17 writers who despised adaptations of their work: ‘If you like my stuff, don’t watch that movie’
If there’s one certainty in as fickle a field as Hollywood, it’s book-to-screen adaptations. For aeons, directors and showrunners have drawn inspiration from their libraries, dipping into enduring classics, nostalgic favourites, tantalising murder mysteries, and topical new releases every year.
The book-to-screen pipeline is real, and, credit where credit is due, often very fruitful. In the last 10 years alone, novels have been behind hits such as Daisy Jones and the Six, Normal People, The Underground Railroad, Game of Thrones, Call Me By Your Name andThe Personal History of David Copperfield. The list goes on. And on.
One book adaptation, in particular, has recently found itself under scrutiny as Blake Lively’s It Ends With Us, based on Colleen Hoover’s 2016 bestseller of the same name, continues to attract headlines for all the wrong reasons. Hoover, however, has stood by the film and its star, stating they did “such a good job condensing this book into a film that I’m very happy with this adaptation”.
Other writers, however, are less enthused when it comes to adapting their work for the screen. What seems like a dream come true can often be a nightmare. Between casting disagreements to plot diversions and big egos, the journey from pulp to cellulose is far from easy ride. Here are 17 writers who hated the adaptation of their work…
Breakfast at Tiffany’s might have taken home two Oscars – and been nominated for three more – but that wasn’t enough to win over Truman Capote, who took particular issue with the casting of his lead character. While Audrey Hepburn’s portrayal of Holly Golightly has gone down in film history as among the most iconic, Capote envisioned a different star in the pearl necklace: Marilyn Monroe.
Calling the adaptation “the most miscast” film ever, Capote said: “Paramount double-crossed me in every way and cast Audrey.” He also allegedly wanted to star in the film himself as the lead role Paul, who was memorably played by George Peppard. Casting was far from the only issue he had with the film, though. Asked what was wrong with it, he replied: “Oh god, just everything,” and explained how he believed the film missed the nuance and turned his story into a romance instead by rewriting the ending. In the movie, Holly and Paul end up together – whereas in Capote’s book, Paul disappears.
“What was intended as a satire of movies like The Singing Nun and TV shows like The Flying Nun and all of those hug-happy, sugary nun flicks, turned into one of those,” Rudnick told NPR.
Although the film was well received by fans and critics, Rudnick felt that his script had been mangled by Disney to the point of being unrecognisable. “By the time the Disney people got through my original script, it formed very little resemblance to what I intended,” he said. The situation was so bad that Rudnick chose to go by a pseudonym in the credits: Joseph Howard.
Stephen King famously disliked Stanley Kubrick’s critically acclaimed 1980 adaptation of his 1977 novel. “I kept my mouth shut at the time, but I didn’t care for it much,” said King, who explained why he took issue with Jack Nicholson’s Jack Torrance.
“I feel the same because the character of Jack Torrance has no arc in that movie. Absolutely no arc at all,” he said. “When we first see Jack Nicholson, he’s in the office of Mr Ullman, the manager of the hotel, and you know, then, he’s crazy as a s*** house rat. All he does is get crazier. In the book, he’s a guy who’s struggling with his sanity and finally loses it. To me, that’s a tragedy. In the movie, there’s no tragedy because there’s no real change.”
It wasn’t all hard feelings, though. King called Kubrick a “terrifically smart guy” and praised the aesthetics of the film. “It’s like a big, beautiful Cadillac with no engine inside it,” he said.
Ende did not mince his words when it came to the 1984 adaptation of his bestselling children’s fantasy novel. At a press conference, the German writer hit out at the “revolting movie” and demanded that his name be removed from the credits.
“I saw the final script five days before the premiere and only as a result of a judicial verdict in Munich,” he said. “I was horrified. They had changed the whole sense of the story.” Co-writer and director Wolfgang Peterson, however, maintained that his film is “very faithful” to the source material.
Elsewhere, Ende said: “The makers of the film simply did not understand the book at all. They just wanted to make money.”
To say Milos Forman’s 1975 adaptation of Kesey’s 1962 novel was well received would be an understatement; it was the first movie in 41 years to win the Oscar for best picture, director, lead actor, lead actress, and screenplay. Kesey, though, despite allegedly not having seen the film, despised it.
Most of all, he hit out at the filmmaker’s decision to remove his book’s main narrator, Chief Bromden. So passionate about his novel, Forman went so far as to sue the studio for “breaking our verbal agreement and ruining the book”.
In 1976, an article in The New York Times revealed that he had watched the film dominate at the Oscars with a “sense of absurd” and complained his contribution was not properly acknowledged by the recipients of the awards. “It was like pumps trying to say they’re more important than the well and the water,” he said.
“I’ve read the screenplay. It’s rubbish,” the Northampton writer said of the 2005 film starring Natalie Portman. In a 2006 interview with The New York Times, in which he urged readers to steer clear of the film, Moore made it clear how he felt – not just about V For Vendetta but all of the adaptations of his comics.
“I don’t want anything more to do with these works,” he said. “Because they were stolen from me – knowingly stolen from me.” Speaking about V For Vendetta specifically, Moore called it a “Bush-era parable by people too timid to set a political satire in their own country”; he also held particular hatred for Johnny Depp’s version of the protagonist in From Hell, whom he called an “absinthe-swilling dandy”.
