Books Made Into Movies That Did Not Resemble The Source Material

[Fishface]

I'll start. Did anyone read The Serpent and the Rainbow and then see the movie version? You can hardly hear the dialogue over the insistent cries of "I don't remember that happening in Wade Davis's book!"

[Fishface]

Oh, and what about Ghost Story? After seeing the movie, you just walk away slowly, shaking your head in disbelief.

[Swati]

I haven't senn or read any of those, but...

I think most people would agree that the Percy Jackson movie did not resemble the books :P

[Jacob]

Percy Jackson and Insurgent (I never watched Allegiant so I can say anything about it)

[Jason]

The Running Man by Richard Bachman

The Schwarzenegger movie by the same name was horrendously off. Only extremely loosely based off of a similar premise.

[Andreas]

Miss Peregrine was altered but to be honest the outcome was as good as the book
If I stay had more emotion than the book

[Devann]

Queen of the Damned was nothing like the book but honestly it's just such a good time that I don't even care.

Also I know everyone likes to hold up the Percy Jackson movies as being like the worst book adaptations ever but I honestly don't think they're that bad. I mean they're definitely not great but I've never really understood the level to which people hate them. I guess bc everyone knows the author doesn't like them either?

[Asounani]

Ummmm Divergent and Caster Chronicles

[Ailbhe]

Howl's Moving Castle was very different but remains one of my favourite films. Studio Ghibli knows how to do a book justice.

[The Book Crusader]

Regardless if you liked the The Shining movie or not, Kubrick did not stay faithful to the Master of Horror's source material.

To this day people can't seem to grasp that the Master of Horror himself has said that it's not a bad movie, just a bad adaptation.


On a not particularly related note, I cannot fathom how Kubrick thought that Eyes Wide Shut was his greatest work. How can a movie with barely any plot and so little action be nearly three hours long?

[ellie]

Something that was really done well is The Vampire Diaries, the books were HORRIBLE. And cringey. The TV show had its highs and lows, but it was so much better than the book series. It added diversity and dimension to the characters.

[Fishface]

I kind of wonder why anyone would make a movie from a book that had characters without dimension! But apparently the filmmakers saw potential that you didn't...

[Artsy]

The Hunger Games. I hated the movie. I could hardly tell what was going on half the time. Most of the book was Katniss's thoughts, though, so i guess there maybe wasn't much left to work with.

Beautiful Creatures. They literally took two of the book characters and combined them into one character. None of the movie made any sense. It didnt explain anything. Things just "happened" out of nowhere for seemingly no reason, including the entire relationship between the main characters.

[Mary]

The Princess Bride. and the movie was the better.

[Mary]

Ailbhe wrote: "Howl's Moving Castle was very different but remains one of my favourite films. Studio Ghibli knows how to do a book justice."

My problem with Howl's Moving Castle was that, having made a thousand and one alterations, they retained a plot point that I would not have understood except that I read the book first.

Still, it was, if not one of their best movies, still pretty good.

[Pixye]

Dragon. It was so bad!!! Also I think that Percy Jackson the lightning thief wasn't that bad, but sea of monsters is nasty. But I haven't watched it in ages so maybe I'm wrong.
Also did you hear they are possibly making a movie of Magnus Chase?

[Pixye]

Mary wrote: "Ailbhe wrote: "Howl's Moving Castle was very different but remains one of my favourite films. Studio Ghibli knows how to do a book justice."

My problem with Howl's Moving Castle was th..."


Yeah I get that.

[Pixye]

I watched howls moving castle ages before I even heard it was a book, and then I read it and I have to say the book is way better.
The books are almost always better than the movies. Fact of life.

[Heather]

The Princess Diaries movies, but especially the second. My mom and sister loved it when it came out but I had a hard time getting through it personally. It's not a bad movie but it had very little to do with the books.

[Gem (The Creepy Geek)]

Stardust. Enjoyed the film but hated the book. I still have no idea how they got that film from that book!

[Sara]

Fishface wrote: "I'll start. Did anyone read The Serpent and the Rainbow and then see the movie version? You can hardly hear the dialogue over the insistent cries of "I don't remember that happening i..."

I've never read the book, but the film is great. Wes Craven was a genius, and I think this film gets overlooked...

[Taylor of Alethkar ❦]

Has anyone else just completely given up hope on adaptations for non-contemporary books?

[.·:*¨ × Shannon♥Stelena&Bamon&Sydrian × ¨*:]

Vampire Academy. The cringe is real.

[Pottermnm]

Scorch trials...that was like a whole different story, with the characters from the book.

[NerdyJediGymnast]

Hunger Games and Percy Jackson

I cant even

[Allie // Kitasai]

.·:*¨ × Shannon♥Loving Tomas Vrbada Like Woe × ¨*: wrote: "Vampire Academy. The cringe is real."

Yes!!!! Worst adaption I've ever seen. Definitely agree

[Caroline]

Taylor of Elfhame ❦ wrote: "Has anyone else just completely given up hope on adaptations for non-contemporary books?"

I never watch them anymore. I always end up disappointed and angry.

[Caroline]

Fishface wrote: "I'll start. Did anyone read The Serpent and the Rainbow and then see the movie version? You can hardly hear the dialogue over the insistent cries of "I don't remember that happening i..."

The Passage. It had a very short-lived t.v. adaptation recently. I'm not at all surprised it was canceled, because the adaptation was horrible. The trilogy is an epic masterpiece. It's impossible to properly adapt it.

[˙⋆✮ Anny ✮⋆˙]

The Maze Runner series. The first movie did resemble the book, but from the second movie on the only thing books and films had in common were the character's names^^ I still enjoyed the movies on their own, but don't compare them to the books!

[Rachel Adiyah]

The Golden Compass is one of my favorite fantasy novels of all time, and it was made into a horrible movie adaptation.

As far as the Lord of the Rings, The Fellowship of the Ring was a really well done, excellent adaptation, while in my opinion The Two Towers and The Return of the King were terrible!

And Fahrenheit 451 has yet to have a decent movie adaptation, despite that two already exist. The older one is boring and wrong, and from what I've heard the new one from last year is just emotionless and flat.

[Elyse]

Annihilation

[Caroline]

Rachel Adiyah wrote: "The Golden Compass is one of my favorite fantasy novels of all time, and it was made into a horrible movie adaptation.

As far as the Lord of the Rings, The Fellowship of the Ring was a really well..."

The Golden Compass has a new adaptation, by the way, that looks promising. It's a mini-series on HBO starring James McAvoy, and I think it just started this month.

[Elyse]

Caroline wrote: "Rachel Adiyah wrote: "The Golden Compass is one of my favorite fantasy novels of all time, and it was made into a horrible movie adaptation.

As far as the Lord of the Rings, The Fellowship of the ..."

Crossing my fingers on it! James McAvoy! Lin Manuel Miranda! Dafne Keen!

[Caroline]

I bet it'll be good. Just the fact that it's a mini-series and not a movie is promising.

[Catherine]

How you adapt a book into a movie matters most in my opinion than if you stay very faithful to the source material or not. The two examples I think of right away are The Queen of the Damned and The Shining.

The movie adaptation The Queen of the Damned was nothing like the book (that I love), it was ridiculous and a total failure, and the only good thing was the music. The adaptation of The Shining on the other hand wasn't faithful to the book, but even if Stephen King didn't like Stanley Kubrick's version, I love both the book and the movie: they're both amazing in their own way.

There's also The Hobbit. After the huge success of The Lord of the Rings, they made the mistake of wanting to do more profit (then again, it worked, so good for them) and turned a great prequel that's less than 400 pages into a whole trilogy. Obviously, you don't need to read the book and watch the three movies to know it can't be faithful. I still gave the movies a chance, but I gave up halfway through the second one. It was a mess.

[Julia]

Gemma ♕ Books_McCoy wrote: "Stardust. Enjoyed the film but hated the book. I still have no idea how they got that film from that book!"

I completely agree with you!

[Cendaquenta]

Elyse wrote: "Annihilation"

Annihilation is, in my opinion, a great example of a completely inaccurate adaptation that turns out to be a great movie anyway. The film was so effectively horrifying. I was genuinely worried I'd have nightmares about the voice-mimic monster.

[Sasha]

Cheetah Girls.

I know it's books vs a Disney Channel movie but Dorinda was half Black in the books and a "racially ambiguous" white girl in the films. Aquanetta had a twin but they couldn't find Black twins. Dorinda was 2 years younger than the other girls in the books

[Elyse]

Cendaquenta wrote: "Elyse wrote: "Annihilation"

Annihilation is, in my opinion, a great example of a completely inaccurate adaptation that turns out to be a great movie anyway. The film was so effecti..."

My husband loved the movie, having not read the books. I read the first book before seeing the movie and disliked both. lol

[Vikas]

ellie wrote: "Something that was really done well is The Vampire Diaries, the books were HORRIBLE. And cringey. The TV show had its highs and lows, but it was so much better than the book series. It added divers..."

Totally agree about the books, they were just so so far off the rocks.

[Vikas]

Gemma ♕ Books_McCoy wrote: "Stardust. Enjoyed the film but hated the book. I still have no idea how they got that film from that book!"

Agreed, the movie was so so different and so much better.

[Sasha]

Pretty Little Liars.

I know it's TV Show and they only had so much to work with but so much was changed. Characters personalities, motivations, who ended with who, good characters were vilified, and vilified characters... actually ended up being decent good characters so I'll give them that one.

[Chris]

East of Eden - based only on a fairly small part of the book.

[Mills]

Blood and Chocolate. It was set in a different country. Characters went from school kids to twenty-somethings. The love triangle of sorts had a Hollywood ending in the film, whereas Annette Curtis Klause made a much more pragmatic choice in the book. I didn't hate the film, but I don't think they should have been allowed to name it after a book it was barely inspired by.

[Caroline]

Catherine wrote: "There's also The Hobbit. After the huge success of The Lord of the Rings, they made the mistake of wanting to do more profit (then again, it worked, so good for them) and turned a great prequel that's less than 400 pages into a whole trilogy. Obviously, you don't need to read the book and watch the three movies to know it can't be faithful. I still gave the movies a chance, but I gave up halfway through the second one. It was a mess."

I hated how they extended that into a trilogy. Totally pointless and just dumb. The last movie was all war, as I recall. Very boring to watch.

[Long Live Wonderland]

the Percy Jackson movies were poor recreations of the books

[Rachel Adiyah]

I've been watching Altered Carbon on Netflix, recently. I'm not happy, not in the least. The further it goes on the further it gets from the novel. I could probably have liked it if I saw the series first, but I didn't, so I feel really pissed off.

[Almira]

The Little Mermaid by Hans Christian Anderson.
Disney really messed it up, well of course, we wouldn't want children to read or watch unpleasant endings. When library patrons check out the "real" version, I always ask "Do you know how this story really ends?" especially moms of young children who plan on reading it to their children.

[Caroline]

Almira wrote: "When library patrons check out the "real" version, I always ask "Do you know how this story really ends?" especially moms of young children who plan on reading it to their children."

That's good.

[Erin]

Percy Jackson, Miss Peregines....