If you ask any
author if they would want their novel to be adapted into a film, the majority
of them will say, “yes” with great enthusiasm. I mean, who wouldn’t want to see
their story come to life right before their eyes.
Many of the
successful films from the past couple of years have actually stemmed from
novels. The Hunger Games, published
in 2008, was adapted into a movie, which was released in 2012. This movie
brought in a non-sequel record of $152.5 million in North America alone. The
Harry Potter books created one of the largest film franchises of all time. The Time Traveler's Wife brought in
tears not only from readers, but from viewers in movie theaters as well. The
classic Pride & Prejudice brought
Mr. Darcy to life through the movie adaptation for all those who fell in love
with him through reading the book.
Although these
were all extremely successful adaptations, they were not made over night.
Length
The first
challenge in adapting your favorite novel into a film is that the length of the
book is generally much longer than the screenplay itself. Generally, each page
of a screenplay generates one minute on screen. If the screenplay is 120 pages
long, that correlates two hours of screen time. Most movies do not last much
longer than that. Most books are longer than that, which means that the
screenplay writer is going to have to cut a lot out of the book in order to fit
it all into the suggested timeframe.
A great example
of this is the Song of Ice and Fire series
that has been adapted into Game of Thrones on HBO. George R. R. Martin is infamous for his extremely
long books, each averaging around 1,000 pages. So far, for the first two
books, HBO has decided to cut them into 10 episodes, each running about 55
minutes long. If HBO wanted to cover everything in the books, they would need a
much longer season. However, they made the choice to cut things out in order to
make the best experience for the viewers.
The first four books in the Song of Ice and Fire Series, the longest of which is around 1,216 in US paperback.
Character Development
The second
challenge that many screenwriters face is keeping the essence of character
alive. In books, we are able to see into the characters mind. We are able to
hear and understand what they are thinking. However, in film we have to be able
to grasp these characteristics through their actions and dialogue with other
characters. Listening to a person think throughout the entire movie would not
exactly be the most entertaining. This is where the famous line “show, don’t
tell” comes into play.
George R. R.
Martin likes to have a lot of inner voice within his books. Whenever we read a
chapter, we know exactly what each character thinks about a particular
situation. The reader often gets to know a lot of background information about
the character and we hear stories about their lives before the beginning of the
first book. It would be really boring if HBO decided to keep in all the stories
that were told because all we would be looking at on screen is someone sitting
there talking for a long time. This is not very pleasing to a viewer, which is
why HBO decided to cut a lot of this out.
Daenerys Targaryan and Khal Drogo
Plot Changes
When companies
decide to buy the film rights to a novel, they include a clause that says they
are allowed to make some changes to the plotline. This is not because they did
not like how things played out in the book; they just feel that something else
would be more pleasing for an audience to watch. These changes are generally
very small and the overarching theme and plot of these books are held intact.
For example, in
the books of Game of Thrones, Jeyne
Westerling is a character who moves the plot in a very specific direction (I
won’t give anything away for those who have not seen the TV show or read the
books). This character has a family lineage that is important to the plotline.
However, in the second season on HBO, Jeyne Westerling was changed to Talisa
Maegyr, a girl from a completely different realm with a different background. Since
the characters name and background was changed, the writers may or may not have
something different in store for her in season three. There are also two very important
characters that were eliminated from the second season completely, and their
features were combined into a pre-existing character.
Talisa Maegyr
These changes are going to be very difficult for those fans who first fell in love with the books. They will hate the writers, producers and directors for making these changes. However, the thing is that the show or movie is never going to be exactly like the book. No matter what, something, even if it is minuscule, will be different. Fans will just have to trust in the writers to make the best possible adaption they could.
