Catching Fire
Watching (and loving) Catching Fire, and seeing the trailers for other upcoming movies based on YA books, made me reflect on possible reasons why some YA series have done well as movies and others have tanked.
Now, for anything in entertainment, there’s always an element of luck and other uncontrollable variables. If a series does well as books, and tanks as a movie, it could just be that the movie sucked: bad casting, bad directing, bad writing…
But given which ones have done well, and which ones have tanked, I have another hypothesis: Maybe the movies that tanked were based on books that, well, either sucked or weren’t well suited for movie adaptation.
I know we’ve discussed (years ago, probably) why more romance novels aren’t developed into feature films. I do believe that a large part of that is male bias and prejudice against the romance genre etc. etc. but… it’s also been suggested that most great romance novels are too internally focussed to come across well on the screen. That it’s hard to capture the inner conflict and journey that’s so crucial to romance. Yes. Definitely there have been fabulous romance movies that defy that, but I also think there’s some truth to it, and I’m wondering if the amount of focus on the romance is the dividing line between YA series that have translated well to the big screen and ones that haven’t…
It’s hard to do this without examples. I can think of two fairly big movie flops in the past year. The film based on the Beautiful Creatures books and the one based on the Cassandra Clare series. Full disclosure. I started but did not finish either of these books. And I only saw one of the movies (I didn’t see Beautiful Creatures). But I do think that a lot of the emotional attachment that readers had to these books involved the romance. And sure, there’s action, but the action is, perhaps, secondary to the romance in importance, certainly for the readers. So, if the romance on the screen doesn’t live up to the romance in the fans’ minds… The movie flops.
The Hunger Games, on the other hand, is translating well to film. And based on my new hypothesis, I’d suggest that this is because the romance is secondary (tertiary?) to the other story lines in the books. I’m not saying that readers weren’t invested in Team Peeta vs. Team Gale, but it’s not the most important element of the story.
I sat, for Catching Fire, between a few groups of young women/teens and their reactions to the trailers were interesting/telling too… When the Divergent trailer came on, they were practically jumping up and down with glee in their seats, but when the Vampire Academy trailer came on, I actually heard one of them say, and I quote, “Um. No.”
I did read both of those books and enjoyed both, and while it’s been several years since I read Vampire Academy, what I remember most (one of the only things I remember) was the romance. The dark, mysterious older man the protagonist falls for. Whereas with Divergent, I do remember Four, sure, but more so I remember the ideas, the action, the tension of going against family and a teen deciding who she really wanted to be…
I’m liking my theory, but where it all falls apart is the Twilight series. They were books that definitely centered around a romance, and yet did well on the big screen. Maybe because they came first? Maybe because the books were such a HUGE phenomenon? Maybe because the chemistry of the off-screen romance between Stewart and Pattinson got captured on screen? Maybe because of Stewart’s near-constant panting?
I dunno… But the other film based on a Stephenie Myers romance (The Host) was one of the worst movies ever. And those are strong words coming from me. Especially since it starred Saoirse Ronan…
Thoughts anyone? Has anyone else seen Catching Fire yet? The Divergent trailer?
