What films based on books did you have such high hopes for...

[Soubriquet]

Only to find they let you down?

Now I know fms based on books never really live up to it but some just change things so much, you may as well have created a brand new film.

Mine is Miss Peregrines home for peculiar children

All of the Jack Reacher films, I've read all the Lee Child books and they are brilliant. Tom Thumb Cruise bought all the rights and he never ever will be anything like the real Reacher (over 6ft rugged crew cut hunk of a man). Cruise has totally ruined it for me

I've not yet seen an adaptation of a Jane Austen novel that was worth watching.

The film of Orwell's 'Keep the Aspidistra Flying' was absolute pants compared to the novel.

Another vote for My Sister's Keeper. The poignance of the story was in the ending - it's like they completely missed the point!

@DixieTrix YES!

When I found out that bloody Tom Cruise had got the part I had a proper rant to my DH who was at my horror.

They couldn't be less alike! One is tough as nails with a busted up nose and the other wears boots with wedges and believes Aliens created us! 🤦🏼‍♀️

Films should be based on short stories imo. I find graphic novels so slow and limited compared to novels because i like a story and if you have to tell a story through pictures it takes ages. Film does something other than text.

@DixieTrix @traceyturnblatt

My mother LOVES the Jack Reacher books and hates Tom Cruise. I thought she was going to cry when I told her

Any Stephen King book that has been turned into a film

I adore SK books and can reread them over and over but I tend to rant through the films/mini series when they have changed the story.

I read with horror the other day that someone has a film of The Long Walk in preproduction - that is possibly my favourite short story so I will not be watching it

I’m keen to find out how the TV series of Wizard and Glass fares after the abomination that was the Dark Tower film version

Ella Enchanted. Wrinkle in Time.

I had such high hopes.

StoorieHoose , I think “Green Mile”, “Shawshank” and “The Body/Stand by me” were all fab! Mind you they were all novellas, So maybe that’s why.

Dune drops mike

Also, the terrible Harry Dresden TV series. Almost as bad as Dune.

Omg, also that abominable adaptation of the first book in the Dark is Rising sequence. A besmirchment on Susan Cooper's name.

(Apparently I have strong feelings about children's books)

SummersB I get so annoyed about the bad ones that I forget the good ones!

Totally agree with you - maybe short stories into films and novels into mini series might be the way forward for SK ones

Dark Tower and The Shining have tainted my view

I’ve just read that Ewan McGregor is going to play Danny Torrance in the film of Doctor Sleep :(

Chocolat.

The film version is an insult to the original book.

The Golden Compass sprang to mind as soon as I saw the thread title. Seems I'm not alone. Lol.

My Sister's Keeper - although I enjoyed the film as I saw it first abdominal didn't realise about the ending until I read it. My jaw hit the floor as I got to the last pages.

A Wrinkle in Time - adored that book so much as a child. Fell asleep in the cinema!

Abdominal? That should have been and 😊

Most Stephen King adaptations are shockingly bad.

Recently, I was so disappointed by the Guernsey Literary etc film. They got that so wrong (IMO).

Gone girl - the book wasn't great, but the film was worse.

The Beach - characters missing, nationalities of characters changed, changing an unrequited love story into a relationship and then having him cheat on his girlfriend, all bollocks. And the ending was changed to be shit. I really enjoyed the book. Ewan McGregor would have been a better lead after all.

But the All Saints song was good!

I'm hoping the upcoming film of We Have Always Lived in the Castle isn't a shiter. I love that book.

I completely agree with SinisterBumFacedCat about The Beach. The film was so sanitised as to be hardly worth watching.

My Sisters Keeper and PS I love you.

Fabulous books, films a real disappointment.

Vampire Academy. Never has a good book series been so spectacularly butchered. The acting was shit and the actors far too old to pass as the teenagers they were portraying. Half the plot was missing to the point that if you hadn't read the books, you wouldn't have a scooby what was going on or who anyone was.

Came here to say The Beach. Went to see it in the cinema a few months after reading and was so angry with all the bullshit changes. I was 16, it was the first bitter lesson that films based on books were going to disappoint me for the rest of my life.

I was also very disappointed with The Lovely Bones. Visually it was stunning, but missing a lot of depth.

I only read Reader Player One and Miss Peregrine's Home .... because I had seen the film; I'd agree that the books are far better, but I wouldn't have read either book without haven't seen the film first.

I totally agree with The Time Traveller's WIfe - and I'm pleased somebody else is having another go, they cannot do much worse than the film.

The Dan Brown books transferred too "lightly" to film, I'd prefer to see a dark version made.