I’ve been having a small conversation with Green Embers and Saunved about how many books are being made into movies. Leaving out the big franchises (Potter, Twilight, Hunger Games, LOTR) you have Great Gatsby, Ender’s Game, Beautiful Creatures, World War Z, etc. Those are just this year.
Considering that an adaptation can never be perfect, what would my fellow authors say if their books were being slated for a movie adaptation? Would you demand anything to make sure you had some control over the final product? Is there any director or actor that you would want or not want?
My Answers
I think with my present tense writing, I’d have an easier time than other authors. I’ve been told that my book reads like a movie and the writing of screenplays has been suggested many times since college. So, I would jump at the chance to have Legends of Windemere turned into a movie or tv series.
Here’s the sticky point for me: I want in on the script-writing and to be consulted if any changes are being made. My personal opinion is that an adaptation that differs from the book can be acceptable if the author is involved in the changes. I mean really involved and not invited to sit near catering for free food. Yes, free food should be involved in my contract. I’m talking about if the director wants to cut or add a scene. I believe I should be around to help in case the director is about to screw something up that is important later on in the series. Say the guy wants to cut Kevin Masterson out or he turns Aedyn Karwyn into a fellow student instead of a visiting priest. Those are major changes that could destroy later plot points.
I’d also demand that I have the right to voice my honest opinion to fans if I think the project is going downhill. Remember when Eragon was king of the fiction world and was going to rival Harry Potter? That movie came out and Eragon slunk back into the annals of the fantasy genre. Bad movies now have the power to damage an author’s career, so I’d want the power to do damage control.Final note: I don’t want Michael Bay anywhere near Windemere unless he’s reading the books and even that’s pushing it. I liked his early stuff, but I can’t forgive him for what he’s doing to Ninja Turtles.
Legends of Windemere 
I will have full control. Anything less and there will be no movie. No one will touch the script other than me. Joss Whedon would be the only one I trust to Direct or make script suggestions to me.
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You’re a braver man than me for trusting Whedon. The man is the real Slayer, especially of characters that find stable relationships.
It would be great to be able to have full control in terms of directing, producing, casting, and script-writing.
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I would take the money and run. If someone wants to pay for Catskinner’s Book and turn it into a musical comedy about talking bears playing basketball, I’m cool with that. Just so long as the check clears.
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Make sure you cash it before they start production. 🙂 If they really botch it, there might not be a studio left to get your money from.
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Oh, definitely. One of the few perks that the writer of source material has in Hollywood is that you have to get paid before anybody else starts work.
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Do authors get anything after the movie comes out? I’d think someone like Rowling gets some of the profits or something out of the merchandizing.
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LOL
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Do authors get anything after the movie comes out? Yes and no, but mostly no.
Generally a source is optioned for a flat fee. With a high profile property like Harry Potter the author may be able to negotiate a percentage of profits, but those are calculated in a way that is peculiar to the industry.
Essentially, a film is not considered to have made a profit until all of the costs are covered, and that includes distribution costs that the studio calculates based on what their own distribution channels report as costs. So the studio basically gets to pay itself as much as it wants before any “profits” are shared.
So if a movie grosses 100 M$ and cost 50M$ to produce, all a studio has to say is that its internal distribution cost 50 M$ and voile! No profits, hence no points to share with writers. (The stars usually can negotiate what are called “above the line points” i.e. a cut of the profits before the distribution costs are taken out.)
Is this legal? Well, legal is what you can get away with, and studios have been getting away with this since Hollywood had orange groves. This is why entertainment lawyers drive Bentleys.
Now, residuals on video and cable release tend to be a little more lucrative in terms of below the line points (largely because the people who press DVDs also have high priced lawyers) so a writer is more likely to get a piece of that action.
In short, though, when dealing with the movie business, don’t count on anything more than the initial payment for film rights to a property. There are way too many greedy fingers in the pipeline between the screen and you.
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Writers always seem to loose out, like we’re expected to martyr ourselves for our art. Well, that’s all well and good, but I still need to eat and pay the internet bill.
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Steal a month’s worth of food from catering? 😛
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LOL. Oh, OK then….
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Thanks. Guess the bigger benefit to a successful franchise would be that more people will buy the book. So it would be smarter for an author to focus on creating a literary empire alongside the cinematic one. At least that’s what I’m getting from this.
Since he always comes up, I wonder how Stephen King does with his book adaptations. They never seem to make a ton of money like the Potter films, so I wonder if he does it more for marketing and to keep his name out there.
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Well, Stephen King doesn’t make movies for the money, he makes movies because he loves movies. So he tends to work with smaller production companies where he can take a more active role in the process. Something like “Graveyard Shift” isn’t a failure because it wasn’t a top box office draw, it’s a exactly what they set out to make, a fun, gory, low budget monster movie.
And yeah, writers in Hollywood get no respect. That’s what killed my suspension of disbelief in Peter Jackson’s “King Kong”– I could buy the giant monkey, but the screenwriter getting the starlet? That’s just ridiculous.
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There were people in King Kong? I just remember the gorilla.
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Reblogged this on Wyndy Dee and commented:
I am dying to read Legends! One day soon, I hope!
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Turtles. I would hide in my shell Donatello.
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With Megan Fox as April after she said she’d never work with Bay again? I sense many tears and bottles of alcohol in my future when that comes out. It sucks too because the last animated movie was done so well and set up for a great sequel.
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Ugh… I just saw some set pics. Just ugh.
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You poor man. Has your eyesight returned or is everything still blurry?
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If I was making enough off my books to live without another job, I’d like to have involvement. I wouldn’t trust myself writing or directing, while I think I’d be good at the latter I’d still like to leave it to more experienced hands. I’d definitely want in on casting though and I’d want to watch the magic happen, they can give me a drop-in-when-you-want policy. Oh, it should also star Johnny Depp so I may meet that man. And Emma Watson. Funnily, they’d actually fit the two main characters scarily well…
However, should I be iffy on the bills, I’m gonna be a sellout. A guy has gotta eat and preferably fine quality meat! 😀
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You could always be a consultant on the writing team and still get writer credit. As long as you’re with someone who knows how to write a script, you can advise on how to adapt the information.
Depp and Watson. That movie would make a fortune in its first weekend.
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I’ll let ya know how it pans out in a few years. 😉
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Same here if I get to that point.
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So I just did a lengthy, heart-felt comment and the thing disappeared. I’ll replace it with this short, depressing comment…
😥
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And now it’s there… well don’t I look a right fool!
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I’m heading to LA in July to pitch my book in a Book to Screen pitchfest. Should be fun. I don’t expect to become the next JK Rowlings, but hey, it’s a shot. I’ve sometimes wondered how I’d feel if Shadows Over Sheradan were to be optioned and then produced. On the one hand, part of me would be overjoyed. It has been a childhood dream to see my stories on the silver screen. On the other hand, if they destroy the vision I have (and I don’t just mean interpret differently than I see things – I mean *destroy*) – then how much better off will I be? A thought-provoking question, but I’m sure I’d risk it just to have the joy of seeing Daniel Craig as prince Trigarius! 🙂 Oh, yeah!
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Oh, I can so see Daniel Craig as Prince Trigarius.
I have to agree that it’s one of those dreams that borders on ‘be careful what you wish for’. I think this is especially true for fantasy and science-fiction because there’s so much depth in our worlds. Something will inevitably be dropped during the adaptation and we always pray the important stuff stays in. Personally, I’ve wondered if my books would be better adapted into animated movies like Beowulf and Avatar.
Good luck with your Book to Screen pitchfest. How did you set that up?
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With the Hunger Games, the author actually wrote the film adaption. And between the books, movies, CDs, and clothing/jewelry, the author of the Twilight Saga made upwards of $30 million.
If it was up to me and someone wanted to turn my book into a movie, I’d start out with, “Okay, so-and-so can’t be cut out, I don’t want said actor in the movie, and this scene is really important. Leave that alone and the rest is yours.”
Of course, I think if I had the chance to make that kind of money, I might not really care what changes were made to my book, just as long as the original plot isn’t altered.
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One definitely would have to weigh the benefits with the sacrifices. I’d want to be in on casting, but I’m sure I wouldn’t be seen as the expert. Truthfully, I would just want actors and actresses that loved the story and curious about the characters. Not ones that take the role and make it their own without paying heed to the original. I so fear that Luke would be turned into a muscular pretty boy.
The author of the Hunger Games started as a children’s show writer or something like that. So, she did have scriptwriting experience. I wonder if Meyers had her merchandising deal set up before or after the first Twilight came out.
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It would be a difficult choice, for sure.
As authors, our book is our baby, and we don’t want it getting into the wrong hands. And I know I’d be devastated if the film adaption was nothing like my book and turned a lot of people off from my work. But of course, I’d need to have a really good book published before I need to worry about film rights. 😉
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Yeah. That first step is a doozy.
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LOL! I’d better not count my chickens before they hatch, that’s for sure! 😉
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I’ve actually gone to see movies prior to reading the book. And some of them have even prompted me to read the book. In fact, I have a hard time reading the book first because the movie can’t seem to really do the book justice. Plus, if the change something I get irritated (I’m working on that I promise.) I like your stipulations Charles! Wouldn’t it be flipping cool to have someone approach you about making Legends of Windemere into a movie?!?! 🙂
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That would really be cool. I’d be interested in a tv series too, but I think my stories would require too big of a special effects budget. 😀
Growing up, I was told to read the book before I saw the movie. Though, I do see your point that it might be better to go the other way. The movie traditionally pales in comparison to the book, so seeing it first can give you more enjoyment. It can avoid getting hung up on details that might not be essential either. A lot of my Harry Potter friends go on about stuff cut out of the movie, but having never read the books, I don’t notice. I didn’t read them because these same friends are the ones that would tell me all about them before I could get to reading them.
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Yeah, Agreed, Bay has gone off the deep end if half the stories I’ve heard about the new Turtles movie are accurate. He poison! HE POISON! 🙂
I wouldn’t want J.J.Abrams near my work either. Eughh, don’t even get me started. Like PZ, Joss Whedon is one of the few directors I’d trust wholly. The man has long been an unsung genius. With Avengers out there, he’s finally getting his day in the sun, but long overdue I say! ^^
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I think I’m one of the few that would want to have a leash on Whedon. An electrified leash that I can zap him with whenever I hear the words ‘kill’, ‘death’, ‘twist’, and ‘shock’. Then a few random times because of one of the characters he killed in Serenity.
I liked the new Star Trek and thought that was done with respect. So, Abrams strikes me as someone that would be kind to the source material. His other movies irk me due to his habit of not explaining stuff.
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Well…as I said yesterday, I’d hesitate to go and see a movie “based” on a book I really loved. That being said, I’ve seen quite a few movies that stuck to the book and the experience was gratifying…they were usually European films though (Italians dub foreign movies), I don’t know if directors are more cautious over here or if authors have more say in the film process. I read on Terry Pratchett’s blog once that his book “Mort” for a brief period of time was being looked into by an American film company…talks broke down when he was informed that they wanted to write out the Grim Reaper (too depressing for the American public…duh)! The BBC has produced a few of his books and they are fantastic…so, I guess I’d hesitate to have one of my phantomatic books turned into a movie by a certain New Zealander and certain American film makers.
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Book adaptations have generally done well if the author is involved. Though, there are fights about it at the beginning. For example, Frank Miller’s graphic novel ‘Sin City’ was taken almost word for word, but the director had to drop out of the union and go against what some people wanted to get Miller on the writing team.
Hollywood is big on flash and grabbing the quick buck right now. A good idea would be to wait a few days after release to see what fans of the book are saying about the movie. If anything, you can lower your expectations to get more enjoyment and make your own opinion.
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Yes, i agree…and of course, you can go to see the film as just something different that happens to have the same title.
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Alternate realities. I like that idea.
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Don’t let Tobey Maguire anywhere near my dialogue and I’d be happy with any changes.
Never understood the appeal of that guy.
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Poor Tobey. Spider-Man franchise ends and he’s got nowhere to go. I don’t think he ever got to A-List status, so a lot of people probably agree with you.
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It would depend on which director is working on the book-to-film project. Some directors I would be satisfied to give them full privileges, others I wouldn’t take the chance. You’re right though, sometimes the author’s writing fully describes the scene, making it very hard for the director to make any major changes.
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Good point. The director’s reputation would be a big factor in how positive and well-behaved I would be. There’s a world of difference between Michael Bay and Steven Spielberg.
So, Schwarzenegger and Spielberg are in the spellchecker. Interesting. I think I have a new career goal. Spellchecker status.
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If I ever have to face this question, I will probably pass out anyway. And pigs will fly, and unicorns will start tooting out rainbows all over the sky.
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Make sure to have a pillow, so you don’t hit your head when you pass out. 🙂
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And who is going to round up all the flying pigs? My kids would probably starve to death without their morning bacon.
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Maybe unicorn bacon? Seems like it would be healthier and tastier.
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Interesting question! I’d love to be involved (partly because I would love to experience the casing process and be able to give opinions on it, be on a movie set, etc.), but full control? No way, and here’s why:
I’d screw it up.
I think as writers we have a loyalty to our stories that can really ruin a movie. Some things have to change. It’s rare that a book will translate directly to the screen, unless it’s short (I think Stephen King’s novellas have been the only really good adaptations of his work) or mostly description. Scenes will have to be cut so the movie’s not 4 hours long. Settings will have to be changed to become more visually appealing. Dialogue will be changed to sound better on screen and fit movie-goers expectations. We have to accept that movies are not the same as books. We have aspects of our books that we’re attached to and will be unwilling to let go of that will hurt a movie. The movie is never as good as the book; I think if I had too much say in it, the movie would never get made because it wasn’t the same. Now, some writers would probably do fine with it, but not me. My stories are my babies. Let someone else mutilate– er, adapt them.
Yes, I’d hate to see it ruined, but there comes a point when that’s not up to me. I would have to let the movie be its own creature and hope that the important things got left alone.
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Very good points. I’d hate full control too, but I’d like to be there to make sure the essence of the story is kept intact. I also would want to make sure the continuity is held because a director of movie #1 might not realize something he’s cutting is essential to movie #5.
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Haha. When you mentioned Michael Bay it reminded me of the song “Pearl Harbor” from the movie Team America. Filthy movie, great song.
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Good one. 😉
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I would want rights of any changes that would be so major they wouldn’t embrace what the book was saying. I’d be highly peeved if they made Tessa to be a big boobed blonde (nothing against them btw), those things. I want to be able to have a physical yay or nay on things, I know how much they changes scripts quite easily. I don’t WANT it to be the next teem blockbuster. Heck if I had a choice of musicians or style, I know exactly the ones I’d want playing because they fit so well. But hey, that’s me thinking on a grande scale when the trilogy is done 😀
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Same. Maybe as authors we should have a list of things we want, but be ready to negotiate for the bigger ones. Throw a few odd ones in to get some leverage.
My series is 15 books, so I’m not even sure I’d ever get to movie status. Far too big and would take too long. Well, I know how I would do it, but that’s just me.
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must have cupcakes or you bring a pitchfork!!!
Mine’s a hard trilogy that escalates throughout the series (like one big book) so who knows. Depends on the viewers and fickle producers I suppose.
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Ah, the fickle producers. I don’t have a plan for them. Nothing legal anyway. 🙂
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Bypass the producers and get the director you’re golden. 🙂
But otherwise we’re good where we’re at, but oh to dream
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Dreaming is always fun.
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If I was ever that fortunate, I’d probably just take the money. I’m tired of working my day job.
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Run and cash that puppy as soon as possible.
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Well if it were me, for starters I would hired a lawyer. To make sure that there would be no prequels, no interquels, no sequels be made, and no offshoots, especially without my consent and permission, no graphic novels, certainly no other adaptations. Depending on what the adaptation may be.
I think unknown actor(s) be cast as the main character(s) is ideal. And let the director work his magic.
With my luck, it’s very unlikely seeing actress Saoirse Ronan as a lover of the main character. Come to think of it, it would weird seeing her in the role of the character who happens to be deadly and homicidal. being tight-lipped as I am. I think, the character in the movie adaptation, may be toned down.
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They could always make it Rated-R. Didn’t she come close to that in Hannah? At least the deadly part.
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In a polite term for her, the female character is downright freaky, not in a sexual connotation
Besides, the book is a standalone
Anyways I did some lite googling. Yeah, she does 😀
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I agree with your desire to have control over the process. Especially, as you noted, a story that was part of a series. I have found on occasion that sometimes the movie actually has a scene that is morphed and continues the story better than that of the book. Not sure if the author has any say in that, but definitely in the Twilight movies (that I was drug protestingly to by my granddaughter) the scriptwriting quite often improved the scenes and flow of the story. Is that because the writing was not up to snuff? Or the scriptwriter was better at portraying the story? I don’t know. But I would say more often than not, I prefer the book over the movie as it gives you a better feel for the characters thoughts. As to your original question, would I allow my book to go to movie? Hmmm, how much money is involved? LOL
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Good point. Things are probably altered to fit the different medium. I remember reading books that were adaptations of movies. It was strange reading it and the movie felt better. Maybe something is inevitably lost in the translation, no matter the direction.
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Agreed! Though based on the written word, both books and movies are different mediums of storytelling.
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Loved this post of yours! I would totally love to see “Legends of Windemere” being turned into a movie or a TV show! That would be AWESOME!
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It would be interesting. I’d be afraid who would play the characters though. Authors don’t usually have casting decisions.
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Ah yes…and sometimes…it might become a tragedy!
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A bad movie can destroy an author too. When was the last time we heard about Eragon?
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Right you are, sir! Tragedy…
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I agree that it’s sometimes annoying to see a great book made into a totally unrelated (or crappy) movie. Still, if it was my book, I”d probably be so grateful for the royalties I’d just say ‘take her and do as you will!’
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I’m not sure how much the author gets from the movie’s success. Also, I’d just be scared that the movie would bomb so horribly that people assume the books are that bad. That’s why I’d try to gain some influence over it.
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