Why Hollywood don't make movies based on great books?

Discussion in 'Movies & Televison: Reviews, Discussions & Debate' started by Panchyprsss, Mar 22, 2016.

  1. Panchyprsss

    Panchyprsss Clogg's LORD PROTECTOR

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    Why Hollywood is still so reluctant to adapt great books into films, but jumps immediately at crappy Youth novels for faithful adaptations which all end up looking so similar you cannot tell the difference between 'Divergent', 'Maze Runner' or 'The Hunger Games' except when you see the face of Jennifer Lawrence? is it because the very scarce properties they adapted were so clumsily rewritten that ended up being an aberration that bombed miserably at the box office? (I, Robot comes to mind).

    I mean, I remember back in 1978 after 'Star wars' became a worldwide phenomenon, all major studios were running to grab classic scifi books to adapt into films, but instead came up with an avalanche of 'original' productions that were just lame rip-offs.

    I am still waiting for those proposed films like John Carpenter's 'The Stars My Destination', Stanley Kubrick's 'Foundation', Steven Spielberg's 'When Worlds Collide', Ridley Scott's 'I, Robot' (from a screenplay by Harlan Ellison), Paramount Pictures big budget 'Childhood's End' (okay it was made into an okay SYFY Channel miniseries last year, but it wasn't epic as it needed to be), 'Mindbridge', 'Cry of The Cthulu', etc.

    It seems these days that the only printed fiction Hollywood is interested now is in comicbooks about superheroes. While I enjoy those films, I prefer to have less of these and get instead 'Rendezvous with Rama' or that cancelled Guillermo del Toro adaptation of 'At the Mountains of Madness'.
     
  2. Rich ´Money´ Mustard

    Rich ´Money´ Mustard DIE!

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    I wish they'd make this:

    [​IMG]

    One of my favorite books as a kid...
     
  3. Double L

    Double L Book Reader

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    it is all driven by marketing. so if they're making maze running crap, it is because they can sell maze running crap.
     
  4. Rainmaker

    Rainmaker "Twinkle Toes" McJack

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    Does Arthur C Clarke have some good books that can be turned into good movies?
     
  5. ILLUMINATI

    ILLUMINATI Roberto Duran

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    Cause they can't compete with a great book....99% books are always better than the movie.

    The he only obvious exemption IMO is The Godfather...the movie(s) were superior.
     
  6. TFK

    TFK WBC Silver Diamond Emeritus Champ

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    I'd like to see someone turn the telephone book into a movie.

    There'd be a cast of thousands.

    TFK
     
  7. TFK

    TFK WBC Silver Diamond Emeritus Champ

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    The Planet of the Apes was a much better movie than it was a book.

    TFK
     
  8. ILLUMINATI

    ILLUMINATI Roberto Duran

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    Plus you can get away with plenty more in books. U can write whatever u want....

    in KING novel IT there is a part were a group of 12-13 year old friends have sex with the one girl in the group...how the fuk is that going to translate into a movie!??? 5-6 boys having sex with one girl back...to back...
     
  9. Panchyprsss

    Panchyprsss Clogg's LORD PROTECTOR

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    Quite a lot by the way. My picks will be:

    Rendezvous with Rama (his best book ever)
    Childhood's End
    Imperial Earth
    Fountains of Paradise
    Against the Fall of Night
    The Hammer of God
    The Sentinel (2001: A Space Odyssey was loosely based on this one)
    The Star (short story so powerful it can be made into a film, but it will offend religious wackos like me)
     
  10. Panchyprsss

    Panchyprsss Clogg's LORD PROTECTOR

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    Word.

    Even that cheap low budget horror classic The Howling was a hundred times better than the book. Joe Dante only kept the title and the basic premise.
     
  11. Panchyprsss

    Panchyprsss Clogg's LORD PROTECTOR

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    I wish works like Isaac Asimov's The Gods Themselves could be turned into a great movie, but the setting scope and the super cerebral plot will probably turn off any producer from daring to make this for the short attention span modern audiences. They will have to 'dumb it down' for Millennials and in the process destroy what makes it great. Oh, what the heck, for them is easier to make another Independence day.
     

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