Movie Adaptations - A Wishlist

As we all know, screenwriters and film producers of the last five or ten years have been ransacking their bookshelves (and the bookshelves of their teenagers and children) to find material for their films and TV series. Though this is certainly happening in the world of adult fiction, it's absolutely a rampant madhouse of adaptations in the world of children's literature. In the last ten years, we've seen everything from Because of Winn-Dixie to Twilight to Speak to The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe (never mind the monumentally successful Harry Potter series).

Since it's clear that Hollywood is looking frantically for new children's and YA literature to adapt, I thought I'd put forward some of my favorite titles for consideration.

Dealing with Dragons by Patricia C. Wrede

I'm actually kind of shocked this one hasn't at least been optioned as a movie yet because it's exactly what studios seem to want these days: plucky heroine defies family and runs away to live with dragons. It's all very fractured fairy tale and very funny. I would be very happy to have Helen Mirren play the voice of Kazul the dragon and Chloe Grace Moretz as Princess Cimorene ... and maybe Alex Kingston as Moren the witch. This would be a great big-budget movie but only if it was done thoughtfully - don't overdue the special effects!

Knuffle Bunny, Knuffle Bunny Too, and Knuffle Bunny Free by Mo Willems

What I really want is for Mr. Willems to go do some collaboration with Pixar but I'd also love to see Willems, a former award-winning TV animator himself, work his hilarious and touching photograph/cartoon-illustrated trilogy into a short animated film in three acts. The photos themselves could be actual black and white film footage with the cartoons animated over top. Hilarious! I love the idea of Matt Damon narrating, for some reason ...

The Egypt Game by Zilpha Keatley Snyder

I spend a lot of time shoving this one into readers' shopping baskets - it's truly fantastic, classic children's literature. Sounds like another Rick Riordan fantasy about mythology but actually, it's about four kids who create their own make-believe ancient Egyptian court in an abandoned lot behind a mysterious antique shop. I think it would be a fantastic movie. April and Melanie, the main characters, are such strong, original, realistic girls and the supporting characters around them are so lively and vibrant. I can see Elle Fanning as April and Amandla Stenberg as Melanie, with Christopher Lee as the mysterious antique store owner. I'd love to see this one as a small-budget movie, maybe led by Joss Whedon ...


Half Magic by Edward Eager

This is one of my favorite read-aloud books, both from my own childhood and as a teacher. Like Roald Dahl, Edward Eager needs only a few words to paint a clear, compelling, and very funny picture: four siblings who find a complicated piece of magic and, predictably, wreak all kinds of havoc trying to use it. I'd want Saoirsa Ronan as Jane, Asa Butterfield as Mark, Rosie Taylor-Ritson as Katherine, and ... I'm honestly not quite sure about Martha, the spunky youngest sister. I see this as a movie, although maybe a BBC miniseries would be cool too.



What are some of your favorite children's and YA lit books that you'd love to see adapted for films, TV shows, or even stage plays?


  

Novel Into Film

When a book version of a movie is set to release, you can almost hear an audible sigh from the book's fans. Particularly when the book that is greatly beloved and seems impossible to put on the big screen without losing something. But I think of film adaptations as just that - another interpretation of a book. If I were to write the film adaptation of The Hunger Games, I'm not sure if I really would've shown the Gamemakers creating their various obstacles for the tributes  - but I appreciated how the filmmakers perceived it, as a sterile white room with hollogram versions of the arena, the whole process coming off like an extremely involved video game. You could almost understand how the Gamemakers didn't seem to grasp the reality of what they were doing. I was a bit disappointed at the romantic take on The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, based on the sardonic novella by F. Scott Fitzgerald, but also appreciated that the film chose to focus on how the aging process affected a romantic relationship, a storyline that the novella glosses over. Or Atonement, a movie so visually stunning I almost forgave the heavy-handed overdirected feeling of a novel whose narration unfolds to a brilliant reveal. And there's The Wonder Boys, one of those adaptations that fans of the book almost universally appreciate because it manages to get the wry angst of academia without the flourish of Michael Chabon's luxurious prose.

I suppose the sighing comes from the danger that people will see the movie and forget that it came from a book. But what we see at the Booksmith (and no doubt what publishers and those in the book industry know all too well) is that an impending movie release more often than not it piques a curiosity. It gives an image or makes a reader remember a name while they're browsing, makes them read the back of a book they may have otherwise not picked up. And if someone truly loved the story on the screen, they'll often come in and buy the book to read the version that inspired the film (or, as in one case I witnessed, someone came in and bought Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy by John le Carré because they had seen the movie and were not sure they got the ending).

There are two movie adaptations coming out this year that has everyone buying the book: The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald and Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell. I've read The Great Gatsby and it has been adapted before, and I'm excited to see Leonardo DiCaprio in the role of Gatsby, and hope the actual movie is a bit more nuanced than the glitzy trailer. And after watching the Cloud Atlas trailer, I'm still not quite sure I understand what is going on, but I love how the story seems to play with time. After seeing the trailer, there is no way I'm not reading this book.

For your viewing pleasure:

The Great Gatsby movie trailer

Cloud Atlas movie trailer

Put me in your movie!

INT. - BROOKLINE BOOKSMITH - USED BOOK CELLAR - DAY

Used book buyer Natasha prices a pile of books. Awesomely.

NATASHA

Man, sure is sad when a filmmaker gives up on his dreams and sells a pile of film-making books. But I guess it's good that someone can get all these awesome, nice-condition books for half price and make some MOVIES.

THAT AWESOME MOVIE VOICE-OVER GUY (voice-over)

Who are you talking to? There's nobody here.

NATASHA

To the Blog!

Natasha begins to type on the computer:

NATASHA (voice-over)

These four books we got in the UBC last week sure make it look cheap and easy to put together your very own cinematic masterpiece. Stop by and load up for few ducats and save the rest of your pocket change for lights, cameras and ACTION:

The Hollywood Standard by Christopher Riley (used price $10)

Awesomely designed book makes formatting your script properly a no-brainer.

How NOT to Write a Screenplay by Denny Martin Flinn (used price $9)

Your masterpiece will win Oscars and make Bergman's entombed corpse weep. This isn't amateur hour. Avoid clunky errors by reading this gem. 

The Shut Up and Shoot Documentary Guide by Anthony Artis (used price $18)

This book is truly impressive. Not very big, full color inside but it seriously goes from 0 (I've never held a camera before but I have a compelling idea for a documentary) to 60 (do I pay for Final Cut Pro or hire a pro movie editor?) on making a documentary. Comes with a disc full of extra goodies, too.

$30 Film School by Michael W. Dean (used price $15)

The titles is misleading because if you buy this book from us it's only a FIFTEEN dollar film school! Avoid higher education costs and learn everything in this handy-dandy, easy-to-read volume. It teaches you how to write, light, shoot, edit, distribute your own film and how to get it financed. Or how to finance it yourself. Super practical and very thorough. Also includes a DVD with extras and such.

Moody vs Boredom

In Judy Moody and the Not Bummer Summer, it was really refreshing to see Judy outside of school and her room, as we so often see her.  This time, she's on roller coasters, enduring crazy car trips, falling into streams, and chasing bigfoot through her neighborhood.  Even though character-based series books often feel like the same books after a while, Megan McDonald keeps Judy fresh in new adventures and conundrums.   The Not Bummer Summer is still Judy, trying to be the best at everything and master collector, but this time it's summer vacation.  And all but one friend is off having the time of their lives.  So, how is this supposed to be the best summer ever?

You may already know that Judy Moody is soon to be a movie! But, did you know that Megan McDonald co-wrote the script? And, that the movie is based off of her new book -- as opposed to the series combined as Ramona and Beezus was done?

It's a nice change really.  I mean even when a movie is well done, if it completely alters the theme or moral of the original text, it just falls flat.  Knowing the mastermind and creator behind Judy and her crazy antics and ever changing moods is behind the scenes here makes me look forward to this movie even more.  Or, "Super-cali-fragi-listic-expi-thrilla-delic!" in the words of Judy.

Read the book that made the movie, now in stock!  The movie will appear in theaters June 10th.

A Dickensian Moment?

I absolutely loved Matthew Pearl's The Dante Club, so I'm super excited for tomorrow, when his new book, The Last Dickens goes on sale. Yay! I'm equally excited that we'll be hosting Mr. Pearl at our store on Thursday, April 9th (details here).

Additional items of Dickensian note include: Drood, Dan Simmons's new book that, like Pearl's, concerns itself with the creation of Charles Dickens's final (and unfinished) novel, The Mystery of Edwin Drood, has been selling very well. Also, PBS's Masterpiece is in the middle of a Dickens series. (side note: I can't wait until Little Dorrit starts March 29th. It stars Matthew Macfadyen! God, did I love him in MI-5. And he was not at all shabby as Mr. Darcy though I know he will never unseat Colin Firth in most people's minds).

Are we in the middle of a particularly Dickensian moment?

Finally, strange coincidences that will bring us back to Dickens: I remember that Matthew Pearl's last book, The Poe Shadow, came out at the same time as Louis Bayard's The Pale Blue Eye, both of which were historical fiction focusing on Edgar Allan Poe (I can't tell if this means Mr. Pearl has bad timing or good instincts). But what was Bayard's book previous to that? Mr. Timothy, a reimagining of Dickens's Tiny Tim from A Christmas Carol!

Girl With the Dragon Tattoo

I found out via Ain't It Cool News that Steig Larsson's amazing mystery The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo has been made into a movie in Sweden. Based on these previews I would totally line up for that one. I'm also impatiently lining up for the sequel, The Girl Who Played With Fire, which will be coming out next August, which now seems entirely too far away.

Books: The Movie

I love books and I love movies, so I'm always interested when the former become the latter. I know plenty of people who moan over it, but I don't.

For one thing it often brings people to books they may have otherwise forgotten or overlooked. The Coolidge Corner Theater recently played the new adaptation of Brideshead Revisited and we've sold more copies of that title in six weeks than we did all of last year.

I also think you can like the book better (you'll always like the book better!) but still find a lot of value in the film. I remember getting into a pretty fierce argument with a friend over an adaptation of Mansfield Park. She argued that the director had totally misunderstood and abused Austen's characters and as a result she absolutely hated the film. In some ways she was right--the Fanny Price of the movie was a very different heroine than she was in the book. But I still loved it. I enjoyed what it was for what it was and I appreciated that it made me reexamine the book, what I liked about it and how I understood it.

I got to thinking about all this as Wednesday's Publishers Lunch posted an item from The Hollywood Reporter about a kerfuffle regarding the series of movies in the works based on Tintin. I hadn't even realized movies were being made! And the kerfuffle is over whether Steven Spielberg or Peter Jackson is directing? I'm smiling either way.

What do you think about movie adaptations? Do you have any favorite (or hated!) book-to-movie translations?