6 Antworten2026-07-29
One of my favorite short stories of all time is ‘The Fall of the House of Usher’ by Edgar Allan Poe. There have been so many film adaptations of this short story over the years, including a great version by Roger Corman with Vincent Price in the 1960s, and more recently a Netflix series by Mike Flanagan. The short story is a masterpiece of gothic horror that creates a great atmosphere of madness and decay and of a house literally falling down. Most film adaptations fail to capture the density of Poe’s words and try to recreate the mood of the story, with the main objective of inducing dread, of portraying decay, and of announcing doom. The series by Flanagan is a very loose adaptation, using the title and the themes of the short story to create a modern horror series.
7 Antworten2025-08-01
There’s a lot of detail in books about space that gets left out of films (not least The Martian and Interstellar, for example), but the sound of silence in space is one of those things that gets used really effectively in both of those (in the original Interstellar in particular). The way that films can get across a physical, visceral experience of a detail like that is unique to the medium: the hum of a spaceship taking off, the crunch of Martian sand underfoot, the quiet of a vacuum.
2 Antworten2026-05-29
I am interested in reading more of Zane’s books. As for the possibility of the stories being made into movies, there are none yet but I think she has screen potential. Her ‘Nervous’ series or ‘Skyscraper’ would make a great steamy and suspenseful drama. I would be first in line to watch it on television and then subsequent seasons on DVD to binge watch them.
5 Antworten2026-07-30
I saw A Million Little Pieces last year, after the memoir had been mostly exposed as non-true. For some reason, they made the film anyway, probably because the true parts of the memoir were so dramatic and because of the “scandal” surrounding them. (Maybe people would come to see it.) The film got little attention. (It was pretty weak, anyway.) Then there’s The Reader, which is a “prestige” adaptation. It received an Oprah sticker, but very little box office or praise in terms of overall quality of adaptation, as the material and the people adapting it are so so so important. Some books are very, very visual, while others are completely locked within the heads of their characters.
10 Antworten2025-06-06
All of her books were read by me last year, and brought up in my book club recently. My answer to this question would be zero. Although there are many adaptations of her books, they are not traditional movies. ‘Olive Kitteridge’ is a long film that was released in 4 parts, and ‘Lucy Barton’ is a filmed play. The fact that there are no movies means that there is no need to judge them. Also, it’s possible that a big budget movie would change the plot or even add romance where there is none. The way that the adaptations have been made are perfect for the formats in which they have been released. Even though I would love to see ‘The Burgess Boys’ made into a movie, I think that the existing adaptations were released in the perfect format.
8 Antworten2025-07-08
I don’t think it has happened. And I am not really interested in seeing much-adapted fiction, especially when it has been so poorly done in the past. I would rather there were no film of The Unteachables than a poor one. For fear of having my perception of the book ruined in some way I would prefer that The Unteachables remained a purely literary work. We don’t need to see The Unteachables in order to believe that it is good. The full power of the work resides within the words, the pace and the unique voices of the various characters as they are expressed by its author, Elizabeth Korman. Not everything needs to be ‘commodified’ in this way and there are some works of art that are better left in their original format. This could well be one of them.
8 Antworten2025-07-15
You might remember the Crossfire books by Sylvia Day, which were sweeping the nation after Fifty Shades had readers hooked to the billionaire romance scene. There were even talks of making the book into a TV series but it apparently didn’t work out. Perhaps it’s because the author is already a known name but the show still needs to find a way to adapt to a format that will do justice to the book? Same goes for The Black Dagger Brotherhood books by J.R. Ward, which have a HUGE fan base already. They’ve been optioned for TV years ago, but no green light yet. While some of the books have darker themes, most of them have paranormal elements that will of course increase production costs but also create more problems with regards to adult content.
Many of these optioned books are sold as something to lock up potentially very lucrative IP, and then they stall because no one can figure out the creative or commercial solution to bring them to life. The success of Outlander, adapted from the historical time-travel romance novels by Diana Gabaldon, is evidence that novels featuring mature themes, violence, and lots of sex can be adapted into a hit television series. But that series has the added benefits of being a work of historical fiction with a unique time-travel twist. A contemporary dark romance just doesn’t have the same additional genre hooks to draw in a larger audience, and thus is a more marginal, riskier investment.
7 Antworten2025-04-27
Just wanted to mention “The Hiding Place”. This novel by Corrie ten Boom and her daughter is an amazing autobiographical work of a family’s efforts to hide Jews in Holland during WWII and their subsequent sojourn in a concentration camp and their experience of and response to their faith through all of it. The movie made of this novel in the 1970s is also excellent – a powerful, straightforward, amazing movie of great virtue.
The movie captures well the hardships Corrie endured and her many moments of peace and inspiration including the little trouble-making fleas in the barracks where she was being held. A great adaptation of a book of incredible true events of extreme hardship and radical faith and an excellent film for those of younger years or those that can’t get into books!
3 Antworten2025-09-06
Nothing (widely released, anyway) yet. My mental list of favorite novels to make into movies continues to evolve and About Grace remains on the list. This novel is quietly complex, moody, and above all highly character-orientated, which is exactly why it will never be reduced to a film. I love these kinds of novels to read in silence with my notebook by my side. Occasionally there are wonderful scenes and sequences but ultimately it is a dense, complex novel that will inspire many conversations about it in a reading group and makes for a wonderful, short, indie film rather than a mainstream movie.
For now, adaptations of other literary works would have to do to feed your taste for the kind of introspective, atmospheric screen time About Grace offers. You could also just read the book yourself – preferably slowly, and maybe even aloud to another person. You can also set up a Google Alert for ‘About Grace adaptation’ and check IMDb from time to time for any news of a project; sometimes such information surfaces in the smallest of notices, like a casting announcement or a mention of a film playing at a festival. Maybe one day a thoughtful filmmaker will make a decent adaptation of the novel. Until then, I guess I’ll just have to keep my fingers crossed.
7 Antworten2025-07-27
Most adapted films fall pretty far short of the original work, but not the film version of The Notebook, based on the novel by Nevada author Nicholas Sparks. Made in 2004 by Nick Cassavetes and starring Ryan Gosling and Rachel McAdams as the young lovers, it is a cult favorite that is vastly superior to the book as film. (There’s even a memorable rain kiss and a lovely summer porch scene where young lovers express their yearning for each other in physical terms.)
The steam is so good because it is earned from the portrayal of their young, wild love as well as their enduring connection decades later. The movie sticks to the few really explosive moments in their relationship and they are all so vivid and intuitive. It makes their tender connection so powerful as well as all-consuming. In many ways the adaptation of The Notebook has become more iconic than the novel itself and that is largely because it captures the passionately dreamy and romantic heart of the story in a really effective and visual way.