10:38 AM on 01/09/2011

You've got the wrong "Fair Game" on that list.

[Leege]

12:38 PM on 01/09/2011

I guess that's what happens when you don't pay most of your staff.

[Gary137]

10:30 AM on 01/09/2011

Don't all movies start with a "book?" The title of this article should indicate it is about good and bad movies based on writers' themes.

[benji85]

11:16 AM on 01/09/2011

If you count a script as a book then yes.

[chino1138]

09:52 AM on 01/09/2011

Once again, people, this list is supposed to be on movies released in 2010 (except for the Harry Potter and Twilight series, which were released over several years, including 2010). So LOTR was not intentionally left of this list, although I will say this list is half-baked at best.

[c-tom]

01:53 AM on 01/11/2011

Once again, people, this list is supposed to be on movies released in 2010 (except for the ones that weren't).

[Gronkie]

09:45 AM on 01/09/2011

I've always thought that one of the worst adaptions was The Shining. The only people who seem to like the movie are those who didn't read the book. I recently watched it again, and it seems like the movie was made by two different people. The first half is interminably boring, the second half is passable, but neither does the intensely scary book any justice.

[RedDogBear]

12:24 PM on 01/09/2011

I think it depends what you are looking for. I don't watch horror movies (or read horror books) for the most part. I agree as a conventional horror film The Shining was probably boring but as a psychological film -- about the decay of a man's mind -- I thought it was amazing.

[Gronkie]

10:31 AM on 01/10/2011

Read the book. If you liked seeing his mind slowly erode, then you'll love the book. Plus there were so many other things that were in the book that were better. For instance, in the book, he was carrying some sort of mallet from a croquet-like game. The scene where Danny was hiding, hearing his father coming down the hall, slamming the mallet from one wall to the next, calling for Danny to come out and take his medicine was absolutely terrifying. Not everything King has written has been great (some of it has been downright awful), but this was the book that made me realize that he had the potential to be a truly great author. It is still among his very best, along with The Stand and the Dark Tower series.

[FiredUpRTG]

09:12 AM on 01/09/2011

Lord of the Rings trilogy are up there in best-adapted screenplays. "Eragon" needs to be remade; it was as if a 16 year-old made a movie based on a book written by a 40 year-old instead of the other way around. Keep Jeremy Irons and do that one over. What about Steinbeck's "Grapes of Wrath" and "East of Eden"? Great movies, but the former is a better adaptation than the latter was. "Cuckoo's Nest" better than its book?

[donnyraindog]

09:30 PM on 01/09/2011

agree with you on grapes of wrath and would add only half jokingly that it is almost as good as a folk song the ballad of tom joad -woody guthrie.

[Sunflo]

09:02 AM on 01/09/2011

Bad: Dune, Bonfire of the Vanities
Good: The Color Purple, The English Patient, Remains of the Day

[LMPE]

12:24 AM on 01/10/2011

I liked "Bonfire of the Vanities"

I've never read the book, so I don't know how it was as an adaptation, but it was still a good movie

"The English Patient" was pointless