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Five Movie Adaptations I Eagerly Await

by Meg

The season of new movie releases is upon us.

Not that they don’t happen the rest of the year, but Hollywood seems prone to scheduling their “big” movie releases right on top of each other, duking it out in a battle royale for top grossing film, because we all have so much more money/time to spend on movies in the spring and summer.

Incorrect assumption. I’m always broke.

The losers, of course, still make millions, so don’t feel too sorry for them.

Feel sorry for me. And send me $20. No, make it $200. I need to pay for all these movie tickets somehow.

Many of my favorite books have already been made into movies – Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings, multiple Jane Austen books (read it and weep, sj), The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.

However, there are quite a few books I love that haven’t been released as movies – yet. Here are just a handful coming out in the next year or so that I’m very keen to see. You should see them, too. I think I have an excellent taste in movies.*

*Note that I am not responsible for the money you’ve wasted if they’re terrible. It’s not my fault buying movie snacks for two people is somewhere in the price neighborhood of your car/house/student loan payment combined.

Now for the movies.

I really like popcorn.

~*~

1)   Ender’s Game

With an anticipated release date of March 2013, I’m jumping the gun a bit. I’ve been waiting for this movie since I first read the book in middle school, however, so it’s going right to the top. This is a long time coming, and a very big deal.

Space. Potential apocalypse. Genius children that make you feel terribly inadequate. What’s not to love?

~*~

2)   The Raven

I know there was a movie made back in the 60s, but let’s just forget about that. This new movie has already been released in the UK, but is set to be released in the US in April of this year.

Just another reason I wish I were British.

I’ll give it back, I swear.

~*~

3)   Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter 

Set to be released in June. I’ll be honest and say that I am not only on the vampire bandwagon, I’m happily leading the caravan in some rousing campfire songs.

I’m an inspiration.

Even if you aren’t much into vampires, you can’t tell me this doesn’t pique your interest at least a teensy bit.

I mean, I guess you can, but I won’t believe you.

Who among us hasn’t envisioned President Lincoln trolling around, defending our country from the monstrous undead? You might have actually payed attention during History class.

~*~

4)  The Giver

Set to be released in 2013 and directed by David Yates. Because I’ve made it a life mission to relate nearly everything I come across to Harry Potter in some way, he directed HP 5 -7.

~*~

5)   Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn, Part 2

Wait, wait. Hear me out on this, guys. No, it’s not one of my favorite books. However, I really want to see what they’re going to do with it, because I honestly have no idea.

I read Breaking Dawn. For multiple hundreds of pages nothing happens.

For those of you who haven’t read the book and plan to, stop reading. For the rest of you, let me summarize:

SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS

Imagine 300.

If you haven’t seen 300, I’m sure you’re vaguely familiar with the story – Spartans vs. Persians, epic battle, muscular men in delightfully wee leather outfits, etc.

Envision the scene where Leonidas is about to bow to Xerxes, and Stelios jumps over him and stabs the general, and all hell breaks loose.

This face happens.

Rewind. Stop Stelios in midflight.

You know something big is about to happen. You’ve been waiting for this moment the entire movie, nay, your entire life, it seems. You envision a battle of epic proportions, and if you’re watching 300, you get it, along with a lot of slowmotion shots and dramatic music.

Now imagine Stelios gently landing on the other side of Leonidas without stabbing the general. Then they all go home. That’s it.

NOTHING HAPPENS.

The epic showdown in Breaking Dawn, and culmination of the entire Twilight series, is the Volturi (evil, yet highly attractive vampire gang, for those of you who haven’t read) showing up and leaving shortly thereafter without killing anyone.

I feel like this will make a somewhat boring movie, which is why I plan to blow a solid $20 at the theatre watching it.

END SPOILERS

~*~

Truth be told, I’m very frequently disappointed with how books are adapted into movies. This is partially my fault, because I go in with pretty strict ideas about what I think should and should not be happening, and I also like to whine.

The obvious solution is to have me direct them, and then they’ll be just how I like them. Now get thee to a theatre!

~*~

Posted on March 28, 2012 at 6:00 am in books   |  RSS feed |   Respond   |   Trackback URL

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53 Responses to “Five Movie Adaptations I Eagerly Await”

    
  1. Michael Cargill
    March 28, 2012 at 6:34 am

    Stephen King books tend to turn out to be pretty average films. Shawshank Redemption and The Green Mile are the exceptions of course.

    Abe Lincoln as a vampire hunter is quite a mad idea actually and I had no idea that nothing really happens in the Twilight books.

    Top pics by the way.

    Reply
    • Meg
      March 28, 2012 at 3:32 pm

      I’ve only seen The Green Mile once, and I was sick and sleep deprived, so all I remember about that is me thinking I was being hilarious by making every inane Forrest Gump reference I could during the thing out loud. I think I was alone, too, so no one was there to appreciate my wit. I think that ruined the movie for me.

      Thank you!

      Reply
  2. Amanda Y.
    March 28, 2012 at 8:59 am

    Jane Austen movies tend to end with weddings. Except when they don’t.

    I cant believe how long it has taken them to make Ender’s Game and The Giver into movies! Hopefully, they don’t suck.

    Top analogy for the end of Breaking Dawn by the way. God, that book was a train wreck.

    Reply
    • Meg
      March 28, 2012 at 3:37 pm

      Right? They are all terribly similar for the most part, but since I’m a soppy romantic at heart (tell NO ONE!), I still eat it up. Also, they tend to cast really attractive men as the leads, which doesn’t hurt.

      I KNOW! Both of those books have been out and critically acclaimed for years. *shrugs* And God, I hope so, too. Though if they are going to suck, I hope they suck a lot, so I can at least get some good whining about it.

      Haha, I tried! Thank you! I kept reading and reading and about 3/4 of the way through I was like “SOMEBODY BETTER DIE! Or blow up. Something. Anything. PLEASE.”

      Reply
  3. becomingcliche
    March 28, 2012 at 9:01 am

    I just reserved Abe Lincoln at my library. Because I want to be ready.

    I thought they did a great job with Breaking Dawn Part 1. They ended it in a great place. I did wonder how they were going to squeeze two two-hour movies out of that particular book because it took me four hours to read it from cover to cover, but they managed pretty well.

    Reply
    • Meg
      March 28, 2012 at 3:40 pm

      Yessssss! Prepare for the Abe Lincoln: Vampire Hunter movie the same way you (er, I?) prepare for the zombie apocalypse – by reading books about it. Knowledge is power.

      You know, I actually didn’t mind Breaking Dawn Part 1. It wasn’t my favorite movie by any stretch, even among the Twilight series, but with what they had to work with, I thought they did pretty well, too. I just legitimately have no idea how they’re going to drag another two hours out of that thing.

      Reply
  4. ariella42
    March 28, 2012 at 9:49 am

    Ender’s Game is one of my favorite books, so I might have to hurt someone if it ends up sucking like so many adaptations do. However, one of my favorite books did get turned into one of my favorite movies, the BBC version of Pride & Prejudice (with Colin Firth).

    The only good thing about movie prices is that at least I no longer live in Manhattan. They’re still way too high here, but at least I no longer have to donate genetic material to buy a ticket.

    Reply
    • Meg
      March 28, 2012 at 3:51 pm

      Ender’s Game is also one of my favorite books, and P&P is also one of my favorite Austen book-turned-movie! You clearly have excellent taste in books, movies… and men. Oh, Colin Firth. Oh, BBC television adaptations.

      Have you seen the BBC’s take on Jane Eyre? (I’m not sure if you’re a Charlotte Bronte fan.) It’s my favorite adaptation to date, even if Ruth Wilson has really distracting duck lips.

      Bahhahaha. We’re not quite up to genetic level material price where I live yet – for tickets. Throw in some snacks, though…

      Reply
      • ariella42
        March 28, 2012 at 5:46 pm

        I haven’t seen their version of Jane Eyre yet, but I just added it to my Netflix queue. I’ll have to see how it holds up to the previous adaptations.

        Reply
        • Meg
          March 28, 2012 at 5:51 pm

          If you can get past Ruth Wilson’s interestingly shaped eyebrows and lips, I think you’ll like it.

          But really, they do a lot of close-ups on Ruth Wilson’s face, to the point where it’s almost distracting.You could make a drinking game out of it, though.

          “And they’ve zoomed in on her face again… DRINK!”

          Reply
  5. lightlycrunchy
    March 28, 2012 at 9:58 am

    I admit to reading the Twilight series, but mostly just to see if the chick ever stopped whining. And I’ve watched each movie as it came to tv because I’d already invested that many hours of my life and feel that I need to see it through to the end. Why do we do that?

    The only movie I’ve seen that was exactly like the book was Of Mice and Men.. probably because you could read the book in an hour and a half, so there was really nothing to cut out for a movie.

    Reply
    • Meg
      March 28, 2012 at 5:58 pm

      Bahahahaha.

      I keep watching the movies to see if Kristen Stewart will ever move past the whopping two facial expressions (snaped off and pensive) she utilizes when she’s acting in these movies. I’m still waiting.

      I ask myself the same question, too. Whenever I start a series, I feel obligated to finish that, even if I don’t like it, which is ridiculous.

      See, I can’t stand Steinbeck, which even makes watching the movies based off his book a chore. I know, I know – I’m a terrible American. I’ve gone through quite a few of his works Grapes of Wrath, Of Mice and Men, Tortilla Flats, hoping I’d be able to jump on the bandwagon, but I just get more miserable every page.

      Reply
  6. hatzihatzi
    March 28, 2012 at 10:05 am

    Do you have an opinion on the cast of the Ender’s Game movie? SJ and I are sort of talking about it.

    Reply
    • Meg
      March 28, 2012 at 4:05 pm

      I mean, obviously there’s a lot of kids involved, which makes me a bit nervous, to be honest, because I find a lot of child actors to be terribly inconsistent in their performances. The only one I’m pretty familiar with is Abigail Breslin, who I saw in Little Miss Sunshine (which I hated), and My Sister’s Keeper (which I thought she did well in.) I haven’t seen the kid who’s playing Ender in anything. I think I might make watching a few of his movies my project for the day, so I have a sense of how I think he’ll do as Ender. Also, for some reason, I always imagined that Petra was black, which is certainly not the case for the little actress they’ve cast to play her, which is a bit of a switch.

      As for the adults – Harrison Ford and Ben Kingsley are alright, I guess, though they’re not at all who I pictured playing Graff and Rackham, respectively.

      What were you guys thinking?

      Reply
  7. Danielle
    March 28, 2012 at 11:58 am

    Had no idea that Ender’s Game and the Giver were being made into movies! That is very exciting and I will definitely see them when they come out next year. Thanks for the head’s up!

    Reply
  8. cassiebehle
    March 28, 2012 at 12:27 pm

    The only thing encouraging about the next Twilight movie is that it’s the LAST ONE! After that, it’ll be done! Forever!!

    …right?

    Reply
  9. davidjfuller
    March 28, 2012 at 1:46 pm

    I’m right there with on the Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter. (As a Canadian, I’m now dying to write “Sir Wilfred Laurier: Werewolf Trapper” or “Mackenzie King: Ghostbuster”…) That was a lot more fun to read, thanks to its close attention to historical context, than I could have hoped.
    By the way, I agree with Michael Cargill about The Shawshank Redemption and The Green Mile, but what about Stand By Me (a.k.a. The Body)? And I’d argue Silver Bullet was better than his original novella Cycle of the Werewolf.

    Reply
    • sj
      March 28, 2012 at 1:57 pm

      Silver Bullet and Maximum Overdrive, for suresies. I’m on the fence about Shawshank, though – mostly because I had it all in my head a certain way and what was on screen was NOTHING LIKE THAT.

      Stand by Me was good.

      I am so far refusing to have any part in this Dark Tower ridiculousness, though.

      Reply
      • davidjfuller
        March 28, 2012 at 2:13 pm

        Hm — Shawshank was the reason I started reading Stephen King. I never got into Dark Tower. And Maximum Overdrive… :) Total guilty pleasure. The soundtrack for that movie got me into AC/DC, my gateway drug for an adolescence filled with heavy metal. I always cringe when I hear about movie adaptations, because you never know if they’ll translate well. LOTR: yes. Watchmen: ehh, as close as humanly possible but not close enough.

        Reply
        • sj
          March 28, 2012 at 2:19 pm

          I disagree about LotR, but I need to do a full re-read and subject myself to movie hell before I write a completely well-informed – but lengthy- rant on the subject, that most people will only skim for pictures. :)

          In short, I love the books – I’ve read them at least once a year for the last 25 years, but I hatehatehate the movies. HATE THEM. Again, though…I will post about it some other time.

          Also, you should definitely read the Dark Tower. His best work, up there with the Stand and Talisman.

          Reply
          • davidjfuller
            March 28, 2012 at 2:59 pm

            Hm, OK, I’ll give it a second look. Have you read The Silmarillion, Unfinished Tales, Book of Lost Tales, etc.? I love reading the whole story of Middle-Earth every now and then. And as much as I love LOTR the books, it’s pretty clear FOTR has massive narrative problems — not a huge criticism for someone who was inventing a literary genre by writing it — and that it doesn’t really get going until the fellowship sets out from Rivendell. One thing I do dislike about the movies is the overplaying of Helm’s Deep. Great battle scene, understand why they did it, but still…

            Reply
            • sj
              March 28, 2012 at 3:11 pm

              Yes! I think one of the things that was really missing from the movies was the sense of interconnectedness that permeated everything he wrote. I’m not just bitching about lines being given to different people and whatever, because I totally understand that is done frequently in film adaptations. I’m talking about removal of source material that was integral to the plot that has instead been replaced by PJ’s fanwank. Ugh.

              As an aside, spellcheck is insisting that interconnectedness isn’t a word. This is one of the reasons I hate spellcheck. <.<

              Man, I'm ranty today.

              Reply
              • davidjfuller
                March 28, 2012 at 3:23 pm

                “Removal of source material”? OK, yes, they removed a lot from the original LOTR (Sorry, Tom Bombadil), but what about all the great stuff they tied in? All the great Second Age stuff with the Last Alliance of Elves and Men, the Disaster of the Gladden Fields and (in the extended edition) a blatant reference to Morgoth? I do give Peter Jackson et. al. credit — they put more into those movies than I expected.

                Reply
                • sj
                  March 28, 2012 at 3:32 pm

                  In all harsh-truthiness (I’m aware I’ve just made up that word), I haven’t ever made it completely through either version of RotK. Every time it comes on, or my dad watches it, or the husband decides he feels like watching it, I fall asleep and wake up about ten minutes from the end. I WANT MY SCOURING OF THE SHIRE, DAMNIT!

                  Reply
                • Meg
                  March 28, 2012 at 4:11 pm

                  See, sj’s not a big fan of all the added elf action.

                  I, on the other hand, am perfectly happy to watch Orlando Bloom flounce around in a long wig all day long, so my opinion of it is a little bit higher.

                  Reply
                  • davidjfuller
                    March 28, 2012 at 4:28 pm

                    :) I was mocked by many of my female co-workers for liking Tolkien prior to the first movie’s release. After it came out, and they’d seen it, some even apologized, even as they swooned, “Viggo/Orlando’s so dreamy…”
                    By the way, have you seen the Foxtrot collection, “Orlando Bloom Has Ruined Everything”? A little dated now but very apropos.

                    Reply
                    • Meg
                      March 28, 2012 at 5:35 pm

                      Viggo’s pretty dreamy, too. I really only find Orlando attractive as a pretty blonde elf, not so much in his other movies. He’s always dirty-looking (e.g. Pirates of the Caribbean)

                      I have not, but now I absolutely will have to!

                    • davidjfuller
                      March 28, 2012 at 5:36 pm

                      He did wear his elfishness well. Actually I thought all the actors inhabited their makeup/clothes/roles superbly. Ian McKellen should have gotten an Oscar for Gandalf.

    • Meg
      March 28, 2012 at 4:09 pm

      Oh God, please do. I’d be first in line for those. It was more fun than I thought it would be, to be honest!

      Reply
  10. sj
    March 28, 2012 at 1:59 pm

    I still can’t believe you called me out like that. I’m refusing to hit that like button out of spite now, Meghan.

    SPITE!

    Also:

    Just sayin’.

    Reply
  11. pouringmyartout
    March 28, 2012 at 2:27 pm

    Can I add Dick Cheney’s autobiography to the list? It would feature the undead lord of soul-sucking vampire demons, men in wee leather pantaloons.. (I didn’t read it, I am just guessing about that part)… torture, facial shooting… (or the ‘money shot’ as they call that in the drunken grouse hunting game)…, underground vaults and man-sized safes, Abraham Lincoln… (because I am sure Dick knew him when he was young)…, anal probing with or without alien involvement… (once again, I didn’t actually read it, and am just surmising)…, space ships, throwing away the moral high ground, and lots of wars based on misunderstandings.
    I would also like to see a feature film based on a cook book, but I do not know how much of a market there would be for this. And they already did that Julia and Julia movie, so…

    Reply
  12. surroundedbyimbeciles
    March 28, 2012 at 4:06 pm

    I was looking forward to the Dark Tower/Gunslinger epic, but it’s not going to happen. I reckon the fact that King’s stuff has been done badly is a factor.

    Reply
    • Meg
      March 28, 2012 at 4:15 pm

      To be honest, I’m a bit wary of any new King movie, because I’ve yet to see one I really, really enjoyed.

      Reply
    • sj
      March 28, 2012 at 5:18 pm

      Dude, they were just saying two weeks ago that it was back on! Is it back off again already?! Not that I have a problem with that, because JAVIER IS NOT ROLAND AND NOTHING WILL CONVINCE ME THAT HE IS!

      They should have let Genndy Tartakovsky have it a few years ago. I’d have watched that. I distinctly remember having a ‘who would win in a fight, Roland or Samurai Jack?’ conversation, and we determined that it would be too close to call.

      Reply
  13. bagheadkelly
    March 28, 2012 at 7:03 pm

    My favourite movie; Immortal (Ad Vitam) was drawn from my favourite comic book as a kid. Do comics count?

    Reply
  14. Jericha
    March 29, 2012 at 11:37 pm

    Just discovered this blog through the GoodReads Indie Book Blogger Awards page…and to be fair, I have to go look at all the other nominated blogs that featured an interesting/funny/correctly punctuated blurb, but I have a feeling you’ll be getting my vote. I laughed out loud in an empty room over your Twilight characterization. Also, the illustrations are dopetastic.

    Had no idea about The Giver or Ender’s Game — god, I hope they’re cool, but I can’t say I have high hopes. In my daydreams, Ender’s Game: The Movie has a TNG-era Star Trek feel to it, with Ender like a dark and broody Wesley Crusher, and all the higher-ups talking in Patrick Stewart voices, but I suspect that’s a long shot. Sigh.

    Also, why has nobody ever made a film out of The Sword in the Stone? That Disney crap doesn’t count. Beyond that, once they make Thomas Pynchon’s Crying of Lot 49 into a movie I can die happy, but I think I’m fated to a miserable grave on that one.

    Reply
    • Meg
      March 30, 2012 at 12:36 am

      Regardless of what you vote on, thank you (again) for the incredibly lovely comment! Seriously, I have no idea what they’re going to do with that thing. The last half of the book is a slow, laborious build up to a fight that never happens. What, are they going to sparkle at each other for an hour? And shucks, thank you – I’m glad you like them!

      I’m preparing myself for the worst. I want to like them, I really do, but I’m afraid that if I go in with anything less than pretty low expectations I’ll be disappointed. I second your sigh.

      YESSS! The Sword in the STone and Crying of Lot 49 need to be made into (good) movies! There are so many junky movies out there based off junky books, it makes me sad ANGRY that perfectly good novels get passed by.

      Reply

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