A New Standard for Book Adaptations

Last Thursday I went to the premiere of Hunger Games. I have yet to read the books, but I plan on reading them soon. My friends and I left the theatre with smiles on our faces. We all enjoyed the film, though there were some flaws, and the movie did leave some things out that resulted in a film slightly short of fantastic. All in all though, I thought the film was well-made. Watching the Hunger Games got me thinking about how it seems that adaptations of graphic novels and books have a new standard of expectation. Legions of pre-made fans from best selling books have called for movies that truly stay faithful to the print version, and that will inspire the same level of devotion.

Film and television adaptations have become a huge presence in the industry. With the fan bases and harsh critics of the original work, film and TV makers really need to bring it all to the table as the pressure to live up to the hype increases. TV series' like Game of Thrones and Walking Dead are some great examples. The two shows have amassed a pretty large audience, while both critics and fans of the novels seem to enjoy those shows. These shows have definitely set the bar for future shows with the impressive acting and writing. However, the results of adaptations aren't always as spectacular as these two. John Carter exemplifies one of the most recent examples of other possible outcomes of such an adaptation. The film based off of a book, almost a century old, and didn't do so hot in the box-office. In fact, Disney even came out and said that they expect to lose money on the film. I'm guessing one of the reasons this adaptation didn't do so well is because there was virtually no built in fan base. The book was just too old. I didn't see the movie myself and critics didn't exactly love it. Yet, when it comes to Hunger Games I felt like the film fell in the middle in terms of reception from the audience and the quality. It didn't exactly get to the level of the last Harry Potter movie, but it still did well. Still, in terms of first iterations of the series, Hunger Games did better than Twilight both in terms of quality and financially. 

It seems that adaptations have a lot of potential to be moneymakers, but also the potential to let the fans of the novels down. It's a big risk, but recently it seems to have paid off for most. I'm really excited about the fact that adaptations need to be awesome in order to be able to build a successful franchise. I want more series' that just feel epic. Hopefully the general quality of recent TV series' and films will stay constant. If not, the creators will pay for it with bad reviews and low revenue. What do you guys think of recent films and TV series based off of novels? Did you think they did a good job of complementing the original work?