So, am curious, what are your WORST film/book adaptations?

Are you thinking of High Fidelity Cicatrice?

Another vote for Captain Corelli's Mandolin here. Such an amazing book. Such a mediocre film.

Things that wound me up about the film included:

Terrible casting.
Penelope Cruz as Pelagia - wrong!
Nicolas Cage as Corelli - wrong, wrong, wrong!!!

It more or less rubbed out my favourite character in the book (Carlo) and did nothing to explain his huge sacrifice (so incredibly moving in the book)

And the ending!! Honestly! WTF!!!

Ah well, at least they actually filmed it on Cephallonia and the scenery was beautiful...

Another one for A Clockwork Orange. And the Shipping News - changing what had happened to Wavey's husband entirely changes her character. Makes her deceitful which is not her at all in the book.

I liked the Nick Hornby adaptations - Fever Pitch, About a Boy and the one in the record shop the name of which escapes me.

Fantastic Mr Fox looks awful.

Twilight was cringe worthy!

Every single adaptation of "The Count of Monte Cristo".

The modern writers cannot cope with the idea that Dante repudiates Mercedes. They always seem to have him getting back with her. No no no! His possible redemption is Hadee NOT Mercedes.

The Clockwork Orange film drives me absolutely nuts. It finishes without the actual ending, which to me changes it from being a story with a point to gratuitous violence.

A Clockwork Orange is fantastic. The book is excellent too. But I am a Kubrick fan, and it is an incredibly iconic film.

I don't tend to watch film adaptations of books I have really enjoyed, because disappointment is inevitable. I think the film that I really disliked the most was probably Madame Doubtfire, which became just revoltingly saccharine (and Anne Fine is a wickedly acerbic writer, so a particular travesty).

The film adaptations of HP and LOTR are better than the books IMO, but then I think neither are very well written - Tolkien creates a fantastic world, but his characters to me don't come alive, because they are too much "elf" or "dwarf" or "hobbit" and not enough unique person, and HP is very average, has poor character development and needed much better editing (oh and the end is just appalling)

is anyolne old and geeky enough to remember the v. first LOTR adaptation - in the 80;s

it was pathetic

Just had to bring this thread back to agree with Hitchhikers (I left the cinema sounding like Marvin)

And my absolute most hated (with a passion) abomination of a film, Clockwork Orange. What did they do with the plot??? Why did they decide to go without one??

Adored the Dark is Rising books as a child - film a horrible travesty. Aaaagh, where did that twin come from?

Deliberately did not watch the Borrowers, as I could tell from the film poster that the gentle melancholy of the books had not been respected.

Harry Potter - Harry and Hermione are all wrong, but otherwise I think Harry's world is well evoked.

Best adaptation ever for me is the Lord of the Rings films. Could never get through the books before seeing the films, but have raced through them a few times since. So many pretty boys.

Stephen King books translate to the screen so well because he tends to write the screenplay and keeps a tight reign on producers etc.

Have to agree re the Dark is rising. My cousin bought me the books for christmas the year he died and I lost my self in those books. My mum recorded it for me off sky and I watched a very small part before turning it off in disgust. Same with Earthsea, the books were brilliant, adaptation was crap.

The Beach, the book is awsome, the film is pants.

Can I say Fantastic Mr Fox without even seeing it?

Did not like any of the Nick hornby adaptations

I quite liked LA Confidential
and A time to Kill was the best John Grisham adaptation, with Matthew McConaughey

Well Eragon isn't the most fantastically written book ever, but it's entertaining and fun enough (especially when you consider a 15 year old wrote it). The movie adaptation was absolutely shocking!! totally awful.
Adaptation of FH Burnett's The Little Princess! My God it didn't even resemble the book at all. Suddenly there's a rooftop chase It's set in New York instead of London Becky the scullery maid is suddenly a black slave girl and Daddy DIDN'T die he HAD AMNESIA
I heard The Dark is Rising was really badly done, so I didn't watch it.
Oh and I enjoyed the movie of The Bourne Identity until I read the book and realised they completely destroyed it in adaptation.

Oh and yes Rene Z is not Bridget Jones.

Agree with some of these - The Beach, Twilight, Golden Compass.

I truly love The English Patient and mainly for the Hana/Kip story line. I just didn't think the film showed the richness that the writing did so well.
The Handmaid's Tale is one that could have been done so well. Fab book, shame about the film.

Cornish - apparently she is locked away writing the last one..

Agree that Captain Corellis Mandolin is possibly the worst film adaptation ever - bad, bad casting and to change the story so massively...what were they thinking. It was the only time i came close to leaving the cinema midway due to hating a film so much. Only the fact that I was 38 wks pregnant and wedged in stopped me.

Grey - I read the first four I think, Clan of the Cave Bear was the only decent one really. Though at 14 The Valley of the Horses was a bit of an eye opener

Confessions of a Shopaholic was TERRIBLE.
The Prince of Tides - so bad.

And a Stephen King that didn't translate well - Pet Cemetery, it was never going to work.

I thought the recent Wuthering Heights on ITV was awful too.

Kiwi - Hitchhiker's was a travesty!

I now try and not watch films if I've enjoyed books....
Where on earth they managed to get so many dreadful child actors all together in one studio for the HP books I do not know, but I bet if the adult actors had sounded so "I'm-reading-off-an-idiot-board" they'd never have made it as far as film 2.

Bridget J annoyed me intensely because the whole premise of the book was that she wasn' fat, she just thought she was....whereas RZ had to lard herself up...why????

Watermelon with Anna ("I'm playing Anna") Friel.....awful, just awful. I hated Marian Keyes for allowing them to basically change everything except the title of the book.

PS I love you, book was dire so never watched film.

Bridges of Madison County- Clint has to realise that men aged 70+ should not take their pants off in public. It's not nice, it's not pleasant.

I did see a Jane Eyre years ago with an fairly ugly Jane, though, wasn't it Jane Birkin's daughter? No beauty.

cornish have you read all the others?

somehow Stephen King books go very well on screen: Stand By Me, Green mile and some decently chilling ones of his horror ones. And Shawshank Redemption is the most faithful book to movie translation in storyline. character and spirit of the original that ive ever seen. Whatever control he retains of the script Louis de bernieres, jk rowling, alex garland and the literary executors of jane austens estate pls take note