Writer in Residence Tristan Bancks discusses the best book-to-movie adaptations.

What’s your favourite movie based on a Young Adult novel? The Book Thief? The Harry Potters? The Hunger Games? Tomorrow When the War Began?

What makes the good ones great and the bad ones stink? Are there certain kinds of books that make for the best movies? My favourite adaptation ever is Stand By Me, based on Stephen King’s novella, The Body. And I loved Martin Scorsese’s Hugo, based on The Invention of Hugo Cabret. Both were quite short stories which is key for adaptation. Thick novels either have to be cut to the bone or uncomfortably squeezed into two hours when adapted for the screen. Both Hugo and Stand By Me are action-oriented and visual, rather than taking place entirely inside a character’s head, which helps. And, in the case of Hugo, author/illustrator Brian Selznick had already story boarded the movie for Martin Scorsese.

Stand By Me and Hugo both captured the tone and feeling of the original books but, for me, Disney’s adaptation of Holes (another favourite book) and the film adaptation of John Marsden’s chilling Tomorrow When the War Began were not faithful to the darker tone of those books. The movies seemed too friendly and accessible to me and didn’t capture what I loved so much about the books. Do you agree or am I talking rot?

Here’s MTV’s list of the top 50 Young Adult book-to-movie adaptations, from worst to best: http://www.mtv.com/news/articles/1724580/top-50-ya-novel-adaptations-ever.jhtml

And the highest-grossing YA adaptations at the box office: http://www.boxofficemojo.com/genres/chart/?id=yaadaptations.htm

Which ones do you rate?

Tristan.

10 April 2014