Book to Movie

Since Hollywood has been barren of ideas since before I was born, books have often been a source of inspiration for films. I’m not talking about the classics, either. I’m talking about literally any book. Sometimes, however, the producers don’t even bother to crack the cover. I’m starting to think that they simply look at the title and go, “Okay, I can make a movie out of that. All I need now is millions of dollars and cocaine.”

I’m noticing a trend like the one with super hero movies. There’s movies that try and stay true to the works with some obvious embellishments like Watchmen and V for Vendetta and Sin City, then there’s movies that go off the rails, like every Marvel movie sequel. It’s kind of sad, because if you look at comic books today they’re obviously trying to be the storyboards for movies, because there’s no money in selling comics.

The same can be said for books. Everyone’s trying to be the next Harry Potter or Twilight, which means there’s a lot of angst-ridden young-adult novel filled with fantasy crap and two-dimensional characters. On the other end there’s niche books like World War Z, which is being released as a movie soon. With all the speculation about it, the movie promises to have nothing to do with the book except the title, plus it’s got Brad Pitt. If you read the book, you’d find what’s basically a script. It’s all setting and dialogue. You could technically make version of the movie that would contain no zombies and cost about five grand to make, because it’s just people talking about zombies. It could be a radio play. That doesn’t sell tickets, though, and it would be a waste of 3D.

I was watching Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter, and noticed that it had nothing to do with the book I read. The book was another in a series of novels intended to take dry subjects and spice them up with ridiculous monster battles, because of ADD. Literally none of the scenes or dialogue coincided with anything in the novel. There was even an extended plot they added which gave Lincoln an arch-nemesis that wasn’t in the book and was basically the entire movie. It was weird too, because Lincoln waits 10+ years to take his revenge on the vampire, who escapes. Only, Lincoln shoots him in the eye during the fight and the vampire never bothers to take the bullet out. He walks around with the bullet in his eye socket and doesn’t put on an eye patch until later. This vampire is trying to keep his cover and he’s showing everyone he’s a walking impossibility. Plus the vampire starts stalking Lincoln after their fight and never does anything to harm him, or even threaten him. So the vampire knows exactly where Lincoln is and Lincoln knows where the vampire is, and they just sort of co-exist in the same world while wanting to murder each other. For years.

Plus it’s full of all these action shots that make no sense unless you see it in 3D. There’s tonns of stuff flying at you in slow-motion, which looks silly in 2D.