One afternoon while watching Saving Mr. Banks (the Disney movie based off the trials that Walt Disney had to overcome with P.L. Travers in order to make Mary Poppins) I got to thinking about how many other authors have hated the movie versions of their novels.
What? An author hated that their novels were made into movies?
Isn’t that, like, stupid of them?
Don’t movies propel authors into super status, like Stephanie Meyer, Suzanne Collins, J.K. Rowling, and Nicholas Sparks, who now has his own production company to turn his novels into films?
Of course, to this author, I would be thrilled to have a movie made from one of my novels. To see my characters come to life and your imagined world on the big screen must be an amazing experience.
However, with that said, I can’t help but wonder how would I feel if the screenplay writers and director took the movie in a direction that I didn’t like or that didn’t stick with the novel.
Would I still be ecstatic just for the experience? Would I be pissed? And if so, would the money and fame make it worth it?
While Stephanie, Suzanne, J.K., and Nicolas have loved the movies made from their novels, there are a few authors throughout history who haven’t had the greatest of experiences when it comes to shifting their craft to the big screen.
Stephen King actually hated the film adaptation of The Shining, and it’s been said that Anne Rice specifically told her fans not to see Queen of the Damned because they mutilated her book.
OUCH.
If that’s not enough to make me wonder if a movie would be great, a few months ago, something else happened.
In a blog post back in September 2015, Veronica Roth, the author of the Divergent series, posted about the changes to the upcoming films based on her novels. While the first two movies followed her books fairly closely, it was reported that the last two films wouldn’t. Of course, no one but her will ever know her true feelings on this. Sure she can act thrilled for the public eye and the promotion of the movies and production company, but I still have to wonder exactly how happy or how nervous she really was about the changes.
Why would she be nervous?
Because people like what they like, and sometimes when you bring on change, it can backfire.
Badly.
Which it did.
Allegiant bombed so badly that the fourth movie for the big screen has been scraped and now is going to be a made for TV movie with, perhaps, a complete recasting of all the characters.
Say what? No more Theo James on the big screen as Four. Oh the horror!!!!
Anyway, I have yet to find any article or interview that Ms. Roth has done after this announcement about how she’s feeling or what she thinks on the matter. Is she upset? Is she mad? Is she at the stance of ‘oh well, what’s done is done’? How does she feel about this???
Because I know that if I was her, I’d be L.I.V.I.D.
To take her world and characters and turn the story around so the movie producers could make more money by splitting the films, only to then ruin it and cause a downgrade would send me over the edge.
It was nothing but Hollywood greed that ruined that film series.
Whether she was involved in the changes or not, I don’t know. A part of me thinks she was, but a part of me thinks, even if she was, her input wasn’t strong. Knowing that production companies like to buy as much of the media rights as they can, leaves the authors little say in the matter.
Again, though, that’s just an assumption. Who knows. She could have been 100% behind everything.
I wonder if we will ever find out.
So knowing this, is it still a nice dream?
Yeah, I think so.
I don’t know which of my novels I’d like to see turned into a movie. They all would be fun for me to watch and experience, and I think all have unique time periods. Of course, thinking about it is probably on the foolish side. I’m not really counting on every having to go through the process, because I doubt it will ever happen.
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