While hard core, dedicated fans love the fact that their favourite book is coming to the big screen, others are dreading the day their imagination will be butchered.
Books are becoming big screen adaptations because of the top quality stories and stories is what reels in higher revenue, today. It catches the attention of a broader audience and helps producers and directors to earn more “bang for their buck.”
There are some writers — like “Catcher in the Rye” author J.D. Salinger — who refused their entire lives to allow their work to be adapted, said Jason Squire, a professor at the USC School of Cinematic Arts and author of “The Movie Business Book.” For authors, it’s crucial that filmmakers understand and respect their material. “Writing a book is sort of a lonely and personal process. To give it to someone else, you have to trust that they match your vision … [and] bring the same sort of passion and commitment that you did,”
While some young adult novels are getting the big-screen treatment, television and streaming services like Netflix have also been eager to make their own adaptations.
“Books are very desirable for the television marketplace now,” said Holly Frederick, a dramatic rights agent at the literary agency Curtis Brown, Ltd. “There are so many buyers out there. There’s a new streaming platform that comes out every day, a new cable channel that comes out every day.”
Frederick said that in her experience, it’s harder to sell young adult works in the feature film space, compared to when “Twilight” and the “Hunger Games” were popular.
In Hollywood major book to movie adaptations remain J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter series where the story revolves around a boy and how he masters magic to wave off the dark forces. The popularity of these books with the readers also helped to create a steady fan base for the movie franchise itself. Other major works of adaptation remain as recreating the Hunger Games books, The Hobbit series and The Lord of the Rings. Apart from these there are a number of books that are recreated for the smaller screens. Led by Game of Thrones for HBO which turned out to be a 8 season series garnering the highest number of fan support for any series, creators are more focused towards recreating a series of novels or a franchise rather than a single book. This not only becomes a more bankable option as it provides the umbrella to work on for a longer period of time, it also yields in calculated and long term profits as audiences watching a franchise tend not to leave it in the middle. Apart from books or novels comics are one of the latest and ongoing trends that are being converted into movies and Comics companies like Marvel and DC have been recreating their stories into movies and series for the big and small screens alike. This does not only involve the existing comic fans but also garner a new fan base for both the movies as well as the comics.
With the changing times the movie industry has become more consistent on the approach of quality over quantity. So when it comes to numbers, the Hunger Games franchise was the highest grossing franchise in 2014 with a box office collection of $700 million but movies like Birdman got the Academy Awards with a total of $50 million box office collection. But adapting a book is never an easy job. The story has to be fit into a run time of 2-3 hours when it is made for the screens and the elements have to be duly altered so as to not lose the essence of the book and at the same time garner audience interest in the same.
Bollywood is not far behind, with adaptations of 2 States, 3 Idiots and Kai Po Che all Chetan Bhagats ouevres.. In these scenarios the outcome of the story can at times be changed and altered with the creative implementation of the makers and the consent of the author. A script developed around a book or a novel captures audiences to go to the theatre because at times rather than the movie the book becomes a more reliable or bankable option for the audiences and thus the constant anticipation that if the movie will live up to its predecessor becomes a major factor to draw audiences to theatres.
In conclusion in Hollywood as well as Bollywood more and more creators are moving towards this form of converging media more because for most of the times it is a sure shot opportunity with less time and effort to put on the story itself rather than recreating it. Movies and series alike are moving away from the constant brainstorming of fresh ideas and are getting closeted into the space of adaptation and sequels. This though garners a lot of audience, there are still people who would like to see a fresh story on a screen. Thus, while adaptation opens up a new field for media, crossover creators should also continuously focus on bringing fresh and original ideas into effect.