Top 10 Authors Who HATED Adaptations of Their Books
#10: Roald Dahl
Despite being a screenwriter whose credits include “Chitty Chitty Bang Bang” and “You Only Live Twice,” Roald Dahl was very wary of how his celebrated children’s books would be treated by Hollywood. Having already forged his own career in the entertainment industry, he had strong feelings on the direction big screen adaptations should take, and mixed opinions on the end results. While he was able to work on the screenplay for “Willy Wonka & The Chocolate Factory,” he wasn’t a fan of Gene Wilder’s casting as the titular candymaker. Dahl had no such involvement in the “The Witches” adaptation, and was so disappointed in the changes made by director Nicolas Roeg, he requested his name be removed from the credits.
#9: Anne Rice
Anne Rice’s steadily growing “Vampire Chronicles” series has been entrancing readers with gothic romance long before Stephanie Meyer came on the scene. Rice was so keen to get the first novel of the series, “Interview With The Vampire,” turned into a film that she wrote the screenplay herself, recommending British actor, Julian Sands in the role of Lestat. Given the homoeroticism of the story, she even wrote a gender-flipped version to circumvent any potential homophobia that might halt production. In the end, Lestat’s part went to superstar Tom Cruise, a decision Rice heavily criticised. Upon seeing the finished product, however, she quickly ate her words. Rice was far less complimentary about the 2002 sequel, “Queen Of The Damned,” accusing it of “mutilating” the source material.
#8: Lois Duncan
Though you might not recognize her name, you’ll almost certainly recognize the name of Lois Duncan’s most well-known novel, “I Know What You Did Last Summer.” In Duncan’s 1973 thriller, a group of high school students are trying to forget about the fatal hit-and-run they were involved with the previous year, when one of them is sent a note carrying the chilling message of the story’s title. Sounds familiar, right? Well, that’s about all the book and movie have in common. When Duncan saw the 1997 adaptation, she was horrified - not by the jump scares and gore - but by the presence of a hook-handed killer absent in her original story. The filmmakers threw the urban legend in to capitalize on the popularity of slasher films like “Scream.”
#7: Ursula K. Le Guin
She’s one of the most influential names in the fantasy genre, but somehow, her work has never translated well from page to screen. When her epic “Earthsea” saga was adapted for a 2004 television miniseries, Le Guin was extremely critical. Not only did she object to the whitewashed casting, but she called the series “a generic McMagic movie with a meaningless plot.” Just two years later, Studio Ghibli released a feature-length anime version, “Tales From Earthsea.” But not even the legendary Japanese studio could please Le Guin. In a scathing blog post, she accused both iterations of “lacking in coherence and consistency. I wonder at the disrespect shown not only to the books but to their readers.”
#6: Gore Vidal
Gore Vidal’s book, “Myra Breckinridge” caused a huge stir when it was published in 1968. Not only does it contain heavy drug use and graphic sex scenes, but it completely pulls apart traditional gender and sexuality norms with its overt feminist and LGBTQ themes. As you can imagine, it wasn’t exactly embraced by narrow-minded critics of the era. However, being the first major novel to depict a main character undergo gender reassignment surgery, it’s since become highly regarded as a groundbreaking classic. High praise that can’t be said of the 1970 film version, which is commonly considered to be one of the worst films ever made. Vidal concurred with this, calling it “not just a bad movie, but an awful joke.”
#5: J.R.R Tolkien & Christopher Tolkien
If Ursula K. Le Guin is the grandmother of fantasy fiction, J.R.R Tolkien is definitely the grandfather. As the architect of the world of “The Lord Of The Rings,” Tolkien was extremely dubious about any retellings of his books. He sent detailed notes to the scriptwriter of a proposed film in 1958, condemning the script for boiling his complex saga down to a standard swords and sorcery movie, as well as “murder[ing]” the ending. He also turned down a proposal from Stanley Kubrick in 1969, which would have starred The Beatles as Frodo, Sam, Gollum and Gandalf. Decades later, his son Christopher, who completed some of Tolkien’s work after his death, lamented that Peter Jackson’s movies had “eviscerated” his father’s legacy.
#4: Alan Moore
As every comic book nerd knows, Alan Moore has penned some of the most acclaimed graphic novels of all time, from “Batman: The Killing Joke” to “The League Of Extraordinary Gentlemen.” Starting with 2001’s “From Hell,” Hollywood has been churning out a steady stream of films based on some of Moore’s best-loved stories - much to the writer’s disdain. He thinks Johnny Depp ruined “From Hell” and didn’t care for the Americanization of “V For Vendetta.” Moore even cut ties with DC Comics and Warner Brothers after they applied pressure on him to sign off on merchandise related to Zack Snyder’s “Watchmen” adaptation. Just to prove he was serious, he demanded his name be disassociated from the film, passing his profits along to artist, Dave Gibbons.
#3: P.L Travers
P.L Travers’ beef with Disney over “Mary Poppins” is so juicy it got its own movie retelling in 2013’s “Saving Mr. Banks.” As the film chronicles, Walt Disney himself had to court Travers for some time in order to snag the rights to go ahead with his passion project. Even then, the author’s scepticism about the company’s schmaltzy brand of children’s entertainment led her to insist on being closely involved in production, much to Disney’s irritation. Satisfied that Walt had stayed true to her vision, Travers was then devastated when she watched the final cut at the premiere. All of her suggested changes, like cutting the animated sequences and making Mary Poppins stricter, had been completely ignored.
#2: Rick Riordan
Rick Riordan’swildly popular “Percy Jackson & The Olympians” series has a large and dedicated following among young adult readers. Naturally, it wasn’t long before 20th Century Fox decided to capitalize on his success by turning it into a movie franchise. Unfortunately, the films didn’t exactly set the world on fire, leading to the series being halted after just two entries. One of their biggest critics has been Riordan himself. In 2016, he tweeted an open letter to teachers, imploring them not to show the movies in their classroom. He added, “I would rather have my teeth pulled with no anesthesia” than watch them. Since then, Riordan has backtracked slightly, saying he’s lucky to even HAVE adaptations to criticize.
Before we unveil our top pick, here are a few honorable mentions.
J.D Salinger
Truman Capote
Madeleine L’Engle
Bret Easton Ellis
#1: Stephen King
“The Shining” is one of the most revered movies in cinema history, made by one of the most revered directors in cinema history, Stanley Kubrick. Neither of those facts makes any difference to Stephen King, the similarly famous author of the film’s source material. King has repeatedly bashed the adaptation since it was released in 1980, even remaking it himself for a 1997 miniseries. In a recent rant, he ripped apart the film’s mishandling of main character, Jack Torrance, and its misogynistic treatment of his wife, Wendy. “The book is hot, and the movie is cold; the book ends in fire, the movie in ice. In the book there’s an actual arc [...] When I saw the movie, Jack [Nicholson] was crazy from the first scene.”
