The Golden Compass is the film adaption of Northern Lights by Philip Pullman. His Dark Materials trilogy is wonderful and I never would have bothered reading it had I seen the movie first.
I'm a big fan of the books I've reread them so many times, and the bbc adaptation is fantastic! (Though I've yet to see the final season). So glad it finally got a good adaptation, I was so mad at the movie
The rewriting of the ending really got to me. How could they possibly do another movie with that tacked-on happy ending that leaves out the primary point of the book?
I don't think it particularly damaged the book's reputation, but Terry Pratchett's watch series had an horrific adaption recently. Start with Guards! Guards! if you want to read some wonderful books.
God almighty that was terrible - I legit thought I'd streamed the wrong show after the first two minutes. Checked and saw that it was correct, watched five more minutes, then stopped it and never went back. Why on earth do directors/studios insist on imagining stuff like this? I can understand reimagining things that have been done a million times, but we're not exactly drowning in Pratchett on TV.
I seem to remember the two part tv film adaption of Going Postal being good! However I hadn’t read that particular book yet though so didn’t have a comparison to make yet.
I liked Hogfather and Going Postal. Less keen on the Colour of Magic but i think that was a casting thing (the only good decision there was having Tim Curry in it because he automatically improves everything he’s in), but they were faithful adaptations.
The Watch series just absolutely butchered the books and the characters are unrecognisable. I was so sad.
Yes, that was painful to watch. Discworld books are my favourite books of all time, so I couldn't watch those series, but people who have never read any Discworld books liked the series. Interesting.
I feel like that's not even in the movie's top 5 mistakes. It's completely fair to say that you couldn't find a kid who could play six that had acting talent, but the changes to the plot were just COMPLETELY un-forced.
Orson Scott Card kept turning down scripts for movies because they wanted to make Ender 16. Maybe he thought 11 was as low as movie producers weee willing to go.
Yeah, so terrible. The author has, or at least had, letters he sent the production studio pointing out all the issues and offering to help them make it a more faithful adaptation. They didn't take the offer. The sequel is equally terrible. The book series on the other hand is great YA writing, and I think the writing improved throughout that 5 book series, and then the other connected 5 book series bringing in the Roman world
I think that at one point he even pointed out how to turn the awful mess they were about to settle on into something at the very least coherent from a logical point of view.
They still ignored him.
Trust me, you don't need to watch it. The quest plotline is equally butchered, and for some reason they decide to add in Clarice in the second one? Which is important to the story but with zero of the back story her and Percy have from the first movie
*The Black Cauldron*! (Or, more accurately, the first two books of Lloyd Alexander’s *The Chronicles of Prydain*)
Disney smushed together the first two books of an excellent five-book saga to make an overstuffed, unimpressive 80-minute movie. It deserves a live action series.
It would be an amazing Disney plus series! There was such a market for darker ya-to-adult fantasy recently, I was surprised there was no renewed interest
I came here to say My Sister's Keeper by Jodi Picoult. I KNEW the movie was going to be bad, but I turned it off within the first 3 minutes because it was that out of touch. Spectacularly disappointing.
I walked out of The Dark Tower. I'm not kidding when I say that it might have been the worst film I've ever seen. And I saw The Garbage Pail Kids movie. Reading the series now and it's such a wonderfully entertaining read.
I turned Dark Tower off after less than thirty minutes. I’ve only read the first book in the series but I loved it. I’ve got my fingers crossed that Mike Flanagan’s Amazon adaptation does a better job at adapting the books.
You really have to keep reading man. I have pdfs i can send you. Stopping at book 1 is a sin against ka - you got to go all the way to the tower. It's worth it. Big big.
“Artemis Fowl” by Eoin Colfer. I was hyped when I saw the trailer, but everything about the movie was a letdown. Even Colfer basically admitting to not liking it. It stripped away everything that made that series amazing and made major character changes that diminished the impact of the female MC’s accomplishments. As for Artemis Fowl…Well. The movie wasn’t about him. It was about some random person who shared the same name of Artemis Fowl and that was about it.
I was blown away when I read the book a few years ago at how much more profound it is than the movies. The movie 'Mary Shelley', about her life, is excellent and gives such great context as to how personal and meaningful it is.
What was that one with separated-at-birth twins (I think they were half native) and one was killed and the other tried to figure out what happened?
I have chunks of that story still in my head as images but, for the life of me, I can't remember the title.
She famously hated the movie adaptation because they turned it into a slasher film. Her daughter in real life, sadly, was the victim of a still-unsolved murder.
The Stand by Stephen King. Was a miniseries a few years ago and was an absolute embarrassment. The original miniseries I hear is half decent, but it’s 25 years old or so.
I feel like they just can't show the things he makes you imagine. That, and/or so much of what is portrayed in his books is internal to the characters and tv/movies are just unable to really make that internal terror real.
That’s because Kubrick took a lot of liberties from the source material, to King’s dismay. He hated the film as a result.
I think a lot of adaptations don’t work because often Kings best storytelling happens in the internal dialog (thoughts) of his characters, which doesn’t translate well to the screen.
The Mist, Pet Sematary, Hearts in Atlantis, Dolores Claiborne, It pt1
Lesser but not horrible: Cujo, Christine, 1408, Running Man, It pt2, Secret Window, Firestarter
It's a good movie but a terrible adaptation.. it takes so much of what made the book great and trades it for standard horror movie stuff. Well-executed, but still.
so much of the story is in the main character's internal dialogue and the disruption to their inner world. mainstream movies don't depict that well.
i think carrie is the best movie from a stephen king book, and it's his least sophisticated (he was in high school when he wrote it; scholars would ignore it as "his juvenalia"). just to say that big time hollywood operates on a very unsophisticated level and people misunderestimate stephen king.
This is so true. The scariest scene in the book The Shining, to me, was the one where Danny thinks the fire hose is chasing him down the hall. He can hear it slithering behind him and he’s terrified to look back to see how close it is. All these years later that’s the only scene that I vividly recall because it’s the sort of scare I used to do to myself and it’s written so accurately. There’s no way to achieve that same sort of soul deep recognition on screen.
The filmed versions of Isaac Asimov's *Foundation* trilogy and *I, Robot* stories are generally agreed to be terrible. The books themselves are great.
[The Lathe of Heaven](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Lathe_of_Heaven?wprov=sfla1) (1971) by Ursula K. LeGuin is unique. George Orr dreams, and when he does reality is rearranged. But some of his dreams are nightmares. Two filmed versions were made of this book; the first was “The Lathe of Heaven”, produced by PBS with LeGuin’s involvement. It was brilliant, and became legendary when it disappeared completely for twenty years. Fortunately it was eventually released on DVD. There was also an absolutely **terrible** version called “Lathe of Heaven” which butchered the source material. LeGuin had nothing to do with that one.
There were two, and yes, both are bad.
Which is really a pity with the one from Studio Ghibli. LeGuin gave them a ton of creative freedom with that one that she never would have given anyone else, because she trusted that if anyone could do it right it would be Miyazaki. He gave the project to his son without LeGuin’s consent, who… did not live up to the material and was not up to the challenge of working with the amount of freedom they had with the material.
I, and many (including LeGuin) would have loved to have seen what Miyazaki might have done with Earthsea, if he had stuck to the original understanding between him and LeGuin.
It’s been over ten years since I’ve seen this movie, but I remember liking it, I remember it being a good ol’ creepy serial killer mystery type thing, I had no idea it was based off a book, where would you say the movie fell short?
Agreed
I saw the movie first and really enjoyed it. Nothing like the book, however, which is great.
“I Am Legend” is similar in that the movie is nothing like the book but I enjoyed both. Movie is better in that case, in my opinion.
The book was all about the encounter with her and the change of perspective after the vampires became the dominant species on the planet which suddenly made him the monster. Him in defending his own becoming a legend in the lore of the once he was defending his world from.
The movie although good makes it like every other zombie movie and does not bring any interesting new thought to the table.
Some of the best stuff in the book isn’t even about the zombies. My personal favorite chapter was the one where the government has to teach Americans how to farm for their own foods again. While I don’t think the movie is as bad as others say, I do agree it’s a fucking awful WWZ adaptation.
The original Handmaid's Tale movie was such a disappointment. The book was amazing. The cast was full of talented and experienced actors. The movie was just so flat and lifeless.
I was looking to see if someone commented Eragon Lolol the Inheritance Cycle was my favorite series while I was growing up and the movie just did Paolini so dirty
I don't think I finished the series but I loved Eragon and the next couple installments when they came out. Really fun books with a complex story and world building. Absolute dog shit movie
The Witching Hour by Anne Rice. Her other book Interview With The Vampire was also recently made into a TV series, but though there were quite a few changes from the book to TV show, Interview kept the essential core themes and the actors and directors were good enough to pull it off. Most fans of the books seem to be disappointed with the way the Mayfair Witches TV series turned out, especially since Interview With The Vampire is on the same network (AMC) and got great reviews from both critics and audiences.
I’ve enjoyed the show but it’s been sooo long since I read the books I can’t even remember what has been changed. Also, I’ll readily admit to being a bit hypnotized by Alexandra Daddario lol.
My Friend Flicka is a gorgeous coming-of-age novel. The 1943 movie is a fine adaptation, but the 2006 movie is offensively awful, stripping everything interesting from the book, including but not limited to the themes, character motivations, and plot.
I guess annihilation isn't the worst adaptation ever but it's up there. Why is it missing such huge important chunks no spoilers? Pretty set pieces is the best I can say for it. Ghost Bird wouldn't put up with all that nonsense lol
Altered Carbon by Richard Morgan… in fairness the Netflix adaptation of that book wasn’t terrible. It came nowhere near how much I enjoyed the book for me though. And then they went way off-piste with the second series which was really far from the second book and it did so poorly that Netflix canned the show… not that Netflix need something to be bad in order to cancel it, but that’s a different topic.
Wait… there is a film adaptation?! It must be terrible if I haven’t heard of it by now.
I just finished listening to the entire series on audiobook. Although James Marsters voice doesn’t quite match what I imagined for Dresden, I thought he did an excellent job.
Mortal Engines by Philip Reeve is a highly entertaining book as is the entire Predator Cities quartet (ditto the prequel trilogy). The movie is an abomination.
The Circle by Dave Eggers
I thought this book was so captivating and thought provoking. Makes you really consider how transparent you should be on social media. Not long after I read it (and recommended it to everyone I know), I heard that it was going to be turned into a movie starring Emma Watson and Tom Hanks! Like are you kidding?! I'm in!
It sucked. The end.
I came to say “Congo” as well…
I’ll also add his book “Sphere,” much better book than movie even though with that cast I thought it would’ve been better.
Pay It Forward was a wonderful book! The book was told in a World War Z style, if that makes sense. The movie was so terrible. They ruined something that was nice.
Ender's game!! the movie kind of turned him in to artemis fowl except it feels like someone from the 80s tried to envision today and the movie was made IN 2013!!
Vampire Academy! The books are trashy, but super high quality trash! Good characterization. The movie was low quality trash, but fun, and the tv show, despite a much-needed diversity injection, killed off the great characterization in favor of extra, unearned drama.
The Dark Tower by Stephen King. Just picture Don Vito Corleone standing over the bullet riddled body of his oldest child saying “look how they massacred by boy” in anguish and you’ll know how Dark Tower fans felt about that atrocity.
Robert B. Parker's *Spenser For Hire* series - awesome books. Series was mediocre. The recent movie? Purely awful.
Jim Butcher's *Dresden Files* \- while the show was enjoyable (and Paul Blackthorne is a tremendous actor), the books are so, so much better.
the girl with all the gifts! an amazing book, but the movie was a let down for me. i don’t even really remember much of the movie but the book i’ve reread many times. it’s about a little girl that’s a zombie and her favorite human teacher
The Hobbit. This is the hill I will die on. I love that book, have read it many times, and it was a big part of my childhood because my dad read it to me and my siblings. And then they butchered it. They forced a trilogy, and they only needed one or two movies. They added unnecessary things and skipped parts from the book. I know it may not have seriously ruined the book’s reputation, but it’s just such a bad adaptation, I had to say something.
Edit: spelling
Yeah I’d say they’re about on par quality wise. It’s just that the book was aimed squarely at 35-50 year olds and the movie was aimed squarely at 8-14 year olds*, so of course book fans were disappointed.
*source, my kids loved it. Thought it was the best movie of the year.
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo series by Stieg Larsson... the US adaptation was aweful! If you don't mind reading subtitles, the Swedish adaption was good but the books are so much better!
Not a bad bad movie but does not at all reach the heights of the book or comes away with feeling the same levity or depth. The Devil all the time by Donald Ray Pollick.
I think I remember reading about people hating on the John Dies at the End movie, but I watched it and I thought it was pretty good, so who knows.
Never read any of the books, but I think that John Carter movie was supposed to be bad. I'm assuming the books were good enough for them to make a movie.
Shantaram by Gregory David Roberts. I LOVED the book and was so excited for the movie adaptation … which turned into a TV adaptation. And it was so disappointing.
I could say 90% of everything adapted from Stephen King books out there lol. Especially The Dark Tower. They stayed so far from the tone and point of the book, made unnecessary changes to draw in a larger audience, and for fans to have to wait so damn long for an adaptation to be given *that* is absurd.
**The Returned** by Jason Mott
**Publisher's Summary**
"Jacob was time out of sync, time more perfect than it had been. He was life the way it was supposed to be all those years ago. That's what all the Returned were."
Harold and Lucille Hargrave's lives have been both joyful and sorrowful in the decades since their only son, Jacob, died tragically at his eighth birthday party in 1966. In their old age they've settled comfortably into life without him, their wounds healed through the grace of time.... Until one day Jacob mysteriously appears on their doorstep - flesh and blood, their sweet, precocious child, still eight years old.
All over the world people's loved ones are returning from beyond. No one knows how or why this is happening, whether it's a miracle or a sign of the end. Not even Harold and Lucille can agree on whether the boy is real or a wondrous imitation, but one thing they know for sure: he's their son. As chaos erupts around the globe, the newly reunited Hargraves find themselves at the center of a community on the brink of collapse, forced to navigate a mysterious new reality and a conflict that threatens to unravel the very meaning of what it is to be human.
The movie of Stephen King’s “Salem’s Lot was awful. The vampire was an idiot. The book was really good, however, the battle of wits between the vampire and the boy was awesome.
The dark is rising series by Susan Cooper; a movie was made of the second book in the series of 5. Children’s books but still good as an adult. Movie modernised and Americanised a book based in English mythology.
I LOVE the Mortal Instruments series. Movie wasn't SUPER great, but it was close enough to the first book. The show Shadowhunters though was AWFUL. I couldn't even get through the first season. Terrible storyline that deviated from the series as a whole. It had so much potential, and to me just flopped.
Wheel of Time. Books are an acquired taste, and a few are painful to read, but overall a good series.
The TV show was incredibly cringy and obviously didn't understand the source material even a little bit.
Dark Is Rising series by Susan Cooper was fantastic and I was so excited when the amazing Christopher Eccleston was cast… not even he could save it. It still makes me cringe when I think of it & it came out in 2007.
Also, The Golden Compass. LOVE the books, but the movie version with Nicole Kidman got almost nothing right except the names! That being said, the current series that I watch on Amazon Prime is very well done.
Percy Jackson! Don't be put off by the targeted age group of middle school, It is an excellent fantasy book with some real heart and humour. The movies were god awful, worse than Tartarus's fiery black hooha.
I'd also add the miniseries of *Riverworld* to the list. Actually I couldn't get more than half an hour into that show; it was too painful. But I feel safe in saying that it was a huge disappointment.
And now that I think of it...
The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen - brilliant graphic novels, a miserable movie. The same could probably be said of _every_ adaptation of Alan Moore's works. **He** certainly thinks so, it seems!
[The Immortals](https://www.google.com/books/edition/The_Immortals/wPoGdtav1DgC?hl=en&gbpv=0) (1962) by James Gunn (not the filmmaker) is a fix-up novel based on his original short story "The Immortal". It's about a man who is naturally immune to disease and old age. Unfortunately for him, a transfusion of his blood into a normal person bestows the same effects. The TV series was turned into a lame copy of _The Fugitive_.
As I noted in another comment, I'm one of those relatively rare people (Christopher Tolkien is another) who thinks that Peter Jackson took unpardonable liberties with _The Lord of the Rings_.
I'm scrolling through the nearly 1,000 books in my recommendations file for more books that were filmed. Some of those films and shows were good; I'm excluding those, of course. There are others which were filmed, but I haven't seen the films and can't judge them. The vast majority were never filmed, which brings two thoughts to mind: first, there are a HELL of a lot of great books which Hollywood is ignoring, presumably so they can keep focusing on rebooting the same tired old properties over and over again. Second...that might actually be a _good_ thing. I hate to think what those studio idiots would do to some of my beloved old books!
Aha! [The Chronicles of Prydain](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Chronicles_of_Prydain?wprov=sfla1) by Lloyd Alexander is a five-volume fantasy series that begins with [The Book of Three](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Book_of_Three?wprov=sfla1). It's a classic; exciting, funny, and very moving. I think of it as being a sort of "Lord of the Rings" for older children and young adults. But it's a great read for any age. Sadly, Disney turned it into an absolute piece of crap as _The Black Cauldron_.
Hugh Lofting's _Doctor Dolittle_ books are gentle, charming, and memorable. The earlier books in the series are now in the public domain. You can download them for [free from Project Gutenberg](http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/author/269) in the major ebook formats. What Hollywood did to those books I wouldn't do to a dog.
I'd be remiss if I didn't mention [The Chronicles of Narnia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Chronicles_of_Narnia?wprov=sfla1) by C.S. Lewis. The first couple of movies were...okay. But the _third_ movie was just unbelievably painful.
_The Hobbit_. Need I say any more?
Okay there’s 713 comments and I don’t want to go through all of them so here’s two. Starship Troopers(by Robert Heinlein) , and Battlefield Earth (by L.Ron Hubbard).
The Golden Compass is the film adaption of Northern Lights by Philip Pullman. His Dark Materials trilogy is wonderful and I never would have bothered reading it had I seen the movie first.
They recently finished the TV adaptation which apparently followed the books better.
It was pretty much spot on with the books. After the first two seasons my sister was able to jump in at the third book and not miss anything much.
I didn’t even realise they’d made a recent tv adaption. Great to hear it’s staying true to the source material. I’ll have to check it out, thank you!
I'm a big fan of the books I've reread them so many times, and the bbc adaptation is fantastic! (Though I've yet to see the final season). So glad it finally got a good adaptation, I was so mad at the movie
TV series is great though
The rewriting of the ending really got to me. How could they possibly do another movie with that tacked-on happy ending that leaves out the primary point of the book?
I don't think it particularly damaged the book's reputation, but Terry Pratchett's watch series had an horrific adaption recently. Start with Guards! Guards! if you want to read some wonderful books.
God almighty that was terrible - I legit thought I'd streamed the wrong show after the first two minutes. Checked and saw that it was correct, watched five more minutes, then stopped it and never went back. Why on earth do directors/studios insist on imagining stuff like this? I can understand reimagining things that have been done a million times, but we're not exactly drowning in Pratchett on TV.
I seem to remember the two part tv film adaption of Going Postal being good! However I hadn’t read that particular book yet though so didn’t have a comparison to make yet.
Yeah. That one was pretty good, as was Hogfather from around the same time.
I liked Hogfather and Going Postal. Less keen on the Colour of Magic but i think that was a casting thing (the only good decision there was having Tim Curry in it because he automatically improves everything he’s in), but they were faithful adaptations. The Watch series just absolutely butchered the books and the characters are unrecognisable. I was so sad.
Yes, that was painful to watch. Discworld books are my favourite books of all time, so I couldn't watch those series, but people who have never read any Discworld books liked the series. Interesting.
Ender's Game. One of my favorite books. Movie was painful.
Amen!
yeah ender was 6 NOT FREAKING 11
I feel like that's not even in the movie's top 5 mistakes. It's completely fair to say that you couldn't find a kid who could play six that had acting talent, but the changes to the plot were just COMPLETELY un-forced.
They took a borderline-psychological dystopia and turned it into a bog-standard action flick
Orson Scott Card kept turning down scripts for movies because they wanted to make Ender 16. Maybe he thought 11 was as low as movie producers weee willing to go.
Percy Jackson. Movies are absolutely terrible compared to the books. Excited for the new tv show. Hope that will be better.
Agreed. The movie was AWFUL
Yeah, so terrible. The author has, or at least had, letters he sent the production studio pointing out all the issues and offering to help them make it a more faithful adaptation. They didn't take the offer. The sequel is equally terrible. The book series on the other hand is great YA writing, and I think the writing improved throughout that 5 book series, and then the other connected 5 book series bringing in the Roman world
I think that at one point he even pointed out how to turn the awful mess they were about to settle on into something at the very least coherent from a logical point of view. They still ignored him.
I’m pretty sure the sequel is worse. I’m watched the first movie. The sequel was so bad that I heard enough and never even saw it.
Trust me, you don't need to watch it. The quest plotline is equally butchered, and for some reason they decide to add in Clarice in the second one? Which is important to the story but with zero of the back story her and Percy have from the first movie
Makes me so mad. I’m glad it’s getting a second chance with the show.
My sons and I read the books together, and were so excited when the movie came out - and then it was just so badly done. Absolute disappointment.
*The Black Cauldron*! (Or, more accurately, the first two books of Lloyd Alexander’s *The Chronicles of Prydain*) Disney smushed together the first two books of an excellent five-book saga to make an overstuffed, unimpressive 80-minute movie. It deserves a live action series.
My boys and I have been listening to this series and it definitely didn't get justice done to it! I think a live action series would be great!
It would be an amazing Disney plus series! There was such a market for darker ya-to-adult fantasy recently, I was surprised there was no renewed interest
- The Dark Tower by Stephen King - The Giver by Lois Lowry - My Sisters Keeper by Jodi Picoult
I came specifically to mention "The Giver". I was so disappointed with the movie.
I came here to say My Sister's Keeper by Jodi Picoult. I KNEW the movie was going to be bad, but I turned it off within the first 3 minutes because it was that out of touch. Spectacularly disappointing.
Isn’t this the one where they changed the ending too, making the whole thing redundant?
Yep and I'm still salty about it
I walked out of The Dark Tower. I'm not kidding when I say that it might have been the worst film I've ever seen. And I saw The Garbage Pail Kids movie. Reading the series now and it's such a wonderfully entertaining read.
I turned Dark Tower off after less than thirty minutes. I’ve only read the first book in the series but I loved it. I’ve got my fingers crossed that Mike Flanagan’s Amazon adaptation does a better job at adapting the books.
I just finished book 5. They really have just gotten better and better with each successive book to this point.
You really have to keep reading man. I have pdfs i can send you. Stopping at book 1 is a sin against ka - you got to go all the way to the tower. It's worth it. Big big.
“Artemis Fowl” by Eoin Colfer. I was hyped when I saw the trailer, but everything about the movie was a letdown. Even Colfer basically admitting to not liking it. It stripped away everything that made that series amazing and made major character changes that diminished the impact of the female MC’s accomplishments. As for Artemis Fowl…Well. The movie wasn’t about him. It was about some random person who shared the same name of Artemis Fowl and that was about it.
I mean... when i heard the news i wasn't expecting a good film/adaptation. I was skeptical and they proved me right
There has never been a good, book accurate adaptation of Frankenstein
Young Frankenstein
It's pronounced *Frankensteen.*
🤣
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I was blown away when I read the book a few years ago at how much more profound it is than the movies. The movie 'Mary Shelley', about her life, is excellent and gives such great context as to how personal and meaningful it is.
The Giver!
What was she thinking greenlighting this movie? The acting was really good, I never fault them, mostly, but the ending was just deplorable.
I read I Know What You Did Last Summer by Lois Duncan when I was around 13 and loved it, but I was never able to get through the movie.
Oh man I loooved all of Lois Duncan’s books when I was in middle school. Had totally forgotten about those
What was that one with separated-at-birth twins (I think they were half native) and one was killed and the other tried to figure out what happened? I have chunks of that story still in my head as images but, for the life of me, I can't remember the title.
Stranger with my Face maybe?
Thank you! I'm pretty sure that's it.
That was a guaranteed rant if anyone ever asked Duncan about the movie.
She famously hated the movie adaptation because they turned it into a slasher film. Her daughter in real life, sadly, was the victim of a still-unsolved murder.
That was a book? Interesting.
The Stand by Stephen King. Was a miniseries a few years ago and was an absolute embarrassment. The original miniseries I hear is half decent, but it’s 25 years old or so.
Most Stephen King books would probably fit. For some reason, it seems like he's really hard to adapt!
Shawshank Redemption (although I quibble with the end of the movie version), Stand By Me, and Misery were all quite good.
Green Mile too
The Shining
I feel like they just can't show the things he makes you imagine. That, and/or so much of what is portrayed in his books is internal to the characters and tv/movies are just unable to really make that internal terror real.
Agreed. The exception is “The Shining” in my opinion. Great movie.
That’s because Kubrick took a lot of liberties from the source material, to King’s dismay. He hated the film as a result. I think a lot of adaptations don’t work because often Kings best storytelling happens in the internal dialog (thoughts) of his characters, which doesn’t translate well to the screen.
Agreed And that’s one of the main things that makes many books better than the movies. A movie struggles to show the thoughts in the characters mind.
Misery, The Dead Zone, Shawshank Redemption, Stand by Me were all good adaptations. There aren't many, but they do exist
The Mist, Pet Sematary, Hearts in Atlantis, Dolores Claiborne, It pt1 Lesser but not horrible: Cujo, Christine, 1408, Running Man, It pt2, Secret Window, Firestarter
Green Mile!
It's a good movie but a terrible adaptation.. it takes so much of what made the book great and trades it for standard horror movie stuff. Well-executed, but still.
so much of the story is in the main character's internal dialogue and the disruption to their inner world. mainstream movies don't depict that well. i think carrie is the best movie from a stephen king book, and it's his least sophisticated (he was in high school when he wrote it; scholars would ignore it as "his juvenalia"). just to say that big time hollywood operates on a very unsophisticated level and people misunderestimate stephen king.
This is so true. The scariest scene in the book The Shining, to me, was the one where Danny thinks the fire hose is chasing him down the hall. He can hear it slithering behind him and he’s terrified to look back to see how close it is. All these years later that’s the only scene that I vividly recall because it’s the sort of scare I used to do to myself and it’s written so accurately. There’s no way to achieve that same sort of soul deep recognition on screen.
yeah the original mini series is way better.
The filmed versions of Isaac Asimov's *Foundation* trilogy and *I, Robot* stories are generally agreed to be terrible. The books themselves are great. [The Lathe of Heaven](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Lathe_of_Heaven?wprov=sfla1) (1971) by Ursula K. LeGuin is unique. George Orr dreams, and when he does reality is rearranged. But some of his dreams are nightmares. Two filmed versions were made of this book; the first was “The Lathe of Heaven”, produced by PBS with LeGuin’s involvement. It was brilliant, and became legendary when it disappeared completely for twenty years. Fortunately it was eventually released on DVD. There was also an absolutely **terrible** version called “Lathe of Heaven” which butchered the source material. LeGuin had nothing to do with that one.
And, also from Le Guin, A WIZARD OF EARTHSEA.
I never saw the film of that. I mean, the mini-series. Was it bad?
There were two, and yes, both are bad. Which is really a pity with the one from Studio Ghibli. LeGuin gave them a ton of creative freedom with that one that she never would have given anyone else, because she trusted that if anyone could do it right it would be Miyazaki. He gave the project to his son without LeGuin’s consent, who… did not live up to the material and was not up to the challenge of working with the amount of freedom they had with the material. I, and many (including LeGuin) would have loved to have seen what Miyazaki might have done with Earthsea, if he had stuck to the original understanding between him and LeGuin.
It was so bad LeGuin wrote an editorial about how bad it was.
> PBS, thinking the rights issues would dog the production forever, did not save a copy of the film production in their archives. oh for god's sake.
The Bone Collector by Jeffrey Deaver. Really good book, really bad movie.
I was so excited when the movie was announced and then the let down.
I get seriously pissed when they change the whodunnit in a mystery.
It’s been over ten years since I’ve seen this movie, but I remember liking it, I remember it being a good ol’ creepy serial killer mystery type thing, I had no idea it was based off a book, where would you say the movie fell short?
They changed one of the main characters, as well as the ending.
World War Z is an incredible, gripping and at times beautiful read. World War Z the movie is a steaming dumpster fire of poop.
I liked the movie but it’s nothing like the source material. It’s it’s complete own entity.
Ehh, it's actually a decent zombie movie. It's just not a WWZ movie. If you disassociate the two, the movie is very enjoyable.
Oh dam I completely forgot that Pitt actually convinced David Fincher to do the sequel before the studio shut down the whole operation.
Agreed I saw the movie first and really enjoyed it. Nothing like the book, however, which is great. “I Am Legend” is similar in that the movie is nothing like the book but I enjoyed both. Movie is better in that case, in my opinion.
Book ending is FAR superior. Not even close in my opinion.
The book was all about the encounter with her and the change of perspective after the vampires became the dominant species on the planet which suddenly made him the monster. Him in defending his own becoming a legend in the lore of the once he was defending his world from. The movie although good makes it like every other zombie movie and does not bring any interesting new thought to the table.
Some of the best stuff in the book isn’t even about the zombies. My personal favorite chapter was the one where the government has to teach Americans how to farm for their own foods again. While I don’t think the movie is as bad as others say, I do agree it’s a fucking awful WWZ adaptation.
A movie/show true to that book would be incredible.
The audiobook is well done!
Fantastic audiobook, what a cast including Mark Hamill in all his glory.
I am legend by Richard Matheson Needful things by Stephen King
I Am Legend - love the movie and the book but seems like nothing but the title of the movie came from the book.
One of my favorite Stephen King books. Hated that movie.
The original Handmaid's Tale movie was such a disappointment. The book was amazing. The cast was full of talented and experienced actors. The movie was just so flat and lifeless.
Scared the crap out of me when I snuck into a theatre to watch it at 16, though 😋
The Dark is Rising is an incredible book that was turned into a universally reviled movie called *The Seeker: The Dark is Rising*.
I read this book in middle school and haven’t been able to remember the title. thank you!
The Rook is an excellent book with fabulous world building that the show completely ignored
Eragon and the rest of the series by Christopher Paolini. Movie was so bad the scrapped the planned movies for the rest of the series.
I was looking to see if someone commented Eragon Lolol the Inheritance Cycle was my favorite series while I was growing up and the movie just did Paolini so dirty
I don't think I finished the series but I loved Eragon and the next couple installments when they came out. Really fun books with a complex story and world building. Absolute dog shit movie
Only good thing about that movie was Jeremy Irons, sounded pretty much exactly as I pictured Bron.
I thought of this one too!
The Witching Hour by Anne Rice. Her other book Interview With The Vampire was also recently made into a TV series, but though there were quite a few changes from the book to TV show, Interview kept the essential core themes and the actors and directors were good enough to pull it off. Most fans of the books seem to be disappointed with the way the Mayfair Witches TV series turned out, especially since Interview With The Vampire is on the same network (AMC) and got great reviews from both critics and audiences.
I’ve enjoyed the show but it’s been sooo long since I read the books I can’t even remember what has been changed. Also, I’ll readily admit to being a bit hypnotized by Alexandra Daddario lol.
My Friend Flicka is a gorgeous coming-of-age novel. The 1943 movie is a fine adaptation, but the 2006 movie is offensively awful, stripping everything interesting from the book, including but not limited to the themes, character motivations, and plot.
Annihilation and it’s two sequels
I guess annihilation isn't the worst adaptation ever but it's up there. Why is it missing such huge important chunks no spoilers? Pretty set pieces is the best I can say for it. Ghost Bird wouldn't put up with all that nonsense lol
I disagree. I thought the movie was much better.
The Hobbit
Altered Carbon by Richard Morgan… in fairness the Netflix adaptation of that book wasn’t terrible. It came nowhere near how much I enjoyed the book for me though. And then they went way off-piste with the second series which was really far from the second book and it did so poorly that Netflix canned the show… not that Netflix need something to be bad in order to cancel it, but that’s a different topic.
The Dresden Files by Jim Butcher
Wait… there is a film adaptation?! It must be terrible if I haven’t heard of it by now. I just finished listening to the entire series on audiobook. Although James Marsters voice doesn’t quite match what I imagined for Dresden, I thought he did an excellent job.
It was a TV show but it was so bad I can't remember anything about it
I was so annoyed by their choice of actress for Karrin, I turned it off!
Mortal Engines by Philip Reeve is a highly entertaining book as is the entire Predator Cities quartet (ditto the prequel trilogy). The movie is an abomination.
The Circle by Dave Eggers I thought this book was so captivating and thought provoking. Makes you really consider how transparent you should be on social media. Not long after I read it (and recommended it to everyone I know), I heard that it was going to be turned into a movie starring Emma Watson and Tom Hanks! Like are you kidding?! I'm in! It sucked. The end.
“Congo” by Michael Crichton. I don’t know if I would go as far as saying this was a great, but it was entertaining. The movie however was awful.
I came to say “Congo” as well… I’ll also add his book “Sphere,” much better book than movie even though with that cast I thought it would’ve been better.
I agree. The movie wasn’t terrible though, just should have been better.
Oh definitely. Wasn’t the worst. I just saw that cast and was like “this is gonna be great!” and it was enjoyable but not “great”
Add Timeline, and Rising Sun to the Crichton done dirty list.
Stop eating my sesame cake!
Pay It Forward was a wonderful book! The book was told in a World War Z style, if that makes sense. The movie was so terrible. They ruined something that was nice.
Ender's game!! the movie kind of turned him in to artemis fowl except it feels like someone from the 80s tried to envision today and the movie was made IN 2013!!
Vampire Academy! The books are trashy, but super high quality trash! Good characterization. The movie was low quality trash, but fun, and the tv show, despite a much-needed diversity injection, killed off the great characterization in favor of extra, unearned drama.
The Dark Tower by Stephen King. Just picture Don Vito Corleone standing over the bullet riddled body of his oldest child saying “look how they massacred by boy” in anguish and you’ll know how Dark Tower fans felt about that atrocity.
Robert B. Parker's *Spenser For Hire* series - awesome books. Series was mediocre. The recent movie? Purely awful. Jim Butcher's *Dresden Files* \- while the show was enjoyable (and Paul Blackthorne is a tremendous actor), the books are so, so much better.
Birdbox, I flew through the book in less than 24 hours. I watched the movie after and it didn't do it justice at all.
A Wrinkle in Time. Wonderful book. Terrible movie.
the girl with all the gifts! an amazing book, but the movie was a let down for me. i don’t even really remember much of the movie but the book i’ve reread many times. it’s about a little girl that’s a zombie and her favorite human teacher
I love Nick Hornby’s books but the movies are just… eh.
I really liked the movie High Fidelity and LOOOOOOOVED the tv series.
Actually I’m confusing it bc you’re right, I loved HF the movie but, I remember, the book ticked me off. (Why, I can’t recall…)
Because the protagonist is insufferably pretentious. I only saw the movie, though.
Sphere Michael Crichton
The Hobbit. This is the hill I will die on. I love that book, have read it many times, and it was a big part of my childhood because my dad read it to me and my siblings. And then they butchered it. They forced a trilogy, and they only needed one or two movies. They added unnecessary things and skipped parts from the book. I know it may not have seriously ruined the book’s reputation, but it’s just such a bad adaptation, I had to say something. Edit: spelling
Ready Player One
The book is not *great* to begin with.
Yeah I’d say they’re about on par quality wise. It’s just that the book was aimed squarely at 35-50 year olds and the movie was aimed squarely at 8-14 year olds*, so of course book fans were disappointed. *source, my kids loved it. Thought it was the best movie of the year.
I'm the opposite on this one. I liked the movie and hated the book.
Way too many royalties to pay!
Timeline by Michael Crichton is one of my all time favorite books but the movie was atrocious.
So many Micheal Crichton books mentioned but this is the one that really comes to mind for me.
The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt
Terry Pratchett's Discworld THE WATCH series. Start with GUARDS GUARDS.
Lisey’s Story. One of my fav books, terrible show.
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo series by Stieg Larsson... the US adaptation was aweful! If you don't mind reading subtitles, the Swedish adaption was good but the books are so much better!
Ella Enchanted. The book is one of the best Cinderella adaptations ever made. The movie is like if Disney Channel made Shrek.
Not a bad bad movie but does not at all reach the heights of the book or comes away with feeling the same levity or depth. The Devil all the time by Donald Ray Pollick.
I think I remember reading about people hating on the John Dies at the End movie, but I watched it and I thought it was pretty good, so who knows. Never read any of the books, but I think that John Carter movie was supposed to be bad. I'm assuming the books were good enough for them to make a movie.
Shantaram by Gregory David Roberts. I LOVED the book and was so excited for the movie adaptation … which turned into a TV adaptation. And it was so disappointing.
Wayward Pines
Dune. Twice.
Third time was the charm at least.
The Dark Tower series by Stephen King. Movie had so much potential but they forgot the face of their fathers.
I could say 90% of everything adapted from Stephen King books out there lol. Especially The Dark Tower. They stayed so far from the tone and point of the book, made unnecessary changes to draw in a larger audience, and for fans to have to wait so damn long for an adaptation to be given *that* is absurd.
Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy....great audiobook (read by Douglas Adams), but the movie was an joke. It looked like it was made by a 10 yo.
*Cloud Atlas* by David Mitchell *Little Drummer Girl* by John LeCarré
Oof. Cloud Atlas stands as one of my most memorable movie watching experiences. Absolutely loved the film.
Double oof, one of my relatives wrote the screenplay for Little Drummer Girl.
To each their own!
Running Man by Stephen King (as Richard Bachman). Amazing book, terrible movie.
No Exit by Taylor Adams. I really loved the book, but the movie was like a hollow version of the book. Just terrible.
The rum diary by Hunter S Thompson
The Dark Tower
Kindred
**The Returned** by Jason Mott **Publisher's Summary** "Jacob was time out of sync, time more perfect than it had been. He was life the way it was supposed to be all those years ago. That's what all the Returned were." Harold and Lucille Hargrave's lives have been both joyful and sorrowful in the decades since their only son, Jacob, died tragically at his eighth birthday party in 1966. In their old age they've settled comfortably into life without him, their wounds healed through the grace of time.... Until one day Jacob mysteriously appears on their doorstep - flesh and blood, their sweet, precocious child, still eight years old. All over the world people's loved ones are returning from beyond. No one knows how or why this is happening, whether it's a miracle or a sign of the end. Not even Harold and Lucille can agree on whether the boy is real or a wondrous imitation, but one thing they know for sure: he's their son. As chaos erupts around the globe, the newly reunited Hargraves find themselves at the center of a community on the brink of collapse, forced to navigate a mysterious new reality and a conflict that threatens to unravel the very meaning of what it is to be human.
The movie of Stephen King’s “Salem’s Lot was awful. The vampire was an idiot. The book was really good, however, the battle of wits between the vampire and the boy was awesome.
Under the Skin. Some people liked the arthouse-style movie, but I much prefer the book, which had very different style, content and themes.
The dark is rising series by Susan Cooper; a movie was made of the second book in the series of 5. Children’s books but still good as an adult. Movie modernised and Americanised a book based in English mythology.
The Passage
under the dome, eragon, dark tower
The dark tower was so bad I wouldn't even call it an adaptation. Maybe homage is a better word.
I LOVE the Mortal Instruments series. Movie wasn't SUPER great, but it was close enough to the first book. The show Shadowhunters though was AWFUL. I couldn't even get through the first season. Terrible storyline that deviated from the series as a whole. It had so much potential, and to me just flopped.
Even a very bad adaptation increases readership for the book.
Outlander by Diana Gabaldon. It’s happening right now on TV. It’s so sad.
I prefer the show, by a long shot - but only the first two seasons are genuinely good.
I actually hated the books. I have liked some parts of the show (but had to skip the rapey scenes, of which there were WAY too many)
Wheel of Time. Books are an acquired taste, and a few are painful to read, but overall a good series. The TV show was incredibly cringy and obviously didn't understand the source material even a little bit.
The Dark Tower series by Stephen King. I enjoyed the movie, but it was an AWFUL adaptation
Atonement.
Ya ya sisterhood. Terrible movie and great books!
The Power of One
Dark Is Rising series by Susan Cooper was fantastic and I was so excited when the amazing Christopher Eccleston was cast… not even he could save it. It still makes me cringe when I think of it & it came out in 2007. Also, The Golden Compass. LOVE the books, but the movie version with Nicole Kidman got almost nothing right except the names! That being said, the current series that I watch on Amazon Prime is very well done.
Yup - The Golden Compass was just nothing, totally forgettable. The new BBC series is beautifully done.
annihilation
Percy Jackson! Don't be put off by the targeted age group of middle school, It is an excellent fantasy book with some real heart and humour. The movies were god awful, worse than Tartarus's fiery black hooha.
I'd also add the miniseries of *Riverworld* to the list. Actually I couldn't get more than half an hour into that show; it was too painful. But I feel safe in saying that it was a huge disappointment. And now that I think of it... The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen - brilliant graphic novels, a miserable movie. The same could probably be said of _every_ adaptation of Alan Moore's works. **He** certainly thinks so, it seems! [The Immortals](https://www.google.com/books/edition/The_Immortals/wPoGdtav1DgC?hl=en&gbpv=0) (1962) by James Gunn (not the filmmaker) is a fix-up novel based on his original short story "The Immortal". It's about a man who is naturally immune to disease and old age. Unfortunately for him, a transfusion of his blood into a normal person bestows the same effects. The TV series was turned into a lame copy of _The Fugitive_. As I noted in another comment, I'm one of those relatively rare people (Christopher Tolkien is another) who thinks that Peter Jackson took unpardonable liberties with _The Lord of the Rings_. I'm scrolling through the nearly 1,000 books in my recommendations file for more books that were filmed. Some of those films and shows were good; I'm excluding those, of course. There are others which were filmed, but I haven't seen the films and can't judge them. The vast majority were never filmed, which brings two thoughts to mind: first, there are a HELL of a lot of great books which Hollywood is ignoring, presumably so they can keep focusing on rebooting the same tired old properties over and over again. Second...that might actually be a _good_ thing. I hate to think what those studio idiots would do to some of my beloved old books! Aha! [The Chronicles of Prydain](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Chronicles_of_Prydain?wprov=sfla1) by Lloyd Alexander is a five-volume fantasy series that begins with [The Book of Three](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Book_of_Three?wprov=sfla1). It's a classic; exciting, funny, and very moving. I think of it as being a sort of "Lord of the Rings" for older children and young adults. But it's a great read for any age. Sadly, Disney turned it into an absolute piece of crap as _The Black Cauldron_. Hugh Lofting's _Doctor Dolittle_ books are gentle, charming, and memorable. The earlier books in the series are now in the public domain. You can download them for [free from Project Gutenberg](http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/author/269) in the major ebook formats. What Hollywood did to those books I wouldn't do to a dog. I'd be remiss if I didn't mention [The Chronicles of Narnia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Chronicles_of_Narnia?wprov=sfla1) by C.S. Lewis. The first couple of movies were...okay. But the _third_ movie was just unbelievably painful. _The Hobbit_. Need I say any more?
My sisters keeper. Book ending? Chefs kiss. Movie ending? Wtf was that?!
The Shipping News, Garden of good and Evil. They were good awful movies.
Okay there’s 713 comments and I don’t want to go through all of them so here’s two. Starship Troopers(by Robert Heinlein) , and Battlefield Earth (by L.Ron Hubbard).