In our every more digitised age what better way to ensure that books are remembered and passed down a generation than adapting them to a more universal format such as TV or Film. I include them both as they have very different uses to the medium. TV can give you more time to get the detail of a book across while a film will generally only be able to carry the message and sentiment. A TV adaptation of Wuthering Heights is frequently more accurate than a two hour film.
The point of adaptation is not to recreate something that is 100% line for line the same as a book, but to allow the text to reach a new audience. Shakespeare frequently has the complaint levelled to it that it is complicated and difficult to watch, and yet adaptations such as The Lion King, or 10 Things I Hate About You allow the message to be passed to a new generation without anyone batting an eyelid. However when a book is adapted there is a lot more controversy involved, as often you have writers and their families to contend with. Interview with a Vampire for example encountered a lot of debate with the casting of Tom Cruise as Lestat, Anna Rice eventually had to take out a two page advert apologizing for her comment once she’d seen his performance.
We should be embracing film adaptations to increase the audience of a subject after all the 4.9% increase in sales of children’s books in 2009 is attributed to Twilight Chronicles which held positions 1 though 5 of the top selling 100 children’s books and accounted for 10% of sales, and you can’t say that the Films haven’t helped that.
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