Should Hollywood Make Novels Into Movies?

Posted by Lola7384 at 8:05 AM Thursday, March 17, 2011
Today's post was sparked by my utter disappointment in the movie Beastly, which I saw yesterday, with my sister.(And my sister who is an RN mind you says she felt like she was watching a homemade movie)

I really enjoyed the book and I WISH I could say the same for the movie, but I can't. In fact, what makes me the most disappointed is that I wasted ten dollars on a ticket when I should have just waited until it came out on DVD.

Now, most of you don't know that I write sceenplays, so when I go see a movie, maybe I over analyze it while I'm watching.Sometimes, I find myself shouting no- no, you shouldn't open it there or the dialogue doesn't flow. And a lot of people blame the actors. It's not necessarily their fault.

When actors are thought of for the movie, they do a screen test together to see if they have chemistry. In my opinion, for Beastly, Pettyfer and Hudgens had none.

A lot of their scenes together weren't believable. Their affection for one another looked forced and awkward. I found myself laughing during scenes that were supposed to be serious.

I can say though, that I adored Mary-Kate Olsen as Kendra and Neil Patrick Harris as Will.

With that said, it brings me back to the title of this post. Should Hollywood Make Novels Into Movies? Yes. If they do it right.

Let's face it, the movies are NEVER as good as the books, and there is no way they can be. Mainly because a novel can be up to 500 pages and some of the things have to be left out.(Nobody wants to sit through an 8 hr movie)But you should be able to sit through a film and be like, yeah they really did a good job on that.

EX. Harry Potter movies~ Even though the books are better, the movies are still Brilliant!

In conclusion, I have to say that Beastly was a monstrosity and I'm not talking about Pettyfer's make-up job.

Now let's hope Lionsgate does a stellar job and doesn't screw up The Hunger Games.

This post is not meant to discourage anyone from seeing Beastly. I'm just stating my opinion. You might think different.

Cheers!

4 comments:

  1. Anonymous said...:
    March 17, 2011 at 8:59 AM

    I saw the previews for Beastly and thought the movie looked awful. Then I read the synopsis of the book and didn't recognize it as the book the movie was based on. Why? They seemed light years apart. I've heard good things about the book, so I plan to read it. But as for the movie, it just never caught my eye.

  1. Catherine Stine said...:
    March 17, 2011 at 9:34 AM

    In answer to your question, god yes! But writers, make sure those scripts are screen-worthy! And studios, get it together to make sure your films are not panderiing to the lowest common denominator. People are smarter than you give them credit for.
    Most great films do come from books. I tell my film students this on a monthly basis--you see, I teach lit and writing to film students at an art school. They ask how the novels we read relate to them, and I reply, in EVERY conceivable way, they relate to you! To make a great film, you must know character, pacing, theme, motivation, and all of those good things. You learn that from reading literature!
    I agree with you that more than often a book to film is a disappointing affair. But it doesn't have to be that way. I can think of many exceptions to that. The one that comes to mind is not a kid's book, but anyway--it's called Running with Scissors. In that case, I liked the film better than the book!

  1. Sarah said...:
    March 17, 2011 at 9:55 AM

    I love the Princess Bride as a film, but was only so-so on the book. However, that doesn't happen very often. ;)

  1. Kim Baccellia said...:
    March 30, 2011 at 7:42 AM

    I enjoyed both I AM NUMBER FOUR and BEASTLY. I read BEASTLY first. She's worked with Joyce Sweeney and all of us(I also work with Joyce) were so excited about her book being made into a movie. I loved the Mary Kay Olsen as the witch. She stole the show. I also just watched RED RIDING HOOD and hated that book but really enjoyed the movie. Go figure. This only goes to show how subjective everything is in this biz.

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