It seems to me like it has become a global phenomenon to produce movies from books. The Harry Potter books were so well received that developing them into movies was the natural course of action. This fall, part one to Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows will be entering the theater and I can only assume that it will be huge. Right now, the Twilight Saga: Eclipse is in theaters and making big big big bucks. According to boxofficemojo.com it made $64,832,191 in just the opening weekend alone. Worldwide to date, it has grossed $645, 548,358 and that is only for being in the theaters for a little over a month. Crazy! Just as a side note, The Twilight Saga: New Moon is in third spot for one of the highest grossing films for opening weekend with $152,839,137.
Within the top 10 grossing films of all time, five of those films were literary inspired. Those being, LOTR: The Return of the King, Alice in Wonderland, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, HP and Order of the Phoenix, and HP and the Half Blood Prince. (boxofficemojo.com)
Over the past ten years, there have been multiple movies that were derived from literature. Here are a some of them:
The Kite Runner, Shutter Island, Dear John, The Davinci Code, Confessions of a Shopaholic, The Road, Sherlock Holmes, The Devil Wears Prada, Secret Window, Chronicles of Narnia, & Bridget Jones’s Diary among many many many others.
Is it just me thinking this, or has this become the way to make movies? Are book writers becoming the new movie writers? I pose the question, what is your opinion on books made into movies? Do you think that producers should be able to use their creative license and change the story completely to the point where the book no longer stands in its originality? Do you ever get mad when your favorite book is slaughtered on the big screen or do you think it is alright for the movie to be tweaked? What do you think of making a profit off of merchandising off of a film made from a book (ie: t-shirt)?
Books made into Movies: What say you?
Most of the time, books made into movies isn't a very good idea. Of course, there are exceptions to the rules, like Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings. But mostly, books like Eragon and Cirque du Freak becoming movies were extremely bad ideas. And of course they never finished the Narnia books being made into movies.
ReplyDeleteHowever, whether the movie was bad or not, it doesn't really matter to the writer. If your book is made into a movie, your book then gets tons of more publicity, which gets you more money. For example, "Interview with a Vampire" by Anne Rice wasn't a well known novel, that is until a movie was made from it, and then it became a best seller and a vampire novel that rivals "Dracula" by Bram Stoker. All because of a movie gave it publicity
Also... Julia, I've noticed that you need help gaining publicity for your blog. I'm not an expert at getting more people to read a blog, but I think that I can give you a few tips:
ReplyDelete1) Use Google Analytics - which keeps track of the # of visitors to your blog, which visitors are new or old visitors, the country the visitor is from, the pages the visitors looked at, etc....
2) Please put more posts. You're not going to get more readers if you're only posting less than 5 times a month. I know that you're mostly posting about the progress of your book, and that's good, but can't you post about other similar things as well. Like, query mistakes, how to outline a novel, what music you listen to when you write, reviews of books that you're reading, etc... Things that are related to the reading/writing industry.
3) (This is a cheap trick)... Post about things that are popular right now. For example, post about the Twilight novels, or that Mockingjay is soon to be released, etc... People will go to your blog to read things like that.
4) Follow other writer's blogs. I'm following you right now, and I hope that you can follow me too if you like my blog (I'm an aspiring writer). Writers, aspiring and published, need to stick together, and a few of them will follow you back and read your blog if you follow them as well.
5) Join some ning networks. Like 20somethingbloggers, Teen Fire, Nerdfighters, The Book Blog, etc... and make some friends there (send out friend requests and stuff). Then point out your blog to your friends, especially your friends who go on the ning writing groups. A few of them will become readers.
6) Don't just follow writers, follow the readers as well. There are many blogs out there that do book reviews, and they read books. Follow them and a few will follow you. And when the time comes that your book is published, email them if they would like to read your book and review it for you on their blog. This will get you more readers.
7) Use networking sites like Facebook and Twitter. Every time you write a new post, you can tweet about it. By the way, you can do the Twitter Effect, which is when you follow a bunch of people, and half of them will follow you back. Like you follow 1000 people, and about 500 will follow you back. Then with the people that don't follow you back, you unfollow them. and so on... Be very careful, because Twitter can suspend your account when you follow too aggressively. It has happened to me.
Well, this is all I can think of. I know that I didn't really explain everything correctly, but you can email me with questions. I'm not an expert, but I hope that a few of these tips help.
(In my experience, the Twitter tip is not that helpful compared to the others)
I'm almost forgot. It's not just about creating a Facebook, Twitter, ning account, etc... and lead them to your blog. You also have to put links on your blog that leads your readers to your Facebook and Twitter account. I can't see a button or link on your blog that will lead me to your Facebook fan page and such
ReplyDeleteJulia my friend!
ReplyDeleteOK, book to movie... here's my thought:
I love seeing what's only been in my head up on the big screen. It's fun to see how someone else interprets the same things I've read. The Harry Potter movies are a prime example. They've had four different directors and you can totally see the difference in the interpretations! It's fun to see something thru someone else's eyes.
Having said that, I'm often disappointed. Not completely disappointed, mostly because I go into knowing it's not going to be like it was in my mind. But sometimes, I'm TOTALLY disappointed. The Lovely Bones... it was just weird. Not bad, really, if it stood on its own (although still really weird), but after reading the book... it's just not good.
And to make money off the merchandise, well, that's just what we call economics, consumerism, capitalism... making money, baby. That's what the execs want, and that's what the public gives 'em. Money money money. Let's be honest, though. They put a ton of money into MAKING the movies (and books), advertising, merchandising, etc. They really wanna see that money come back, so why not help? haha Though, personally, I don't really do the merchandise thing. It's just silly to me. Who cares if I have a t-shirt or a bookmark or a poster? There was a time in my life when I thought that the amount of "stuff" I had proved how much of a fan I was. Well, I'm no longer 17, so that kind of advertizing doesn't work on me anymore. I think it's meant to attract the kiddies and the teeny-boppers, so the parents spend more money than they wanted.
Umm... I don't know if I'm making my point. I'm not even sure what my point is! But there you go. Love you!!