Top 10 Hardest Books To Adapt Into Movies

Welcome to WatchMojo, and today we’re counting down our picks for the Top 10 Books That Have Been Hardest to Adapt into Movies

For this list, we’ll be looking at the most popular and acclaimed books and series that haven’t managed to get the big-screen treatment. We won't be including comics or graphic novels, as those deserve their own list.

What’s your favorite book that you wish was a movie? Let us know in the comments!

There are plenty of great movie adaptations of Philip K. Dick’s stories, such as "Blade Runner," "Total Recall," and "Minority Report." But "Ubik" is one story from the sci-fi legend that Hollywood still hasn't gotten a handle on. Set in the once-far-off future of 1992, "Ubik" is a head-spinning mix of psychic abilities, cryogenics, and a mysterious spray called “Ubik”. It's been named one of the top 100 novels since 1923 by Time Magazine. There have been adaptation attempts going back to the 70s, including one in the 2010s from Michel Gondry. In a 2014 interview, Gondry explained the book's lack of dramatic structure was a hindrance.

Even experienced readers can have trouble with Thomas Pynchon. The reclusive writer’s work is surreal in a way that makes you have to read sentences multiple times to even begin to understand them. While director Paul Thomas Anderson delivered a solid Pynchon adaptation in 2014 with “Inherent Vice,” we don’t know how anyone could adapt “Gravity’s Rainbow,” a novel that could, at best, be described as being about the construction of rockets. But that doesn’t even begin to get into how sprawling this story is, with 400 named characters and too many plot threads to keep count of. Any adaptation of “Gravity’s Rainbow” would have to be a pretty loose one.

H.P. Lovecraft is one of the most influential sci-fi and horror authors of all time, and his unsettling tales have been adapted for movies like "Re-Animator" and "Color Out of Space.” But adapting “At the Mountains of Madness,” originally published as a serial in the magazine Astounding Stories, has proven, well, maddening. The novella follows an expedition in Antarctica that uncovers an ancient civilization. An adaptation from Guillermo del Toro starring Tom Cruise was in the works, but studios reportedly got scared by the lack of a love story and grim finale, and Del Toro’s desire for an R-rating. If there's any director who deserves a chance to adapt Lovecraft without studio interference, it's del Toro.

A 14-novel fantasy series is catnip for studios looking to launch the next big movie franchise. But "The Wheel of Time," primarily written by the late Robert Jordan, also makes for an intimidating adaptation given its length, sprawling world and extensive list of characters. Universal optioned the series for adaptation in 2008, but nothing came of it. But while there might never be any movie adaptation of “Wheel of Time,” there’s another format that’s better suited for Jordan’s expansive world. A TV version, starring Rosamund Pike, is set to debut on Prime Video on November 19. And unlike a certain other fantasy TV series, all the books are already finished.

A story about two people who have never met exchanging letters and falling in love sounds ideal for a movie adaptation. But “The Griffin and Sabine Saga” - originally published as a trilogy in the early 90s - is one that would lose something vital if divorced from a literary context. These are epistolary novels, containing postcards and letters between the characters as they journey through their blossoming relationship. The very act of reading these books is an interactive thrill, with gorgeous - and at times - disturbing artwork, and removable notes to make you feel like you’re one of the characters, receiving a message from your squeeze. A movie version could be decent, but the book version is transcendent.

Pulling off multiple narratives - told from different perspectives - is hard enough in novel form. In movie form, it's far more difficult. Mark Z. Danielewski's acclaimed novel - considered by some to be a horror story and by others to be a love story, feels intentionally unadaptable. The story partially involves a family who finds their house has undergone impossible changes in dimension, which would be great to see play out on screen. But the multiple narrators and numerous footnotes make "House of Leaves" anything but a beach read. Any director who tries to adapt this is asking for a lot, both from their audience and from themselves.

Want to feel accomplished as a reader? Try getting all the way through “Infinite Jest.” David Foster Wallace’s masterpiece of a novel is more than 1,000 pages of complex narratives, involving radical political activists, tennis students, residents in a substance abuse treatment facility, and a family's history. There are also 388 endnotes, and some of these contain their own footnotes. Although it's sold more than one million copies since it was first published in 1996, we can’t envision how a remotely faithful adaptation could happen. There have been rumors of a screenplay in the works, but all we can say is: surely you jest!

Cormac McCarthy is considered to be one of the best modern American writers, and movie adaptations of his books have made him even more of a household name. But the book that many consider to be his greatest is the one that may be the hardest to adapt. "Blood Meridian," an intensely violent take on the Western, has imagery that practically leaps off the page and one of the most terrifying antagonists literature has ever known, Judge Holden. But though some have tried - including Ridley Scott and James Franco - no attempt to adapt McCarthy's novel has taken off, perhaps due to how grim it all is. McCarthy has expressed interest in an adaptation, but he acknowledges it would be a difficult feat.

Few 20th-century literary creations have such an impact on readers as Holden Caulfield, the brash protagonist of J.D. Salinger’s “The Catcher in the Rye.” Though there have been attempts to adapt "Catcher" going back to the book's 1951 release, none have panned out, with Salinger and his estate both turning numerous potential versions down. There was also nearly a Disney animated version, involving German shepherds, kind of like “Oliver & Company.” Although the story isn't difficult to understand, a hindrance to adapting "Catcher in the Rye" is the potential loss of Holden's narration, and with it, Salinger’s distinct voice.

Chronicling a family's story through seven generations is just one of the many feats Gabriel Garcia Márquez pulls off in his astounding novel, "One Hundred Years of Solitude." He also creates a vivid world with the fictional town of Macondo. Hollywood adapted another of his novels in 2007, “Love in the Time of Cholera”, but failed to capture the magic of the source material. Given the magical realist style and sheer scope of “One Hundred Years of Solitude”, it makes for an even more daunting task. Márquez never sold film rights, but his son, Rodrigo García Barcha, says a Netflix series adaptation in Spanish is in the works. Perhaps a series can do the novel some justice.