A) The story is profound on some level and worthy of sharing.
B) The author of the book is well known for the specific genre.
C) The book is a bestseller, and a safe bet for turning a profit.
The most common, and most heavily weighted in the production decision is of course the one involving money. It's a simple fact that popular books come with a worthy fan-base, thus guaranteed audience. It even works in favor of the books because those who aren't already a fan get sucked into all the buzz and create the "book-to-movie-bounce". Pretty obvious, the sale of books increases substantially when it is announced as a movie project.
I'm both an avid reader and movie goer, and will admit that when I read Water for Elephants thought it would be a good movie. But, are there really a limited number original screenplays out there? Are all new screenwriters THAT awful that novelists are the more valued writers? What's going to happen to the "Best ORIGINAL Screenplay" category at the award shows if everything is based on books and other content?
It is my understanding that media and art overlap and interconnect: filmmakers can draw inspiration for a story from a painting, artists look at the natural world and human behavior for subject, writers keep up with news events and find the subcontext for a story. This is my proposal- don't always resort to new content unless it deserves the attention (like The Help) and don't try to be so cut and dry because you will end up disappointing in some regard. That might sound crazy but there are plenty of books written in the past hundred years that can incorporate all 3 of the above motivations.
Examples of this with these upcoming book-movies productions:
- The Hobbit
- The Great Gatsby
- The Alchemist
- The Life of Pi
Not exploiting some vampire saga for the teenyboppers of the world, and not casting a leading lady to rush through the plot development of a motivational story.
I'm both an avid reader and movie goer, and will admit that when I read Water for Elephants thought it would be a good movie. But, are there really a limited number original screenplays out there? Are all new screenwriters THAT awful that novelists are the more valued writers? What's going to happen to the "Best ORIGINAL Screenplay" category at the award shows if everything is based on books and other content?
It is my understanding that media and art overlap and interconnect: filmmakers can draw inspiration for a story from a painting, artists look at the natural world and human behavior for subject, writers keep up with news events and find the subcontext for a story. This is my proposal- don't always resort to new content unless it deserves the attention (like The Help) and don't try to be so cut and dry because you will end up disappointing in some regard. That might sound crazy but there are plenty of books written in the past hundred years that can incorporate all 3 of the above motivations.
Examples of this with these upcoming book-movies productions:
- The Hobbit
- The Great Gatsby
- The Alchemist
- The Life of Pi
Not exploiting some vampire saga for the teenyboppers of the world, and not casting a leading lady to rush through the plot development of a motivational story.
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