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The 5 Worst Book To Film Adaptations
In this post, we look at the worst book to film adaptations.
The Worst Book To Film Adaptations
It’s inevitable that books that are bestsellers or classics will be translated to the big screen or to Netflix at some point. After all, if one hugely enjoys a book does one not try to persuade one’s family and friends to read it?
(Authors would like to applaud you and say a heartfelt thank you for that.)
Certain classics, namely anything by Jane Austen, have had a surfeit of TV and film versions, adaptations – Bridget Jones’ Diary, Bride And Prejudice, Clueless, or fan-fiction versions – Death Comes To Pemberley, and Pride And Prejudice And Zombies. In the case of Charles Dickens – Scrooged, Ghosts Of Girlfriends Past, and The Muppet Christmas Carol.
Thanks to Kenneth Branagh, the latest new book to film adaptations have been of Agatha Christie novels. When one loves Agatha Christie novels one accepts that when the film version calls itself ‘an adaptation’ there will be a few ‘changes’. The exigencies of film and TV mean that unless one has the budgets favoured by the BBC, changes have to be made. No one minded these when David Suchet played Hercule Poirot, and there was a good reason for that. The series was so faithful to the spirit of the books and the author’s intent that any changes really didn’t seem to matter.
But when the review says, ‘Hallowe’en Party is different, not just for its setting but also for the plot, characters and general tone and aesthetic’ one grinds one’s teeth. Plot? Characters? Setting? In other words, the entire book. The only thing they kept was the title and the name of the detective.
That is not an adaptation. That is riding the coat tails of the woman who has only been outsold by Shakespeare and the Bible. It never fails to annoy one that there are writers out there that haven’t sold a tenth of what Agatha Christie did and yet still feel they can improve on her books – they can’t, or they would be selling more than she did and they don’t – or simply steal her titles and detective and write something completely different. They also know they can’t put as many bums on seats as she can so are shameless in their theft and feel by saying it’s an ‘adaptation’ is good enough.
Having got that off one’s chest, it’s time to look at other books that have been adapted to film badly.
The main complaint from book lovers is that the film producers saw a book was selling and wanted in on the action but didn’t bother to read the book. It’s almost as if they read the blurb on the back cover and then made up their own plot based on that. The assumption being that they know what viewers want without realising that what viewers want is the book they loved!
5 Book To Movie Adaptations That Were Dreadful
Eragon by Christopher Paolini
This book was so much fun and was impressive considering it was written by a sixteen-year-old. The film was dreadful. It was dull. They took the essential parts — boy discovers a dragon egg, goes on adventures, gets into trouble — and…that’s it.
The Hobbit by JRR Tolkien
Three movies? That pretty much says it all. The Hobbit can be read in a few hours. There simply isn’t enough material to make 3 extremely long movies out of it. That was sheer hubris, and possibly greed, on the part of the producers.
My Sister’s Keeper by Jodi Picoult
When the film leaves out the ENTIRE PLOT TWIST they deserve to have their armpits infested by the fleas of a thousand camels. The book’s twist showed how fragile life can be and how relationships are precious and shouldn’t be abused, even with the best intentions. The film was just a ‘made to make you cry’ movie.
A Wrinkle In Time by Madeleine L’Engle
This classic book drowned in the Disney-fication that itself was swamped by CGI. It was definitely a case of the filmmakers trying to be too clever. The film was corny instead of charming, overblown instead of understated, popcorn blockbuster instead of brain food, and watered down instead of challenging.
Persuasion by Jane Austen
The most recent remake of Persuasion starring Dakota Johnson is just dreadful. It sounds like the worst of TikTok wrote the script. In the book, Anne Elliot is a plain, shy young woman who is insecure in her own judgment. In the Dakota Johnson ‘adaptation’ she is always attractive, sly, and plucky. Clearly, the filmmakers thought there was nothing more to the era of which Jane Austen write than empire gowns and a rom-com ending.
The Book-Slapper
One thing we can thank Netflix for is the ability to tell longer stories in a series rather than a 2-hour film. But even they get it wrong. It seems the lessons filmmakers are reluctant to learn – how to read books; what’s on the page and what’s between the lines. One crew member they need, and one whose word is law is the ‘book-slapper’. That person who knows the book; its whys, wherefores, reasons, meanings, and depth, intimately. Their job? Whenever anyone…ANYONE no matter who they are…suggests something that’s not in the book, goes against the book, misses the point of the book etc., the book slapper literally slaps them, hard, and says, ‘That’s not in the book! You can’t do that!’
The Last Word
What film adaptations of books have you seen that left you feeling dissatisfied or annoyed? If you have always wanted to learn how to write a book, Writers Write is the perfect place to discover how to navigate the journey to getting your book down on paper.
Look out for our post on the best adaptations.
by Elaine Dodge. Elaine is the author of The Harcourts of Canada series and The Device Hunter. Elaine trained as a graphic designer, then worked in design, advertising, and broadcast television. She now creates content, mostly in written form, for clients across the globe, but would much rather be drafting her books and short stories.
More Posts From Elaine
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- From Original Story Idea To Book Trailer
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Posted on: 9th August 2023
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96 thoughts on “The 5 Worst Book To Film Adaptations”
The Dark Tower. Need I say more?
So far, both Branagh adaptations of Poirot. Abysmal.
I would be starship trooper The movie and the book with 2 different directions.
The thing is that the movie Starship Troopers was not originally an adaptation of the book Starship Troopers. Iirc, the movie was pitched and “bought” before they discovered that there was a book of the same name and so decided to try to capitalize on the audience of the book by adding a couple elements from the book to the movie (character and location names, etc) without changing much of anything of the original film pitch.
Wanted was based on the first few panels of the comic. Millar hadn’t even written the rest yet when they bought it for the adaptation. The comic is really a story based on a thing Millar’s brother terrified him with as a child, that there aren’t any superheroes because the supervillians, who secretly control reality, killed them all. The movie is about assassins?
This is an “oldie” – “The Witches of Eastwick” completely ignored the source material. I’d read the book not long before the film came out; I cringed throughout the entire movie. It was horrible.
I agree
You need not, but I will. I was going to watch, though with the trepidation borne of knowing the meaning of “impossible.” Then I heard about the cast. Normally I would watch Idris Elba even if he were just sitting in a chair for 3 hours. This casting was an offense to Detta, to Roland, and to me. I mean why couldn’t we have McConaughey and Elba switch places?
Pretty much EVERY Stephen King novel, but to me 11/22/63 was the WORST. The book is, in my opinion, King’s greatest achievement in the genre of Drama, but the author tv series DESTROYED that. For anyone interested in reading 11/22/63, do not not NOT watch the series. Read the book!!
Thought THAYT would be on this list as #1.. Like Idris Elba, LOVE Stephen King, but DAMN who authoruzed This??
Exactly what I came here for. No SK books on the list at all? Bad list.
The Long Ships is the worst book-to-film adaptation ever…period. Hollywood wiped its ass with one of the most celebrated historical novels of all time.
I believe the worst book to film adaptation was Ender’s Game. There were many plot details and even small things that were either glossed over, or completely avoided and ignored.
The Dark Tower
We Need To Talk About Kevin was too rushed and left too much stuff out.
The Beast Within stupidly left out the whole compelling beginning and made it into a simple man breaks into monster transformation movie whereas it was more psychological in the book.
Totally agree, surprised it’s not on the top of the list. Totally mangled the book. Such a disappointment.
Ready Player One was a horrific slaughtering and strong arming of the book into a film adaptation. I read the book after the film. I can only imagine fans of the book’s Supreme disappointment when they watched this travesty.
Sorry, but I think your list is partly crap. I actually enjoyed “The Hobbit” films, although I’m not a big fan of the last film. I enjoyed it more than “The Lord of the Rings” movies, with the exception of 2001’s “Fellowship of the Rings”. I also enjoyed the recent version of “Persuasion”. It was flawed like the other adaptation. But I believe it improved Austen’s portrayal of William Elliot by not making him a villain. Austen had portrayed him as a villain and I thought that was a major mistake on her part.
So Jane Austen (world famous and universally acknowledged as one of the best english writers ever)made a mistake!
I agree! The Hobbit book was awfully boring to be and the movies saved it.
The Bonfire of the Vanities was an epic rollercoaster ride of a book, which was turned into an epic dumpster fire of a movie.
You can’t improve on a Jane Austen novel. And this adaption was so far off the mark. The story and characters Austen wrote all fit her story perfectly. I hate when Hollywood thinks they know more and are better than the original author.
Logan’s Run.
The Golden Compass was pretty bad. They completely butchered the story. I was so glad they’ve rebooted it into a HBO series, it was done so much better with the second go around.
Netflix has the Virgin River books. Total disaster. I watched a couple of episodes and stopped. They took a minor character (was on two pages max) and made her a main character. Completely changed all the storylines.
No one mentioned the worst ever adaptation. Battlefield Earth was an enjoyable read….the movie was abominable.
I was looking for this book on the list,it should have been number 1. It is one of my favorite books and I was very excited to find out it was going to be made into a movie. Than the movie came out and it was the biggest pile of crap I ever wasted my time watching. It was a horrible, horrible movie.
Wuthering Heights was such a great novel by Emily Brontë, and that 1930’s film was absolute garbage!
You forgot the biggest sin of The Hobbit. Worse than over extending the story it also missed the point. The book is about arrogance. About individuals who see themselves as important and big influencers in events when, really, the actions of one small kind Hobbit shape events more than anyone. Bilbo repeatedly saves the dwarves, finds the door in the mountain, discovers how to defeat Smaug. If he’s removed from events the story would not happen. He takes those actions in the movie but his significance is pushed to the side in favor of bombast and (crappy CGI) spectacle. Why have a surreptitious quiet barrel escape, which makes sense, when it can be a video game action crapfest that upstages Bilbo’s contributions.
Thank you Thom, well put sir.
And how about the Battle of Five Armies? It’s about 1 page in the book because Bilbo spends nearly all of it unconscious. But in that bloated travesty of a film he has the various “good” factions at odds, and the “evil” factions acting the smartest. And don’t get me started on the Legolas scenes!
But for me the biggest irony was a very clumsy moralising about Thorin’s destructive greed when they had transformed a delightful and smart book into a shambles, all because of greed!
Though far from a classic, Anne Rice’s Exit to Eden possessed great potential for a good erotic film. Unfortunately, Dana Delaney’s plucky acting couldn’t save the film from the dystonal subplot injected with Dan Acroyd and Rosie O’Donnell trying to turn it into a crime caper comedy.
I was going to Anne Rice’s Queen of the Damned. The entire premise of the book (the story of the twins) is absent. However, the soundtrack was good.
I saw the movie before I read the book and enjoyed it. After reading the book I can see why people didn’t like it.
The Time Traveler’s Wife. I read the book and still struggled to follow the movie!
Starship Troopers was made by people who hated the book and completely changed the concept, characters and used a straw man concept and universe it then mocked
Yes, but Starship Troopers is an adaptation with a purpose, not just a lazy blurb whatever as the article’s author laid out. There is no rule that adaptation must aim to fulfill a book’s tone and goals and beats; the ST film was essentially a satire of the book made to subversively take down the book’s messaging. That will of course itk anyone who is a fan of the book itself, but so it goes.
Battlefield earth…I never read the book but the film couldn’t be better than the book
If you get a chance, read the book, you will not regret it.
It always bugs me when people refer to the James Bond film, The Spy Who Loved Me, as an adaptation. The only thing they used from the Ian Fleming novel is the title! The book is largely told from a woman’s point of view after she was rescued by Bond. 007 doesn’t even show up until roughly the final third of the book. The movie revolved around Bond stopping a megalomaniac attempting to nuke the world so he can create an underwater colony. (Admittedly, I get why they didn’t choose what many fans think is Fleming’s worst Bond novel but don’t call it an adaptation.)
The Bond novel Moonraker is another example. The book is exciting, Cold War thriller, about a megalomaniac (what else?) plotting to launch a rocket (an upgraded V2) on England and Bond infiltrating to stop it. Even the plot twist of Hugo Drax’s (the villain) backstory is more fascinating than the one-note character we were stuck with in the film. The movie strips all that way, leaving just the characters and switches it Bond attempting to stop Drax, who is plotting to send “perfect specimans” (i.e. ideal humans) and launch them into space to live on a space station while he plans to launch a nerve gas on Earth that will kill everything except plants so he can create a “new master race.” (It’s essentially just a rip-off of The Spy Who Loves Me, trading underwater for space.) The film strips away the thrills of the book and throws in corny action, a mediocre plot, terrible puns and–for some reason–loads of product placement.
The Woman In Black
The Seeker absolutely butchered my favorite book The Dark is Rising. I knew from the previews it was gonna be bad, I didn’t understand HOW bad it would be. If it was done right I could be a epic franchise but that will never happen with what Hollywood did with the one book they covered.
Couldn’t agree more. Clever books would be a great series. The film was dreadful
It’s “which which adaptations,” not what.
AAAAAHHHH! Got you! 🙄😏😁
Seriously, great article. Spot-on! In fact, so good I was presumptuous enough to believe you may enjoy a bit of good-natured ribbing to keep us all humble.
For me, the worst book to movie adaptation was A Walk To Remember.
Sparks can be cheesy at times (what romance novelist isn’t?) but I always loved the story of Jaime and Landon in the book and the deeper meaning behind their experiences, such as the Christmas play that Jaime asks Landon to audition for.
To me, the movie makes everything bland and forgettable, not to mention it doesn’t show the progression of Jamie’s illness.
It’s one of the biggest reasons I have a problem with romance movies today.
The Cider House Rules left left out or changed some major plot points. They also didn’t explain why the doctor was addicted to ether. He had a painful condition, the origin of which must have been deemed too unsavory. Basically, they sanitized it by removing anything that could upset some viewers. As a result, not much happens in the movie. Also, the Horse Whisperer left out something that wouldn’t offend the vast majority of viewers. This resulted in an entirely different ending. The books ending wasn’t sad and no one died. Apparently the studio didn’t think the public would like the slight twist at the end of the book. It wasn’t a twist in the sense of being suspended. It was simply the kind of change that happens to people in real life.
ONE FOR THE MONEY. Evanovich writes the funniest bounty hunter and they ruined it with Kathrine Heigl because she was the It girl of the day??? And of course little Tom Cruise as Reacher???
Totally agree on both books and the casting!
For my money the worst was trying to make people think Cruise could be Jack Reacher…..have watched the new series and the guy playing Reacher is much more believable ….i couldnt watch the Cruise ones
Winter’s Tale by Mark Helprin.
Marvelous book.
Horrendous nonsensical movie.
Bonfire of the vanities, a page turner as a book, was a cannot watch as a movie.
The 1990’s version of The Scarlet Letter is, for my money, the worst adaptation of a classic novel. It was unintentionally funny and had an extremely different ending.
Noah Gordon’s the Physician. The movie was crap.
I disagree about the Hobbit series. Loved them all. On the list should have the Divergent series. One wasn’t too bad but the farther they went, the more they destroyed it.
Also , remember Congo?they left out the best parts of the book!
I would not say the hobbit trilogy was dreadful. I read it and I liked it better than the cartoon. Some books if you literally translate it to film will be 12 hours or more long if done page to page.
I’m surprised you didn’t mention World War Z. An absolute dumpster fire of a movie and a literal treasure trove of a book. The book could and should source a multi-episode mini series.
Bonfire of the Vanities. I win.
The School For Good And Evil and Artemis Fowl were such a massive disappointment! The characters are clearly described in the book, yet Disney and Netflix just did whatever they wanted! So much cringe!
One of the best series is INKHEART, INKSPELL, INKDEATH by Cornelia Funke.
The first was made into a wretched movie! Horrible!
Percy Jackson and the Olympians would definitely be high on that list. Even Rick Riordan himself has stated his dislike for the movies.
Starship Troopers. Such a waste on a great sci-fi book by Robert A. Heinlein. The director even claimed not to have read the book. I have not read the book The Puppet Masters (not to be confused with the killer dolls movie) but heard that movie also did a disservice to the book, also by Robert A Heinlein.
I would add Ella Enchanted. The film kept the book title and one plot point. Plot, characters, themes, settings, everything else was changed for the film.
The Bonfire of the Vanities film should have been thrown on the fire as well! 🔥
The Host should’ve been named, “Stephenie Meyer wrote a great book called The Host, but this is not it.”
The Divergent series by Veronica Roth. WTH?! The books are excellent, but the adaptations are so far off they aren’t even in the same time zone.
The Sookie Stackhouse series by Charlaine Harris. The books were cute and funny and mostly campy. I loved them. I tried to watch the True Blood series on HBO, but couldn’t get past the first season. The show is nothing but sex. The books were about so much more. Don’t get me wrong, there was plenty of sex in the book series, but not the gratuitous amount in the show. And the way Jason treated Hoyt in the show was despicable. He never would’ve been that mean or dismissive to Hoyt.
The 4th Harry Potter, Goblet of Fire. Up until this point, I was mostly good with the adaptations, but something was off about 4. It didn’t spend nearly enough time on the Quidditch World Cup, Dumbledore asked “calmly,” Winky, and Peeves was still missing.
I’m sure there are others that I’ll remember as soon as I post this.
Two more movies that are literally unrecognizable versus their books: Independence Day and The Black Swan. I am actually surprised that neither Richard Ford nor Nicholas Nassim Taleb sued the filmmakers.
The worst adaptation was Catch 22. It failed to capture the essence of this sublimely subversive book
As a huge fan of Stephen King I would have to say almost any adaptation of his works, save a few, suffer from book to screen adaptation.
You know I am board with Stephen King on his distaste for the adaptation of the Shining . It has some good stuff like those twin girls but the casting except for Scatman Crothers was all wrong unlike King’s Tv version which was lacking also. Still King’s casting was better . The parents were a beautiful young struggling couple not an aging Jack Nicholson and his nerd barista. Put King’s casting with Kubrick’s setting and you have a classic horror movie
Bonfire of the Vanities. Absolutely no doubt!
Another one . Turn of the Century Bram Stoker’s Dracula is a great book and a surprisingly easy read given the stuffed shirt overwriting UK Authors did back then ( oh yes they did Mr. Bow tie Professor ) . Francis Coppola’s interpretation of Dracula looked good in the previews but when it’s 120 minutes hit the screen , just dreadful and not even in a penny dreadful way .
Disney’s Lion Witch and the Wardrobe went much too long with too many CGI action sequences CS Lewis would’ve hated. I was squirming in my seat at the movie theater and have never had a desire to see it or any other Disney Narnia adaptaions ever since. The 1988 Wonderworks version is much better.
What? Not a single comment about David Lynch’s Dune monstrosity?
Re Starship Troopers, the Heinlein estate was so angry at how the book was bowdlerized that they forbade any further use of Heinlein’s books or stories for TV or film (though they made a couple of exceptions that had already ben negotiated).
Re The Hobbit, it was pure greed to make three films. And the Azog story (which had NOTHING to do with the book) was the filler that gave them the ability to go from two to three films.
Terms of Endearment. Debra Winger was sparky, sassy, everything the book says the character was not. She was the drab counterpoint to a sparky, sassy mother and therein lay the whole point. Jumping into Shirley MacLaine arms, a maudlin deathbed scene…McMurtry deserved better. But I guess he made a lot of dough.
LA Confidential. Such a great book, great characters and a great and complex plot. In the movie, the cowardice of Ed Exley is gone, Jack Vincennes doesn’t get hooked on drugs and porn, and Bud White is not brutal and scary enough. They are not corrupt anti heroes like in the book. And the casting for Dudley Smith was way off. And the way the plot was dumbed down… Rollo Tomasi? Give me a break!
David Lynch’s Dune. Style over substance, non-sensical script and the stupid inner-thought dialogue.
Dean coots phantoms I believe. The book actually made me jump and have the hairs on the back of my neck stand up but the movie. It was just wrong, it was massive plot holes left out there is massive everything left out.
John Carpenter adapted the book Vampire$ by John Stakely and all he kept was 3 names from the book, he killed everyone else in the first minutes, and most of them actually survived the book. The plot, the story, even the reasons for the characters were so so different I didn’t even realize that it was supposed to be one of my favorite books.
I was particularly disappointed by How to Train your Dragon. Listening to David Tennant read the books is wonderful. It’s like the scriptwriters went boy, dragons, Vikings… That’s all I need to know.
The hilarious difference between the book and movie?
In the movie Jack Crow survives.
In the books he becomes a vampire.
There are several adaptations I don’t like, but the most recent is AMC Mayfair Witches is so far, awful. The cut out a two main characters and blended them into one.
I stopped watching but decided to give it a chance— so far, I haven’t been impressed.
The trailer for Hallowe’en Party looked so different from the story that I purchased the book again thinking I hadn’t read it.
Starship Troopers. What that did to the book was just plain vile
The Percy Jackson movies. Need I say more.
The Hobbit is a great example of poor adaptation, but not simply as a matter of length. Indeed, if one could spend hours reading a book, one could potentially adapt it onto screen at similar length. It comes down to the worthiness of how that time is spent; it was going to be hairy to stretch the material into three films specifically with the same adaptation style/format/etc that the LOTR films were done, which in the end is what was attempted. I guess the filmmakers felt that it could work given that it wasn’t actually just an adaptation of The Hobbit – much of the material comes from other Tolkien sources. To me, The Hobbit failed much more in time and pacing and purpose – it was supposed to be a rollicking adventure, and it was just too self-serious. That was the problem with making it to align with the LOTR films; trying to do too much with CGI then was the painful cherry on top.
I would say that Bladerunner is a good movie it absolutely gutted Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep — where the Earth was depopulated from a nuclear war with China, animals were rare, hence electric animals — most egregious was the elimination of Mercerism and Wilbur Mercer whole materialisation to revive a spider the androids had pulled its legs off. People couldn’t emigrate to Mars (not the ‘off-world colonies) if they had damaged genes and men therefore wore lead codpieces. And the Penfield Mood Organ! No Penfield Mood Organ!? Bladerunner is a great movie but it has nothing to with its source novel. A movie made of Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep that was 100% faithful to the book would be a fabulous movie. Bladerunner is about 5% faithful to the book. It is a wonderful movie series which has next to nothing to the book. Philip K. Dick had been addicted to amphetamines for years to the point of brain damage (Have you read his last novels like Valis?).–when he sold the movie rights and he endorsed the movie Bladerunner because it was something bright and shiny and dazzling. What it was not was a faithful to the book movie of Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep. And actually this is true of nearly every movie made of a Philip K. Dick novel, novella or short story. I can think of few exceptions.
5. Bonfire of the Vanities
4. Bonfire of the Vanities
3. Bonfire of the Vanities
2. Bonfire of the Vanities
1. Bonfire of the Vanities
Both have been mentioned, but it should be said again – The Dark Tower and Anne Rice’s Queen of the Damned.
If we are gonna talk the worst books to movies we have to discuss Blood and Chocolate. The only thing the movie has in common with the book is the characters names and the name of the creatures in the book. That’s it. Nothing else is the same. And Vampire Academy is one of the few well written vampire series out there and that first movie was so horrible I couldn’t even finish it. It was like they made it teen campy on purpose. And so badly cast.
Sorry, but for me nothing tops Battlefield Earth in this category. The Dark Tower is a close second.
I have a couple but the worst is on my favourite childhood book series. One of the less well known ones that needs more awareness.. The Princess Diaries. Sorry, spoilers ahead.
Firstly, in the film the Grandma is not evil but is helpful and posh. In the book she is evil, manipulative, gaslighty, posh but absolutely somewhat crude when it comes to how she devours her smoking and drinks of choice. Uptight in the way only real life, grew up this way, royal mothers and grandparents can be also.
Second.. the dad is not dead. Just had testicular cancer and told can’t have kids. I get Disney had to make it age appropriate but they legit could’ve gone a “had cancer oe got sick and now can’t have kids,” eoute. They just lazily killed him off in the film instead. He’s also smart but a bit dumb and unaware for certain topics.
Third, Mia is way more awkward, physically and emotionally. She’s also super tall and her anxiety makes her lash out so she’s also a bit toxic. Around the 10th book things work out, she’s a bit calmer, has gotten therapy and kicks who she needs to the curb (someone who was clingy and toxic to her) as well as stands up for herself and her beliefs. The character developments of everyone is great. Even the bully, Lana, and Micheal and the other friends. And she ends up with the guy right for her. As well as chooses the school right for her. Laid back, I choose this, happy endings for all.
The movie, however? Made it a lame rags to riches rom com. Am so pissed. If they ever try again it better be a series with a big budget and a director who actually cares about making things accurate..
Meg Cabot is my favourite author for many books and they did her so dirty.
Next on my list of bad adaptions, in order, are Avatar The Last Airbender (not a real book, I know) to Live Action and Percy Jackson.
The first two get me insanely mad.. and the PJ one just, like, vein popping annoyed.
A Circle of Light, by the author of A Wrinkle In Time. Took one very small subplot and made the move about that. Totally ignoring what the real light was and what it did.
A Circle of Light, by the author of A Wrinkle In Time. Took one very small subplot and made the move about that. Totally ignoring what the real light was and what it did.
Fully agree, except to add that for “Persuasion,” Anne was considered pretty. She is described as a “faded beauty” but also described as “getting a second bloom” meaning Fredrick’s presence was having a good effect. 😊.. It does say her father didn’t think she was pretty, and she wasn’t as pretty as her older sister according to the book.
Water for Elephants combined an antagonist character with a protagonist character into one which made no sense. I loved the book but the movie adaptation was horrible.
One that always bothered me was the Pride and Prejudice with Kiera Knightly. Let’s start with the director not liking the time period of the original book so he changed it and go from there. That movie made me nuts. They hit the major plot points of the book but the tone was all wrong.
Definitely “Stephen King’s Lawnmower Man”. The film adaptation was so bad that King sued to have his name removed from the movie. He was successful and now the movie is only “Lawnmower Man”. I don’t think it gets worse than the author suing to be disassociated with the production.
I would say the Dark Tower is the worst because I don’t think they knew what they were doing. They tried making a movie from 7 books. They should have just kept it as a series
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