There is an unwritten rule when it comes to adapting books to movies and it indicates that no matter how well the movie turns out, faithful readers of the original story will always say that the book is much better. With the exception of the trilogy He yeslord of the ringsthere this pattern is broken for obvious reasons.
Even so, there are adaptations that do deserve all the hate they receive because they really annihilated the original text page by page. Here are 15 films based on literary works that went horribly wrong according to some Reddit users.
1. Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief
The ‘Percy Jackson’ saga was like a smaller-scale version of ‘Harry Potter’. Those books are really great. Then they made the first movie that completely deviated from the books and it was horrible. They had so much potential to make it to the big screen.
2. she is delighted
The book had a dark and serious tone for a child. It was an adult version of Cinderella, where the protagonist is given the ‘gift’ of fulfilling any order to the letter. Throughout the book she is afraid of being ordered to kill herself or someone she loves. And the movie is a musical comedy. Basically a mockery.
3. Jumper
The book was so cool and it went into so much more detail about Davy learning to teleport and testing his powers. The movie sucks, they cut extremely important parts for the plot.
4. The Hobbit
A beloved tale that was needlessly stretched out into three films, only to give it a forced romance, clutter it with redundant action scenes, and fill it with gruesome CG. After the brilliant adaptation of the ‘Lord of the Rings’ trilogy, ‘The Hobbit’ was a tremendous disappointment.
5. I robot
The book is totally impressive, it does a wide exploration on the nature of logic, told through short stories. The movie was the classic Will Smith ‘oh god I’m too old for this’ action packed absurdity.
6. The Chronicles of Narnia
It’s not the worst adaptation, but ‘The Chronicles of Narnia’ has three more books and much more interesting than the four movies put together. What a waste.
7. World War Z
The movie left a ridiculous amount of original content out. His biggest mistake was making zombies Olympic runners, in the book they are slow. And don’t get me started on that silly Pepsi commercial near the end of the movie, I still cringe.
8. Ender’s Game
It’s okay if you haven’t read the book, but you’re missing out on one of the best science fiction stories. Sadly, the adaptation cut almost half of the plot; imagine ‘SpongeBob’ but if they eliminated half the characters.
9. Eragon
The ‘Eragon’ movie is one of the worst ever made. They only kept a few characters, but from then on it seems like a whole new movie, except for the name and that there was a dragon.
10. The Great Gatsby
The book is beautiful, the romance is subtle and witty. The movie is completely the opposite.
eleven. Game of Thrones
For me, ‘Game of Thrones’ (series) was an incredible experience, but even so, this one falls very short of the wonder that is the original saga. They leave out so much that I can’t help but feel sorry for those who have only seen the series.
12. the dark tower
They couldn’t possibly have wanted to condense eight books of Stephen King’s masterpiece into one movie. It is a great offense what that film represents.
13. Dexter
I enjoyed the ‘Dexter’ series as much as I could, but they quickly drifted away from the source material. It got to the point that Jeff Lindsay confessed that he had regretted giving up the rights.
14. An extraordinary adventure
Why would you choose to adapt a book like that? The movie is poorly made and has horrible plot exposition.
fifteen. I’m legend
With or without an alternate ending, the film leaves out the plot and moral content that the book offered. ‘I am legend’ is a ‘remake’ of ‘The last man alive’ and no one can change my opinion.