In a world where every other film appears to be a sequel and original scripts seem to be harder to come from as the worry is they won’t find an audience, the next best option is to find a best selling book and turn that into a film normally with a mixture of good or bad results
Over the recent years, I’ve seen books that I have read become big screen blockbusters (Harry Potter, The works of Tolkein, Narnia) A book series I read a while back after hearing good reviews was turned into a fantastic franchise with its final instalment entering cinemas in November, I am of course talking of the Hunger Games. The books were real page turners, but hard to believe for anyone who has seen the movies, there was uproar when Jennifer Lawrence was cast in the lead role but I thought she was a great choice, having seen the actress in Winter’s bone for which she was Oscar nominated, as well as roles in films such as Like Crazy and The Beaver and of course Mystique in the X Men franchise, I though she was a great choice (I also admit I find her easy on the eye too which obviously helped my decision =)
The film opened big at the box office, the books were well represented and not sure anyone can imagine anyone other than Jennifer in the films now. The Hunger Games followed the already huge box office success of the Twilight saga and then every Young Adult book was hunted down and The Divergent series duly followed and more recently the Maze Runner saga but we have also seen casualties along the way, the Spiderwick Chronicles, Inkheart and the Golden Compass to name but a few
But it’s not all good news for Books, sometimes our love of a book can mean we leave the cinema let down, my favourite author Danny Wallace had his book Yes Man turned into a film starring Jim Carrey and I was happy with the casting especially with Zooey Deschanel as the female lead but the film was a by the numbers rom-com and had none of the charm of the book for me (oddly enough though I own the film for the numerous extras with Danny and after the initial let down I can now accept this as a rom-com)
Sometimes the film takes ideas from the book but goes for it’s own idea, something Stephen King fans will know only too well if they have seen the film adaptations of the Lawnmower Man and the Running Man to name just 2 or of course the works of Philip K Dick, Total Recall and Blade Runner have little to do with his books they have taken from
My favourite film of all time ‘Jaws’ was based on a book by Peter Benchley. I read the book after seeing the film and whilst it has themes from the film, it is a lot darker, the beach being left open because of the Mayor’s mafia connections and Ellen Brody having an affair with Matt Hooper are plots not brought into the film and the cinema’s ending differs completely, shall we just say it’s a lot more cinematic
So the reason for this blog is I’m about to enter the journey of anticipation of the book to film journey again. In 1997 I read a book that I was drawn in from it’s tagline of Jurassic Shark, it’s about a 60 foot Megalodon (the MEG of the title) shark still alive after being preserved in an unexplored trench (The Megalodon shark has appeared in all sorts of straight to DVD nonsense that I’ve watched, the Megashark quadrilogy, Sharkzilla and the John Barrowman classic Shark Attack 3) The book written by Steve Alten was fantastic and even at the time you could tell it would be a great movie but nothing happened, the books sequels ‘The Trench’ and ‘Primal Waters’ followed and the news was the rights had been brought, Jan De Bont of Speed and Twister was connected to direct but then it went quiet again, the fourth book ‘Hell’s Aquarium’ followed but still nothing. Worse still, the 5th book ‘Nightstalkers’ was also held from release as the plan was to release it with the film but now thanks to the worldwide success of Jurassic World, the prehistoric aspect to the book clearly made a studio exec grab it again and the news that Eli Roth, director of Hostel 1 and 2 and Cabin Fever to name but a few, was signed on to direct, the news on the film/books forums for this series are mixed but I think he could be a good choice, the film of course will not be won on its choice of director or casting (the author in 1997 had wanted Kurt Russell in the lead role but no news as yet) but its CGI as this film will have to be impressive or it will be no better than its straight to video Megalodon predecessors, I will be watching this one closely and be in queue for its release but if I leave pleased or not has yet to be seen but of course I will always have the book to read again if it is poor
Has a book been written that is on its way to the movies now, The Martian and The Girl on the Train are incoming! What book have you read that you would love to see as a film?
- Update -Eli Roth has now left the Meg film and National Treasure director, Jon Turteltaub now directing with Jason Statham playing Jonas
