Books into Film

I have decided that the movie industry must be entirely out of movie ideas. I realize that turning a good novel into a good movie has been attempted since the beginning of movies but the last few years seems to be the only thing happening. And they seem to be converted from books into movies quicker than ever.

Lets look at 2009/2010. We had Lovely Bones, The Fantastic Mr. Fox, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, My Sister's Keeper, Harry Potter & The Half Blood Prince (of course), New Moon, Dear John, Alice in Wonderland, Inkheart, Angels & Demons, The Lightening Thief, Eat Pray Love, The Informant... and those are just the ones off the top of my head!

Now it seems that every best seller book I read is being turned into a movie. The Help by Kathryn Stockett is one of my favorite reads of 2010 so far. It is already being filmed. I just discovered today that Water for Elephants is being filmed starring Rob Pattison of Twilight Saga fame and Reese Witherspoon. I love Reese, but I hate Rob. I am now torn because it was such a great book! I have also previously mentioned that Never Let Me Go is going to be coming out starring Keira Knightley. And The Book Thief is also going to be released as a movie in 2011, as is Half a Yellow Sun and those are the ones I already know of, in addition to the continuing Twiglight Saga and...sniff sniff, the final in Harry Potter.

In some ways I am very OK with all of the books into movies. It draws people in to read the books and it supports the movie industry as readers go to see the movie version. This is a big bonus. The only thing I can wish for is that movie theatres would have "films that were Books" displays in the same way many libraries/bookstores and their websites have "books into films" displays.

It does irritate me how inaccurate the movies are compared to the books, but compared to the benefits I will suck it up.

So in summary my friends- be sure to take a closer look at the movies you are watching, if you enjoyed it there is probably a book that preceded it. Check it out and enjoy it too!