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Bibliophiles are a strange bunch.
The love-hate relationship we have with book to movie adaptations often sees us swinging the pendulum between excitement to see how favourite works of literature will be brought to screen, terror that they won’t live up to our expectations and downright contempt when producers and directors just get it so very wrong.
But, it turns out that it’s not just the readers who feel so strongly about their favourite books brought to screen.
Established and popular authors have publically expressed their love and loathing for movie versions of their own books, with opinions ranging from the movies not capturing the authenticity of the book, to issues with casting and overall production.
Here’s a list of writers who haven’t been shy to reveal how much they loathe the film adaptations of their novels:
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WATCH: V for Vendetta trailer
Alan Moore - V for Vendetta
The graphic novelist has actually loathed most of the screen adaptations of his works, which include Watchmen and The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen but V for Vendetta gets a special mention because according to Sparknotes.com, he despised the film so much that he asked to be removed from the credits of the movie and refused to accept any money for it.
According to Barnesandnoble.com, the author is, in actual fact, also a not a big fan of modern film, labelling it as “bullying” and adds that it “waters down cultural imagination.” With that attitude, it’s hardly surprising that he’d hate the films.
WATCH: Queen of the Damned trailer
Queen of the Damned by Anne Rice
The author, who has been making waves for all the wrong reasons over the last couple of years, was apparently initially optimistic about this movie.
She previously had issues with the casting of Interview with the Vampire – she disliked Tom Cruise in the role of Lestat but eventually came around, and even praised it afterwards.
Queen of the Damned (I think I may be in the minority because I actually enjoyed this one) was a different case altogether. Her initial optimism disappeared after seeing the final product. According to Goliath.com she appealed to fans to forget about the disastrous movie and said that it “hurt her to see her work being mutilated” the way Queen of the Damned has been.
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WATCH: Earthsea miniseries trailer
Earthsea miniseries adaptation by Ursula K. Le Guin
Okay, so technically we’re cheating a bit here because this wasn’t a movie, but more a series, yet it still counts because the late and much beloved author apparently was really not happy with what they did to her popular sci-fi series.
In fact, she wrote an op-ed featured on Slate.com that bashed the show, calling folk out for whitewashing her characters, using scenes from her books in different ways that ended up creating a completely different plot and ignored the fact that race was a central point of her novel.
She also took exception to the fact that Danny Glover was the only person of colour in the series, and accused the show of being a mix of violence and sex with no meaningful plot.
WATCH: The Shining Trailer
The Shining by Stephen King
It’s never been a secret that the King of Horror loathed Stanley Kubrick’s rendition of The Shining. King’s main complaint was that the movie changed so much of the essence of the book, and downplayed the supernatural overtones by transferring the evil onto the characters instead of showing the Overlook Hotel as a villainous force.
According to MentalFloss.com, King was also unhappy with Jack Nicholson’s portrayal of the protagonist, since in the book he only becomes insane when he’s at the hotel, and it doesn’t start off with him being evil and crazy.
And let’s not forget how different the ending is.
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