Today’s Book Blogger Hop question is: What were your worst movies based off of books?
Most people have probably already heard this rant, but…Ella Enchanted. Book by Gail Carson Levine, movie by I don’t even know. I don’t love it when movies change plot points or character arcs, but this one ruined the whole concept. Ella Enchanted is a wonderful, magical but practical retelling of Cinderella, and I love that combination–magic, with a practical, logical, real-world bent. The movie was some sort of confused, hyped-up absurdity, not true to the spirit of the book at all.
It seems only fair to give the opposite side, worst book I ever read after watching a movie it was based on. African Queen, book by C. S. Forester, movie starring Katherine Hepburn and Humphrey Bogart. Everything good in the movie was not in the book, and there was nothing else good to compensate for it, with an ending that made the entire rest of the book utterly pointless and devalued. Badly done.
What was the worst movie you saw based on a book? And just for fun, what was the worst book you read that somehow had a good movie based on it?
My dad and I were absolutely flabbergasted when they changed the ending in the 2016 film adaptation of Dan Brown’s shocking Inferno – not even the wonderful Tom Hanks could save it from that travesty!
I can’t answer either question, since a long time ago I realised never to watch a film of a book I loved, and decided on the corollary later. I’ll only go see a film I’ve already read these days if I’m really confident it’ll be good (Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society being one that was really good on both counts)