9 Movies That Improved On The Book (According To The Author)
"The book is better than the movie." It's a belief as old as...well, not as old as time, because books are centuries old and movies hit their stride when 'Star Wars' came out. Still, lots of people think movies ruin books. Many people also think there are one or two times when the movie outdid the book, in a weird exception-to-the-rule type situation. But what if we told you a better movie happens often? And what if there are cases where it was so obvious, to everyone involved, the book's author said so? In public and everything?
On this episode of The Cracked Podcast, Alex Schmidt is joined by working writers Zack Bornstein (Saturday Night Live, Jimmy Kimmel Live, The New Yorker) and Hallie Cantor (Lady Dynamite, Arrested Development, The New Yorker) for a trip through the heads of novelists who saw their work torn apart on screen and realized it was for the best. Get excited to see Stephen King, Anne Rice, Philip K. Dick, and more great writers experience the joy of collaboration with Hollywood, in spite of the conventional wisdom we're all told in English class.
Footnotes:
5 Movies That Improved on the Book (According to the Author) (Cracked)
6 Adaptations That Fixed The Book (According To The Author) (Cracked)
examples of the opposite phenomenon: 7 Film Adaptations the Author Hated For Insane Reasons (Cracked)
HARRY POTTER UNIVERSE WAS TOILET-FREE FOR CENTURIES, BUT WHAT ABOUT WIPING? (Newsweek)
Tom Bombadil (LOTR Fandom Wikia)
Why 'The Mist' Is Still One of The Ballsiest, Most Relevant Movies of the 21st Century (Collider)
A note on Stephen King & substance abuse: he has confirmed that at the time of writing Cujo he was struggling with alcoholism. He's also described struggles with cocaine and various pills around that time. Sources: Stephen King: on alcoholism and returning to the Shining (The Guardian) and 10 Terrific Facts About Stephen King (Mental Floss) and King's book On Writing, his "memoir of the craft"
"At the end of my adventures I was drinking a case of sixteen-ounce tallboys a night, and there's one novel, Cujo, that I barely remember writing at all. I don't say that with pride or shame, only with a vague sense of sorrow and loss. I like that book. I wish I could remember enjoying the good parts as I put them down on the page." -- King in On Writing
"Not long after my wife , finally convinced that I wasn't going to pull out of this ugly downward spiral on my own, stepped in. ..... She organized an intervention group formed of family and friends, and I was treated to a kind of This Is Your Life in hell. Tabby began by dumping a trashbag full of stuff from my office out on the rug: beercans, cigarette butts, cocaine in gram bottles and cocaine in plastic baggies, coke spoons caked with snot and blood, Valium, Xanax, bottles of Robitussin cough syrup and NyQuil cold medicine, even bottles of mouthwash." -- King in On Writing
Will Smith bungee jumps out of helicopter for 50th birthday (BBC)
I Am Legend: Why Can't Matheson's Masterpiece be Done Justice on Film? (Den Of Geek)
Bradbury Building (Los Angeles Conservancy)
'Game of Thrones' Showrunners Know How George R.R. Martin's Books End (The Hollywood Reporter)
GoldenEye, Jamaica: The Birthplace of Bond (VisitJamaica.com)
10 Movies That Are Better Than The Book: "The Spy Who Loved Me" 1977 (Variety)
What Is OMNIS In 'Fahrenheit 451'? HBO's Adaptation Has A Massive Change From The Book (Bustle)
6 Deleted Scenes That Prove the Book Isn't Always Better (Cracked)
Mario Puzo, Author Who Made 'The Godfather' a World Addiction, Is Dead at 78 (New York Times)
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