Books you would hate to see turned into a movie

[Alon Shechter]

Lord of The Rings!
oh wait.
And every single thing written by Terry Pratchett.

 

[electric discordian]

The Ikea Catalogue Though it does ironically provide great names for a fantasy novel!

 

[kintaris]

Definitely Ender's Game. I love the book to death, and it's actually my favorite, but nearly the whole book is narrative. Not even close to enough dialogue.

Orson Scott Card has actually written the screenplay and is pursuing reluctant film companies with worrying persistence. I also see that there is an Xbox Live game in the rumour mill? I'm learning lots today...

OT: I change my answer. Jasper Fforde's books. But I'm safe there because translating his books into film would not only be utterly redundant (books about books: The Film) but also literally impossible.

 

[eggy32]

The Artemis Fowl books. Not only would it ruin my perception of what all the characters look like but lots of stuff would have to be left out, which sucks.

 

[The Root Beer Guy]

Since they already made Lord of the Rings (though they turned out great), I'll say Earthsea. Since it is a multiethnic fantasy world, Hollywood would just make everyone white.

 

[imnot]

Also... please keep Twilight bashing to a minimum because I know it is going to happen...
That is not the purpose of this thread.

FUCK!
Thats what I was going to do before the thread even loaded!
Well then, Mein Kampf mabey.

 

[what.twitch]

I think the one that I most dread - that I know will NEVER be made into a movie because no one has ever heard of it stateside besides me, apparently - is a little book I found in the library as my old school called Dragon Sword and Wind Child; a re-telling and continuation of the original creation myth of Japan and what came after.

 

[kintaris]

The Artemis Fowl books. Not only would it ruin my perception of what all the characters look like but lots of stuff would have to be left out, which sucks.

I actually wrote an adaptation of part of the first one to get onto my Scriptwriting degree.

It was terrible. Which shows you the calibre of my Scriptwriting degree.

 

[lack of self CTRL]

Metro 2033. It simply wouldn't work in film, i think. They made a good game out of it but that was only by changing almost EVERYTHING about the book. Seriously what happens in the game only occasionally references the events of the book.

 

[Marmooset]

Since they already made Lord of the Rings, I'll say Earthsea. As a multiethnic fantasy world, Hollywood would just make everyone white.

I believe that weird creatures and preteen panties guy - what's his name? - oh, Hayao Miyazaki. He's either doing or has done a version of A wizard of Earthsea (wait - it's his son, and it was in 2006). I believe the characters are all rather pale.

 

[Akukaishi]

The Dresden Files. A half-ass attempt was already done at making a television show, and while the show itself wasn't too god-awful, it was short-lived, changed way too much, and paled horribly in comparison to the books. I have a sinking feeling that a full-blown Hollywood treatment would result in something truly Fail.

The Nightside novels by Simon R Green. Because Hollywood would just screw it all up. One of the greatest pieces of these novels is the narrative by the main character, John Taylor, and the overall quirky, jaded tone of the books would never translate well into films.

 

[Booze Zombie]

I know a tonne of movies I'd like to see made out of books, but... hmm, this is a hard one.
Let's see... probably any book about gardening, now that I think about it.

 

[kintaris]

Any book I like, to be honest. I mainly read sci-fi and fantasy books, greater than 300+ pages in length, each. A length like that makes it hard to convert to a movie unless you re-write the whole thing.

The only book to movie adaptation that has succeeded, in that genre, in my humble opinion, is the Lord of The Rings. And that's only because I went into the cinema, not expecting anything.

So, to all those screenwriters out there; keep the book to movie adaptations down.

Though I agree with you, there have been an awful lot of good adaptations, in fact a staggering number of people's favourite films are. Godfather, Bond, Blade Runner, Fight Club, One Flew Over..., Jaws, Schindler's List... I'm not going to bang on about it, but it's worth remembering. Usually in these cases the books weren't massively mainstream-popular in the first place though.

But definitely fantasy and sci-fi books, as well as heavily literary ones, should be seriously mulled over before adapting.

 

[MelasZepheos_v1legacy]

Harry Potter, because you know that instead of representing Hermione as she is in the books they'd find the prettiest bimbo they could, constantly dress her up like she's modelling for Burberry, have her hair and makeup be constantly perfect, and have her overact to the point where I want to claw my eyes out every time she walks on screen.

I'm glad that didn't happen then... (sob)

Also, I guess I wouldn't really like to see things like Preacher, Skulduggery Pleasant, Artemis Fowl and anything involving Renee Montoya turned into a movie, but I continue to hold out hope that with a semi-competent director, a brilliant casting agent and a little grace of God, any one of those (especially Skulduggery Pleasant) could be utterly fantastic.

 

[Carlston]

Anything that turns the supernatural into soccer mom fantasies (yeah more than just vampires)
Anything that tries to rewrite history to be nicer, or takes a old story and shamelessly tries to crowbar it into modern life.

 

[Arachon]

Neuromancer,
it might be good in the Watchmen sense that it was actually filmed, but if there is no creative style or proper balance of narration,
one of the greatest books of the twentieth century will end up as a cheap knockoff of Blade Runner.

Well, it is being turned into a film, directed by the same bloke who did Splice. And I don't think it'd be that much of a Blade Runner-knockoff, sure, the background and setting may appear similar, but Neuromancer always had more of a focus on technology.

 

[Tartarga]

The Night Angle Trilogy. Those books are awesome and if they made them into movies then I just know they would suck.

 

[Ciaran Lunt]

could be great but woudnt be because of cheap as hollywood type unless baz lurman did it in spanish belgariad great books but could easily end up being bad lord of the rings

 

[dementis]

Why wont you let us bash twilight!? WHYYY!?