Getting Lit: From 'Gone Girl' to 'Beloved', a Look at How Quickly Bestsellers Make It to the Big Screen
By any measure, Gone Girl made a swift and successful jump from the bestseller list to the big screen. Gillian Flynn’s breakthrough novel hit shelves in 2012 and went before cameras the following year, with A-list filmmaker David Fincher in the director’s chair. And now the finished, largely faithful movie version is at the top of the box office charts and looking like a likely Best Picture nominee. That’s the ideal situation for any lit-world hit, but not every adaptation happens as smoothly. Here is our look at some other esteemed fiction bestsellers — of the non-genre variety, so no horror, crime, or YA series — that took a little more time to reach theater screens.
Tina Fey and Jason Bateman in ‘This Is Where I Leave You’
This is Where I Leave You, by Jonathan Tropper
Publication Date: 2009
Theatrical Release: 2014
Synopsis: The oddball offspring of two eccentric parents return to their childhood home to sit shiva for dearly-departed dad.
Backstory: Like Flynn, Jonathan Tropper penned the adaptation of his family dramedy himself. Unlike Flynn, though, he made some fairly extensive changes to his book, including changing the name of the Jewish family at its center (from Foxman to Altman) and eliminating huge chunks of backstory and several darker moments. “It was hard to get that right, tonally, to hit all the right emotional notes without being too dark,” Tropper told The Hollywood Reporter. “That’s something that isn’t in the movie at all, because it was tonally askew for what we were doing in the movie.”
Verdict: Maybe darker whould have been the way to go. Most reviewers seemed to feel that the star-packed movie (the cast included Jason Bateman, Tina Fey, and Jane Fonda) felt too much like a sitcom, one that lacked the book’s ability to make readers smile through the grief.
Jessica Brown Findlay and Colin Farrell in ‘Winter’s Tale’
Winter’s Tale, by Mark Helprin
Publication Date: 1983
Theatrical Release: 2014
Synopsis: A 19th century New York immigrant hitches a ride on a white horse that follows him on a journey across time.
Backstory: Helprin’s fantasy-tinged tale was hailed as a one-of-a-kind achievement upon its publication. It also seemed completely unadaptable, both from a narrative and financial standpoint. But writer/producer Akiva Goldsman spent three decades hoping he’d be the one to crack it, finally getting the chance after penning such hits as A Beautiful Mind and I Am Legend. As he told Vanity Fair, “I think people have a really intense reaction to the book, which is, it either really gets into your bones or it doesn’t. I called in every favor I possibly have ever had [to make the movie]. I have no favors left.”
Verdict: Goldsman might have to call in some new favors. Released in the middle of its titular season, Winter’s Tale failed to spark the imagination of critics or audiences and will likely be a big awards contender…at the Razzies.
Taylor Schilling and Matthew Marsden in ‘Atlas Shrugged’
Atlas Shrugged, by Ayn Rand
Publication Date: 1957
Theatrical Release: 2011–2014
Synopsis: Who is John Galt? For some, an iconoclast, individualist inventor. For others, the shrill mouthpiece of a dubious philosophy.
Backstory: A controversial sensation to this day, Rand’s book took some four decades and numerous false starts to end up in theaters. The movie and TV rights bounced around the industry from 1972 onwards, eventually winding up in the hands of businessman John Aglialoro, who got the first part of a three-movie adaptation into production in the summer of 2010, just before his deal for the rights expired. The two follow-up installments were eventually made and released, even as the budgets fell and cast members kept being replaced. Through it all, though, Aglialoro kept his eyes on one goal. “I’ve been waiting for many, many years to go and visit [Rand’s] grave and say, ‘Well we did it,’” he remarked to The Daily Caller.
Verdict: The first movie attracted withering reviews and few box office dollars. The second attracted even more withering reviews and even fewer box office dollars. The third attracted barely a peep on either front. This may be the rare case where slacking English literature students still opt to read the book rather than watch the movie.
Kimberly Elise, Oprah Winfrey, and Thandie Newton in ‘Beloved’
Beloved, by Toni Morrison
Publication Date: 1987
Theatrical Release: 1998
Synopsis: After the Civil War, a former slave is visited by the reincarnation of the daughter she killed years ago rather than see her returned to slavery.
Backstory: Oprah Winfrey was only a year into hosting her nationally syndicated talk show — and two years removed from her Oscar-nominated performance in Steven Spielberg’s The Color Purple — when she scooped up the rights to Toni Morrison’s Pulitzer Prize-winning book in 1987. But her day job must have gotten in the way, as it took a full decade for the movie to become a reality. Once it went before cameras, though, she used all her power as producer and star to preserve the novel’s integrity. “I had the studios saying, ‘You should cut this. You should cut that. It’s not testing well,’” she told Collider. “I said, ‘I don’t care about that. What I care about is honoring the work, and honoring what Toni Morrison put on the page.’”
Verdict: The Oprah brand was strong…but not strong enough to make Beloved a hit. In that same interview, Winfrey admitted, “I would do that differently now because I want millions of people to see it. That would be my intention. I learned, and it was a really expensive mistake.”
Jeremy Irons and Meryl Streep in ‘The French Lieutenant’s Woman’
The French Lieutenant’s Woman, by John Fowles
Publication Date: 1969
Theatrical Release: 1981
Synopsis: A Victorian-era romantic tragedy plays out with a postmodern twist.
Backstory: Fowles literally inserted himself into the proceedings of his rapturously received book, with the story’s narrator appearing multiple times to comment on the proceedings and, in some cases, alter the outcome. It took awhile for a screenwriter to filter that kind of textual gameplay into a film version, with playwright Harold Pinter eventually hitting upon the conceit of having two movies happening simultaneously. Hence, stars Meryl Streep and Jeremy Irons play the characters in The French Lieutenant’s Woman, but they also play the actors who are playing those characters. Got all that? “You have to keep the audience aware that you are presenting them with an artifact,” director Karel Reisz told Sight and Sound at the time. “But of course you also have to involve their feelings.”
Verdict: Streep got her third Oscar nomination for her role and the movie attracted strong reviews, but hasn’t demonstrated the staying power of some of her other films. Maybe a little too high-concept?
Tom Hanks and Sandra Bullock in ‘Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close’
Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close, by Jonathan Safran Foer
Publication Date: 2005
Theatrical Release: 2011
Synopsis: A precocious nine-year-old kid embarks on a scavenger hunt designed by his father, who died in the 9/11 attacks.
Backstory: Hollywood has always been skittish about addressing 9/11, so Foer’s book remained in development for five years following its publication. But once the project was formally announced in 2010, the wheels started moving fast: Tom Hanks jumped onboard to play the father, pint-sized Jeopardy! Kids Week champion Thomas Horn got the central role, and director Stephen Daldry had the difficult task of figuring out how to address 9/11 in a complex, but still commercial, way. As he remarked to Indiewire: “I think everyone will have their reaction to what is true to this story, and that is entirely appropriate — everybody’s got their own 9/11 stories. And everybody has their own way of looking at it.”
Verdict: Released late in awards seasons, the movie secured a Best Picture nomination, but nobody outside of the cast and crew seemed all that happy about it — many critics found it contrived and overly sentimental.
Tom Hanks and Halle Berry in ‘Cloud Atlas’
Cloud Atlas, by David Mitchell
Publication Date: 2004
Theatrical Release: 2012
Synopsis: Six stories in six different timelines weave together to form a narrative tapestry that depicts how man’s unkindness to his fellow man reverberates across the centuries.
Backstory: Rising literary star Mitchell shot into the stratosphere with the publication of his third book, which dazzled readers with its intricate structure and richly imagined worlds. The Matrix masterminds Andy and Lana Wachowski were among those entranced and pursued a unique path towards making a film version possible. Bypassing Hollywood, they raised the movie’s $100 million budget overseas, secured the participation of such international movie stars as Tom Hanks and Hugh Grant and enlisted German filmmaker Tom Tykwer to come aboard as a third director. It was an innovative approach that complemented the book’s own unique voice. “Cloud Atlas is a twenty-first-century novel,” Lana Wachowski said in The New Yorker. “It represents a midpoint between the future idea that everything is fragmented and the past idea that there is a beginning, a middle, and an end.”
Verdict: Although the movie version of Cloud Atlas is less universally acclaimed than the book, those who adore it truly adore it. And just the mere fact that it got made at all seems worthy of acclaim.
Saoirse Ronan in ‘The Lovely Bones’
The Lovely Bones, by Alice Sebold
Publication Date: 2002
Theatrical Release: 2009
Synopsis: The spirit of a murdered teenage girl finds herself in an afterlife where she’s able to peek in on those she left behind…including her killer.
Backstory: Film companies were so taken by the premise of Sebold’s novel that the rights were purchased a full two years before the book was even completed. The fact that it sold over a million copies when it did finally arrive in bookstores just made it more of a hot property. Directors like Lynn Ramsay and Steven Spielberg circled the project, until it ultimately landed with Peter Jackson, fresh off his Lord of the Rings triumph. “As soon as I read the book, I was inspired by how unique this story could be as a film,” he remarked to USA Today. “We’ve tried to use many different elements to bring the book to life—through music, through sound design, through exploring imagery. It’s one of the most challenging movies I’ve ever made, but also one of the most satisfying.”
Verdict: Jackson may have directed one of the all-time great fantasy trilogies, but this particular fantasy failed to transport the general public, with some complaining that the two halves — the afterlife and the Earth-bound material — didn’t add up to a convincing whole.
Zach Galifianakis is the latest actor in the mix for ‘A Confederacy of Dunces’
A Confederacy of Dunces, by John Kennedy Toole
Publication Date: 1980
Theatrical Release: Still waiting
Synopsis: New Orleans-based warrior poet/professional crank Ignatius J. Reilly observes and comments on the craziness that surrounds him.
Backstory: Toole’s posthumously-published cult favorite has been on the verge of being made multiple times when real-life tragedy intervened. Back in 1982, Harold Ramis was getting ready to direct John Belushi as Reilly when the actor’s passing scuttled those plans. Later on, David Gordon Green and Will Ferrell teamed up to direct and star respectively on location in New Orleans, but then Hurricane Katrina blew though town. Zach Galifianakis is currently attached to the still-in-development project that’s been delayed so long it made our list of famously thwarted movie productions. (Click here to see more.)
Verdict: As great as it would be to see Dunces become a major motion picture, it’s hard not to agree with Steven Soderbergh, who co-penned the version of the movie that Green was going to direct. “I think it’s cursed,” he told Vulture. “I’m not prone to superstition, but that project has got bad mojo on it.”
James Franco wants to make a movie version of ‘Blood Meridian’
Blood Meridian, by Cormac McCarthy
Publication Date: 1985
Theatrical Release: Still waiting
Synopsis: A young runaway falls in with a gang of crooks and murderers while crossing the Texas frontier in the early 19th century.
Backstory: Thanks to McCarthy’s densely-written text and flair for graphic violence, Blood Meridian has never seemed like a likely candidate for a movie, even after No Country for Old Men picked up the Best Picture Oscar. But James Franco, for one, would love to see a film version. (He would know, since he considers it his favorite novel and recently directed a film based on McCarthy’s third book, Child of God.) What’s more he funded his own 25-minute test reel for a proposed feature that he premiered on VICE. “In some ways Blood seems un-filmable,” he acknowledges in his introduction. “It is almost Biblical in its prose. His terse prose utilizes vocabulary only found in the crannies of annals of the Old West and the specialized spheres of working men. He captures the slang of forgotten peoples so deftly, it’s as if they were his barroom friends.”
Verdict: Hey, what Franco wants, Franco should get…right?
Photo credits: AP Photo/Warner Bros., David C. Lee, AP Photo/Warner Bros. Pictures, Jay Maidment, DreamWorks, AP Photo/Mark J. Terrill, Jason Kempin/Getty Images, Everett
