The wacky, flatulent 3-D family comedy version of Gulliver’s Travels hits DVD today, and no doubt all of you Jonathan Swift fans have already picked up your copy. Sure, all of the author’s satirical elements have been unceremoniously flushed from this adaptation, but hey, this one’s got Guitar Hero and Star Wars references! And a robot battle climax! That stuff’s better anyway.
Though (as we’ve noted) the notion that “the book is always better than the movie” doesn’t always hold water, Hollywood tends to be particularly inept at adapting classic works of literature for the big screen. More often than not, some genius will decide that a timeless book needs to be “modernized” to reach today’s audiences, or that those bummer downbeat endings must be fixed up. After the jump, we’ve compiled ten of the most badly blown lit-to-film adaptations.
The Scarlet Letter
The gold standard of all bad adaptations — the reverse Godfather, if you will. Director Roland Joffé, who helmed acclaimed pictures like The Killing Fields and The Mission, would seem a logical choice to film Nathaniel Hawthorne’s 1850 historical novel, a favorite of high school English teachers for decades. And he exhibited spot-on casting instincts when he placed Gary Oldman in the role of minister Arthur Dimmesdale. What we don’t know is who decided that Demi Moore was born to play Hester Prynne, but whoever made that call hopefully didn’t get a Christmas bonus. She was done no favors by Douglas Day Stewart’s screenplay adaptation, which threw out much of the novel’s complexity in favor of sexy bathtub scenes and a happy (or happier?) ending. The critics weren’t enthused (the film was nominated for seven Razzie awards), and audiences stayed far away. It took Hollywood a full 15 years to finally make a modern Scarlet Letter that worked: last year’s Easy A. (No, seriously, we love that movie.)
Comments (39)
Less Than Zero.
Such a great book, movie was a cheesy 80′s after school special.
I pretty much agree with this list except for “The Count of Monte Cristo” with James Caviezel. The movie also featured a great turn by the late Richard Harris as the other prisoner and the beautiful Dagmara Dominczyk as the love interest. In my opinion, James Caviezel makes a star turn in the title role, aided by the always excellent Guy Pearce, the veteran Richard Harris, the here venomous James Frain, a fine and very different role for Luis Guzman, and the elegantly beautiful Dagmara Domincyzk. The movie is beautifully paced, the long prison scenes allow Caviezel and Harris to create tremendous rapport, and the age old theme of REVENGE has rarely been played out so well. This is a beautiful period piece, finely photographed and scored and edited and directed. Don’t be put off my it’s mistaken inclusion in this group of clunkers.
Worst classic-book-to-movie ever? The 1984 version of The Razor’s Edge, starring Bill Murray. Second worst–go ahead, bring on the responses–Spike Jonze’s Where the Wild Things Are.
How could you hate The Time Machine? Samantha Mumba’s in it!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cFUmz39p-uY&feature=channel_video_title
There’s a little bit of sarcasm there.
I agree with Less Than Zero being awful (awful!!!). And def don’t agree on Where the Wild Things Are (but won’t go there).
David Lynch’s Dune. You know you’re in trouble when they hand out pamphlets in the lobby that try to explain the movie.
I am Legend. Not a book, but still. They took everything that made the story so compeling at tossed it out. Then turned the remains into another zombie film.
Um…….
it’s Calvary, not Cavalry.
Kthxbye.
You totally forgot “The Grapes of Wrath” which had a completely different ending than the book. On the opposite spectrum, “Gone With the Wind” was an excellent adaptation.
Missmarcilyn- John Wayne wrote that part.
Whatever, the Alfonso Cuaron Great Adaptations is not a horrible adaptation.
The Golden Compass. I screamed in rage after watching that terrible, terrible movie that completely butchered the story of my favorite book!
Well, I wouldn’t say “The Shining” is a classic book but Kubrick took some HUGE liberties with the original story. I still can’t enjoy that movie.
Clayton/Coppola’s _The Great Gatsby_ is tragically bad, given that they change several significant elements of story, though the movie does provide a rollicking fun Mystery-Science-Theater-3000-like viewing opportunity for my junior American Literature students after we’ve read the novel. I agree with someone’s suggestion of _Dune_, too, and is there even a moderately-well-done _The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn_ that captures Twain’s true intent?
The Count of Monte Cristo was an abomination, Nils. Your waxing of the actors doesn’t magically make it any less of a travesty and insult to the original book nor does it diminish the fact that it was very clearly a sophomore effort to get “the average viewer” to sit through the material if they dumbed it down. And goodness knows they did.
[...] literary adaptation that actually made you cringe? Flavorpill has compiled a list entitled, “The 10 Most Badly Bungled Classic-Book-to-Film Adaptations.” Some of them include The Scarlett Letter (1995), The Count of Monte Cristo (2002), and [...]
Troy, anyone? That piece of nonsense was so far away from the Iliad, I had to leave halfway through.
A Wrinkle in Time
Dune makes me cry whenever it’s on, although the soundtrack is cool. Another Sci-Fi classic murdered by Hollywood is Starship Troopers: Dizzy Flores as an unnecessary love interest; No social commentary; no Skinnies; no armoured suits; woefully adapted arachnids (not at all arachnid in the film)..!
Celtic Rai, “I am Legend” is a book, by R Matheson (1954). And it’s great.
The Golden Compass was a cheap knockoff of original source material that amounted to an angry teenager with a pen writing down why he hated the idea of God. That being said, the Narnia films are rubbish. Its a difficult transition anyway, from book to screen, and The Time Machine is the perfect example. Strange as is this sounds, you just can’t get ideas across with film like you can with a good book, or even bad one. You’d need a narrator to be continuously explaining what an audience member is too numb to see. Its the nature of film anyway, being the weaker medium it in turn attracts a weaker mind. As much as I enjoy some adaptations, I think sometimes that it would be best if the two were kept separate.
@CelticRai: actually, “I Am Legend” was based on a 1954 book written by Richard Matheson. It’s the third take on the story, following 1964′s “The Last Man on Earth” and 1971′s “The Omega Man,” both of which sucked.
@Zach: Wow. One could argue Narnia was a cheap knockoff of source material that supplanted real characters with cardboard cut-outs who fit perfectly to a morality and then died. One could even point to the fact that Lewis sung his world into creation (which Tolkien did better) and borrowed from E. Nesbit (who also did better). To each his own.
I am Legend (everyone of them). Dune.
Thank you, @Angie – “Troy” was the first thing I thought of when I saw the title. It takes a special touch to screw up the other ‘greatest story ever told’…
Forgot one of the worse adaptations ever: “Memoirs of a gueixa”. I wouldn’t say the book is a classic, or outstanding, but it’s a pretty nice book. The movie simply erases all the nice part, and leaves pretty japanese women in typical gowns. Ouch.
I can’t help but wonder where Eragon is. That movie was a travesty, very possibly the worst film adaption EVER!
The Grinch Who Stole Christmas.
[...] 10 Worst Book-to-Movie Adaptations [...]
Weird. Our book review website just did a similar project in our 4/1 issue: http://www.hipsterbookclub.com/features/lists/lazyreaders0411/index.html
Great minds, right? :)
I think Burton tried to explain that he wasn’t doing a strict adaptation but an imagined sequel to the book… you’re right that the movie was pretty but didn’t offer us much emotionally. To call it a strict adaptation that failed isn’t really fair, though, since that wasn’t the creator’s intent.
actually the hipsterbookclub post is the opposite of this one–it should be showing movies that give you the gist of the book, something these films fail to do.
Disney’s animated Hunchback of Notre Dame, in which Victor Hugo is the Harriet Beecher Stowe of Europe’s gypsies.
[...] ~ Flavorwire: The 10 Most Badly Bungled Classic-Book-To-Film Adaptations [...]
Where the Wild Things Are was an utter travesty. And Horton Hears a Who was horrible, too.
[...] Bad movie adaptations. Ya know ya want to look. [...]
[...] Worst Classic Books to Film adaptations [...]
The Hotel New Hampshire. Again, don’t know that it’s technically a classic but it was dreadful and missed all the points. John Irving is hard to adapt since there’s so much that happens in each book but in HNH it felt like someone randomly stuck their finger in different places and they included that particular scene.
Watchmen
Sam Mendes’ Revolutionary Road is actually a passable adaptation of a stunning book by Richard Yates. But much of what is nuanced, insightful and achingly sad in the book becomes bloated, ponderous, and somewhat whine-y in the movie. Mendes sticks to the DOWNER ending of the book, but it’s a downer that only a book can ever earn. I sometimes worry that “that bleak movie with Kate and Leo” has turned people away from this amazing, amazing novel.
Dont know if it counts as a classic book but by far the worst book to movie adaptation ive seen is ERAGON.
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