In the Book Club forum, I posted about how different the Forrest Gump movie was compared to the book. About the only thing that was the same was the concept. And the movie was a hit. Without the movie, the book was probably doomed to obscurity. (Judging by the copyright page, I believe the book was self-published at first.)
Stephen King is reported to have disliked Kubrick's version of The Shining, since the director left out the basic themes that were present in the book. Meanwhile, the movie became a horror classic. Of course, without King's novel, there would never have been a film like it.
Other movies made from novels are similar in theme, setting, and characters but the plots and situations have been altered. MASH comes to mind.
In other cases, movie adaptations have been made that almost mirror the books. The Jason Bourne movies are an example. The Harry Potter movies are almost identical to the books except they left out subplots and parts of the story to condense them into the two-hour timeframe. The characters and themes were left intact.
Which brings me to my question.
Let's say your book is made into a big-budget movie, by which I don't mean Vanity Productions or some other company that ends up not producing anything at all. We can even say the movie has Big Stars in it and was directed by A Big Name Director. We can also go further to say that the movie was a Big Hit and further propelled sales of your book a millionfold.
But the film they made was somewhat different than your book. It was not like Harry Potter or Jason Bourne. They kept your characters and basic story, but many alterations were made for the sake of film. The MC is diametrically opposite than what you conceived. The basic themes are gone. The plot goes differently. Even the ending has been changed into a "Hollywood ending" suitable for the big screen.
What is your reaction as author?
