Media is often intertwined. Poetry inspires songs, art inspires fashion, and literature inspires cinema. More often than not, your favorite book has been turned into a movie. While it’s quite pleasant to see what you’ve read come to life on the screen, it can diminish the imagination and vision you have from words. Though it seems like the most reasonable choice to adapt novels into films, it’s not a guaranteed success.
It seems foolproof to turn a popular novel into a movie, but it’s not easily constructed. The formatting of a book can vary from traditional numbered chapters to a series of letters. Meanwhile, cinema has a pretty general format, not only narratively but also structurally. We have seen successes in these adaptations, such as the Harry Potter series, not only in its plot accuracy but also in the opinions of the fans. These factors play a large role in the success of these adaptations. When looking at the Percy Jackson film series, there was a significantly poor response to the film adaptations. Beloved characters were altered in a way that didn’t correlate to the narrative, and the plots of multiple novels were combined in one movie, creating a lack of continuity. Though adapting books to movies is risky, adapting them all together isn’t entirely a guaranteed fail. While it’s not generally popular, lots of novels are adapted into television series. These television adaptations often find success, such as Daisy Jones & The Six or You. Television series are more often than not the best route in terms of adaptations as they can follow the traditional chapter structure through episodes and aren’t limited on time. But even despite its flaws, adaptations allow for new audiences to come forth to ensure that in every form, a story can be open to anyone.
It can be risky to adapt beloved novels into a new form of media. However, it doesn’t mean it isn’t worth a try. There is exposure to new people with intertwining different forms, allowing for the flourishing of not only a series or movie but also the books that inspired them. Adaptations connect our forms of media and the people all in one shot.