Why is it that when they take a million selling novel and decide to make a movie of it, they ALWAYS pick THE worst idiot to write the script?
Tom Clancey wrote “Patriot Games”, and it was a barn stormer of a book.
Someone converted it into a script and…
I literally sat through the entire movie, waiting for the movie to start. We turned it off the last twenty minutes, because we realized if the movie hadn’t shown up yet, it wasn’t going to.
Dull, blah…
Stephen King (I’m not a fan, by the way) wrote many books. The books sold millions. The movies were horrible, Why?
They changed them.
Except for “Delores Clairbourne”. They figured nobody would care. It sold a lot, but it wasn’t “The Shining”. So they basically just took the book, put it in a script, and made…
…one of the most memorable Stephen King movies ever filmed.
They figured nobody would care, because it wasn’t his most popular work. So, they just cut it down to the essentials, and filmed it.
See, that’s how you do it. “How are they going to change it?”
Why do you want to change it?
I mean, literally, I can still – and I haven;t seen the movie in many years… see Delores Clairbourne standing at the well, with joe at the bottom of it, shouting threats at her as she struggles with her conscience. She knows if she covers the well, and walks away, she’s going to kill the man she loves. If she lets him out, this is it – he’s going to kill her. There’s no doubt about it. And she stands there, panic on her face, hyperventilating, as a solar eclipse happens behind her. The Eclipse represents the struggle in her soul between doing what’s right, and staying alive. And she chooses, as the screen darkens.
I’ve read many, many books where they’ve been butchered making them into movies. Why do you need to change them?
I mean, is the screen writer so smart that he can tell a million selling author how he should have done it? no kidding, that’s the presumptuousness of it.
Really, the smart thing is to hire the author to write the screenplay, and have them work with the director. The director’s job is taking the terse script and making it alive. The Screen writer’s job is to write the story.
If you’re taking a novel that’s already a success, just – hire the author.
If it ain’t broke…
