Hit 50 book-to-film adaptations read and watched this year, and the math surprised me

I keep a list of every book I read before seeing its movie or show version, and I just crossed 50 for 2024. What got me was that only about 12 of those adaptations actually improved on the book for me, the rest just made me appreciate the source material more. Anybody else find their ratio skewed one way or the other?

2 comments

2 Comments

schmidt.eva1mo ago

Oh, that's a really good observation. I'm curious about those 12 that you thought improved on the book - did they tend to be movies or shows, and were they usually shorter books? I've noticed it's often the novellas that get good adaptations, maybe because there's more room to flesh things out without cutting too much. The longer novels always seem to lose the quiet moments that made me love them in the first place.

quinn_king161mo ago

Yeah, you're totally right about novellas being the sweet spot for adaptations. I've noticed that too - like, The Princess Bride (movie) is way better than the book, and it's based on a pretty short novel. Longer books just have too much internal monologue and side plots that have to get chopped, and that's usually where the magic was hiding.