Every movie adaptation of a book has to make a few changes, and these changes can often be beneficial. It seems as though it’s become common practice for fans of a book to lament the changes that filmmakers make. It’s much less common for people to highlight the times when a movie improves upon its source material, although this happens more frequently than people might think.
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Some of the best book adaptations do much more than recreate the story as faithfully as possible. While directors and actors can add their own distinct flair, some movies benefit from fundamental changes to the books. Altering characters, cutting unnecessary subplots and changing the ending can all improve an adaptation. Making such drastic changes risks angering the fans of the book, but if it pays off, it can be a huge improvement.
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10 The Shawshank Redemption (1994)
The Movie Changes Brooks’ Story
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9/10 9.6/10 The Shawshank Redemption
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*Availability in US Director Frank Darabont Release Date October 14, 1994 Cast Tim Robbins , Morgan Freeman , Bob Gunton , William Sadler , Clancy Brown , Gil Bellows , Mark Rolston , James Whitmore
The Shawshank Redemption had a famously tough time at the box office, with some critics suggesting that removing Stephen King’s name from the marketing had a negative impact. Stephen King movies tend to perform well, but The Shawshank Redemption is a departure from the horror genre that King is best known for. The movie makes a few subtle changes to the story in the novel, most of which are for clarity and to streamline the narrative.
The movie’s version is more dramatic and more heartbreaking.
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One of the big changes in The Shawshank Redemption creates an iconic moment from the movie. In King’s book, Brooks has a tough time when he is released from prison, but he dies of natural causes in an elderly care home. The movie’s version is more dramatic and more heartbreaking, as Brooks takes his own life when he realizes that he can’t cope with living on the outside. It’s a devastating scene that underlines the movie’s theme of institutionalization.
9 Fight Club (1999)
The Ending Is Different In The Book
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9/10 36 8.8/10 Fight Club
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*Availability in US Director David Fincher Release Date October 15, 1999 Cast Brad Pitt , Meat Loaf , Edward Norton , Jared Leto , Helena Bonham Carter
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David Fincher’s adaptation of Chuck Palahniuk’s novel retains a lot of what makes it so popular, with some superficial changes to move the story along quicker. The ending is one moment where the movie departs from the framework of the novel, and it’s worth noting that the finale is one of the most memorable scenes of the whole movie. From the powerful visuals of the towers exploding to the iconic final line, Fight Club wraps things up in style.
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The ending of the novel sees the Narrator being sent to a mental institution. It has the interesting detail that members of Project Mayhem are continuing to carry out Tyler’s work on the outside. Fight Club‘s movie ending is even more impactful, however, since it also feels like a new beginning. After confronting the idea of Tyler Durden and getting together with Marla, the Narrator’s future is uncertain.
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8 The Harry Potter Series
Hermione’s Subplot About Elf Liberation Is Cut
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The Harry Potter movies are mostly seen as great adaptations, but fitting each of J.K. Rowling’s books into roughly two hours required a lot of cuts to be made. Some of the cuts have annoyed fans, like the backstory with the Marauders, the character of Peeves and more detail about Harry and Ginny’s relationship. However, the subplot about Hermione’s advocacy for house-elf rights is one thing that didn’t need to make it to the big screen.
Drawing parallels between house-elves and slavery casts a dark shadow over events at Hogwarts, and it distracts from the main plot.
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Throughout the books, Hermione sets up a student organization to draw attention to the mistreatment of house-elves at Hogwarts. The organization, known by the acronym S.T.E.W., is Hermione’s passion project, but most of her classmates simply roll their eyes whenever Hermione mentions it. Drawing parallels between house-elves and slavery casts a dark shadow over events at Hogwarts, and it distracts from the main plot. HBO’s upcoming Harry Potter series could find a way to make it more palatable.
7 Jaws (1975)
Quint’s USS Indianapolis Speech Isn’t In The Book
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10/10 17 9.2/10 Jaws
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*Availability in US Director Steven Spielberg Release Date June 18, 1975 Cast Roy Scheider , Robert Shaw , Richard Dreyfuss , Lorraine Gary , Murray Hamilton , Carl Gottlieb
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Steven Spielberg’s first massive hit still holds up almost 50 years later, especially due to the changes it makes from Peter Benchley’s novel of the same. Jaws cuts out a lot of the outdated language which could be construed as racist or homophobic by today’s standards. It also axes the affair between Hooper and Brody’s wife. One of the best changes is something much simpler, and it creates an unforgettable moment.
Robert Shaw, who plays Quint, was also a writer, and he edited the speech himself.
Quint’s speech about being on board the USS Indianapolis is one of the highlights of the entire movie, even though it’s nothing more than a simple dialogue scene while the characters wait for the shark to appear once more. Jaws was partially inspired by real-life, but the references to the sinking of the USS Indianapolis weren’t in the novel. Robert Shaw, who plays Quint, was also a writer, and he edited the speech himself.
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6 Willy Wonka & The Chocolate Factory (1971)
The Tunnel Of Terror Scene Is Much Scarier In The Movie
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8/10 10/10 Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory
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*Availability in US Director Mel Stuart Release Date June 30, 1971 Cast Jack Albertson , gene wilder , Peter Ostrum , Denise Nickerson , Julie Dawn Cole
Roald Dahl famously hated Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, so much so that he refused to allow movie studios to adapt his other works until his death in 1990. Despite his reservations, Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory is a children’s classic. It does change a few things from the book, which includes adding a saccharine ending which goes against Dahl’s style. However, some of these changes are brilliant.
The movie also has the intriguing detail that the boat has just eight seats.
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The Tunnel of Terror scene is one of the most captivating in the whole movie. It also exists in the book, but it’s much tamer. Dahl’s version has Wonka dancing around as he recites his strange poem. By contrast, Gene Wilder performs the poem without moving a muscle, with his eyes wide open to stare at his guests. This makes it much scarier, and it highlights Wonka’s volatility. The movie also has the intriguing detail that the boat has just eight seats, as if Wonka knew that Augustus Gloop would already be separated from the tour group.
5 Goldfinger (1964)
Goldfinger’s Plan Makes Even Less Sense In The Novel
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10/10 Goldfinger
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*Availability in US Director Guy Hamilton Release Date September 20, 1964 Cast Sean Connery , Honor Blackman , Gert Fröbe , Shirley Eaton , Tania Mallet , Harold Sakata
Goldfinger is generally considered to be one of the best James Bond movies, with an iconic villain, plenty of great action scenes and an interesting mystery. Part of its popularity can be put down to the clever changes it makes to Ian Fleming’s novel. Not every James Bond movie is based on one of Fleming’s books, but most of the early ones are. The filmmakers were forced to make some changes to Fleming’s work.
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Auric Goldfinger’s plan is to infiltrate Fort Knox and activate a dirty bomb to irradiate America’s federal supply of gold, thereby making his own gold soar in value. In the novel, his plan is simply to steal from Fort Knox instead. The movie has a bit of fun poking holes in this plan, as Goldfinger and Bond discuss that moving that amount of gold so quickly without being detected would be impossible. The version of the plan which exists in the movie is ever so slightly more plausible, and far more original too.
4 American Fiction (2023)
The Movie Builds On The Book’s Ambiguous Ending
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8/10 9/10 American Fiction
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*Availability in US Director Cord Jefferson Release Date September 8, 2023 Cast Jeffrey Wright , Tracee Ellis Ross , John Ortiz , Erika Alexander , Leslie Uggams , Adam Brody , Keith David , Issa Rae , Sterling K. Brown
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American Fiction is based on the novel Erasure by Percival Everett. The most noticeable change is that American Fiction cuts a lot of Erasure‘s satire about the publishing industry. It still has a focus on literature, but it’s more relatable for people who aren’t up-to-date with the latest trends in the literary world. Everett’s audience, obviously, is more aware of this sort of thing, while American Fiction has to appeal to a broader audience. The movie’s satire can just as easily apply to movies, TV and other forms of media.
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Another big change that builds on Erasure is the way that American Fiction expands on the book’s ambiguous ending. Erasure ends with Monk going on stage to collect his award.American Fiction imagines a few different scenarios, before pulling back to reveal that these potential endings are all part of Monk pitching his story to a Hollywood executive. This is a meta joke about the nature of adapting a book about literature for the big screen, but it also draws attention to the artifice of the story in a way that suits the themes.
3 Jurassic Park (1993)
John Hammond Is More Interesting In The Movie
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10/10 10/10 Jurassic Park
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*Availability in US Director Steven Spielberg Release Date June 11, 1993 Cast Sam Neill , Laura Dern , Jeff Goldblum , Richard Attenborough , Bob Peck , Martin Ferrero
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Jurassic Park makes some changes to most of its main characters. Ellie is a little older in the movie, the children are completely different, and Ian Malcolm is much friendlier. These changes don’t affect the plot too much, but the same can’t be said for the changes made to the character John Hammond, the owner of Jurassic Park played by Richard Attenborough. His character is barely recognizable in Steven Spielberg’s movie.
While the park is something of a vanity project for him, he’s more naive than he is malevolent.
In the book, John Hammond is much more of a villain. He seems to know that there are some flaws with Jurassic Park, but he pushes ahead with his plan because he is driven by his greed for more money. The movie makes him a more sympathetic character. While the park is something of a vanity project for him, he’s more naive than he is malevolent. This reinforces the movie’s message that humans shouldn’t play god, because even a good man can fall into the trap.
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2 Psycho (1960)
Alfred Hitchcock’s Horror Classic Shifts The Perspective
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10/10 9.5/10 Psycho
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*Availability in US Director Alfred Hitchcock Release Date September 8, 1960 Cast Janet Leigh , Martin Balsam , Anthony Perkins , John Gavin , Vera Miles
One of Alfred Hitchcock’s best movies might not be so popular if it had stuck exclusively to its source material. Some people may be surprised to learn that Psycho is an adaptation of a novel by American author Robert Bloch, as the movie has become far more famous than the book. For the most part, Hitchcock’s movie presents a faithful adaptation of the main story beats. The big change is the perspective of the movie.
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The movie makes the intelligent change of starting from Marion’s perspective.
A lot of Robert Bloch’s book uses the perspective of Norman Bates. It isn’t written in first-person, but the prose peers inside his head at times. The book also starts with Norman before introducing Marion Crane later. The movie makes the intelligent change of starting from Marion’s perspective. This makes it a much bigger shock when she is murdered in the shower scene, and it makes Norman much more mysterious and dangerous.
1 The Godfather (1972)
Johnny Fontaine’s Role Is Reduced
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10/10 10 9.9/10 The Godfather
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*Availability in US Director Francis Ford Coppola Release Date March 24, 1972 Cast Marlon Brando , Diane Keaton , James Caan , Al Pacino , Robert Duvall
The Godfather author Mario Puzo also had a hand in writing the screenplay for the movie alongside Francis Ford Coppola. This means that the movie is mostly faithful to the book, but there are still some noteworthy changes. Sonny’s infidelity, some of the Corleone family’s crimes and some discussion about societal racism are all absent in the movie. One change that definitely improves the movie is that Johnny Fontaine’s role is massively reduced.
Mario Puzo also worked on the scripts for both
Godfather
sequels.
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Johnny Fontaine is a popular crooner with ties to the Corleone family, partially based on the real life of Frank Sinatra and other singers. In The Godfather, he asks Vito for help getting a part in a Hollywood movie, but he isn’t mentioned after Jack Woltz wakes up to find his horse’s head in his bed. This is the moment when Johnny stops being relevant to the story of Michael and Vito, so he doesn’t appear again. The book drags things out by including a subplot about Johnny losing his singing voice and fretting over his career prospects. This would have weighed down the movie.
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