Authors Who Hated The Movie Versions Of Their Book



Stacy Conradt has a really cool article titled, "11 Authors Who Hated  The Movie Versions Of Their Book."  (www.mentalfloss.com)

Did you know there is a reason Catcher in the Rye is not a movie?  Actually -- I hadn't noticed until Conradt mentioned it!  But, sure enough, it's not on screen!  Turns out J.D. Salinger was big time ticked at the way his short story Uncle Wiggly in Connecticut was translated to film, and never again allowed his books to go to Hollywood!  The same is true of the sequel to Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.  (Kind of like Stephen King refusing to allow his stories to be recorded as abridgments after Thinner.)

I love this line Conradt quotes from Gump and Co, "“Don’t never let nobody make a movie of your life’s story,” and “Whether they get it right or wrong, it don’t matter.” Turns out Groom had  reason to resent Hollywood. . . they cheated him out of his royalties!

Of course, we all know Stephen King was not overly fond of The Shining -- and that puts him at #2 on Conradt's list. . . right after Mary Poppins.  What could be wrong with Mary Poppins?  That's like someone asking a King fan, "what's wrong with The Shining?"  (Nothing, if you ask most of us!)  But for King, the movie failed to tell his story.

About Mary Poppins, Conradt writes, "Despite having script approval, Travers’ edits were largely disregarded. Travers loathed the movie’s animated sequences and was perturbed that Mary Poppins’ strict side was downplayed. After some heated meetings, Travers reluctantly approved. She would have been shunned from the star-studded premiere had she not shamed a Disney exec into an invite. The 65-year-old Travers spent most of the movie crying and ultimately refused to let Disney touch the rest of the series."

And then about The Shining, Condrat says,
Stephen King probably made movie buffs cringe when he said he hated what Stanley Kubrick did to The Shining.“I’d admired Kubrick for a long time and had great expectations for the project, but I was deeply disappointed in the end result. … Kubrick just couldn’t grasp the sheer inhuman evil of The Overlook Hotel. So he looked, instead, for evil in the characters and made the film into a domestic tragedy with only vaguely supernatural overtones. That was the basic flaw: because he couldn’t believe, he couldn’t make the film believable to others.” He was also unhappy with Jack Nicholson’s performance – King wanted it to be clear that Jack Torrance wasn’t crazy until he got to the hotel and felt that Nicholson made the character crazy from the start. With director Mick Garris, King ended up working on another version of The Shining that aired on ABC in 1997.
Here's the raw list, but check out the article:

1. Mary Poppins, P.L. Travers.
2. The Shining, Stephen King.
3. Interview with the Vampire, Anne Rice
4. Forrest Gump, Winston Groom
5. Sahara, Clive Cussler
6.Uncle Wiggly in Connecticut, J.D. Salinger
7. A Clockword Orange, Anthony Burgess
8. American Psycho, Bred Easton Ellis
9. Charlie and the Chocolate Facotry, Roald Dahl
10. One Flew Over  The Cuckoo's Nest, Ken Kesey.
11. I Am Legend, Richard Matheson

The full article is delightful.  Check it out here: mentalfloss.com

10 comments:

  1. interesting- the shining i the ONLY film i have ever seen that has matched up to the books greatness, though i see what king is saying, the film and books really are two different entities, though fortunatly i find both equally amazing.

    And i know what authors feel when the make poor represenatations of their work (ok, not personally, but i can understand)...my favourite author has always been JRR Tolkien. my love for his works are far beyond other authors, so i was dissapointed in the films...they were great pieces of cinema, but a poor transfer to film...which is why i wish they had left the hobbit alone...but i digress- this is a King blog so i shall leave my ramblings there
    thanks
    rich

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  2. There is a movie about that Disney / Travers dispute currently being filmed, with Tom Hanks playing Walt and Emma Thompson playing Travers. Which sounds like the makings of a great movie to me.

    Speaking of great movies, Mary Poppins is one, and so is The Shining. And A Clockwork Orange. And One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. And American Psycho.

    Most of the rest (of the ones I've seen) are pretty good, too. Even Sahara was a decent popcorn flick.

    Authors are not always trustworthy on the subject of movies, especially movies of their own work. Heck, King was on the record as loving the movie version of Dreamcatcher, so clearly, he's not above reproach.

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  3. Matheson authored the script for the original interpretation of his novella, "I Am Legend." that starred Vincent Price.

    However, Hammer Film opted not to do the movie and it was consigned to a low budget Italian studio. When that happened, he pulled his name from the script and instead used the nom de plume, Logan Swanson which is a combination of the maiden names of his two grandmothers.

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    1. I really need to read more Matheson at some point. The only thing I've read is "I Am Legend," which is awesome.

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  4. What the heck was wrong with One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest??? The book is fantastic and I've always thought that the movie was an equally fantastic adaptation. I even took a class in college called Film and Literature where we studied this book and movie (plus I wrote a really great paper on it, if I do say so myself).... I just don't it.

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    1. Exactly! It's one of the movies I'd put on the relatively small list of unassailable classics. I mean, sure, I suppose someone COULD say it was a bad movie ... but not if that person wants me to take their opinions on movies seriously in any way.

      There are at least three others on that list that I'd say the same about, too.

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  5. Of all the titles listed I'd have to say the only one that bothered me wad I Am Legend. I always joked that I thought some one came up with their own story idea and then someone jumped up and said 'hey this is kina like mathesons i am legend!'. So to protect themselves from being sued they devided to call it based on the novel. Lol.

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    1. Typing on my tablet in between dreams in the middle of the night.

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    2. I thought "I Am Legend" was decent, but that's about the most credit I'd give it. Good Will Smith performance, if nothing else.

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