Book Adaptations

What happens when you sell the rights of your beloved book (or a series of books) to a production company, and a movie is made? There currently seems to be a lot of movies adapted from books. (Not like this is something new.) There are high dollar productions and series of films that have been stemming from books. The Hunger Games, Lord of the Rings, The Hobbit, Twilight, Harry Potter, The Help, the Chronicles of Narnia, and The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo just to name a few.

The outcome could be in your favor. J.K. Rowling was pleased with the Harry Potter films. She was very much a part of the early process of creating the look of some of the locations. After all, these were all fictional places. Only she would know best. According to an interview on hypable.com she said, “I felt a huge protectiveness and loyalty to the readership. Once I knew it was running, it was fine.“ J.K. Rowling’s relationship with Warner Bros. was a good running one with the Harry Potter series that they have announces a new movie. According to insidemovies.ew.com this isn’t a prequel or a sequel to Harry Potter but a spin off of the wizarding world.

Unlike Harry Potter, the book Mary Poppins turned into a movie was so repugnant for P.L. Travers that Disney was able to make a movie out of that. Saving Mr. Banks is about the story of Walt Disney and P.L. Travers meeting about making Mary Poppins. It took Walt Disney around 20 years for P.L. Travers to give the rights to create the Mary Poppins movie. She was a very difficult woman to please, and Mary Poppins was very dear to her. She thought “Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious” and other songs were foolish. She didn’t like the relationship Disney added between Mary Poppins and Bert, and wanted the animated scenes cut out completely. After the film was completed. She was not openly invited to the release, but had to request her presence from Disney. Unlike the movie (which I haven’t seen, but heard the reviews) she was very displeased. There was no happy ending for P.L. Travers.