What Makes a Book a Good Movie
For years I worked for Warner Bros., where one of my jobs was to find books to turn into movies, also known as book-to-film adaptation.
This is no small endeavor. An impressive 51% of the films that have won Academy Awards for best picture have been based on a book, a short story or a novella. 14% have been based on plays, while a few others were adaptations of previous films. Only 34% of Oscar-winning films have come from original screenplays. It is obvious that books are fertile ground for films.
Writers often ask me if their manuscript might have movie potential. I try to be as honest as I can, always being aware that a great movie, like a great book, entertains us, and allows us to escape our lives while also providing authentic emotional connections.
When a studio buys a book, it always has to have a good story. A “good story” involves a strong protagonist with whom we can identify, or root for to succeed against the odds. This protagonist has to face a worthy obstacle or antagonist. It is also important that the story has an arc in which change happens and the protagonist develops and learns. With such a dramatic story and multidimensional characters in hand, the studio always has a “spine” to return to during the often difficult development process.
A good story and a protagonist who changes is also a way to attract a major star or director to a project, especially if the book is a best-seller.
In my position at Warner Bros. I recommended Tobias Wolff’s memoir This Boy’s Life to the studio. In recounting his difficult adolescence in the 1950’s, living with his mother and an abusive stepfather, Wolff tells a universal story of a young man creating himself in terrible circumstances. There are echoes of the hero’s journey of Great Expectations and Huckleberry Finn in the novel. Reading This Boy’s Life I really wanted to know what would happen to this boy as he struggled against poverty, brutality and neglect.
Warner Bros. also found the story compelling. And so the movie was made, directed by Michael Caton-Jones, and starring Robert DeNiro, Ellen Barkin, and, in his first major film role, Leonardo Di Caprio. The book is now considered a classic, and the film is ranked high on IMDB.
Carol Baum wrote Creative Producing: A Pitch- to -Picture Guide to Movie Development. She has also produced 34 films including Dead Ringers, The Good Girl and Father of the Bride. In an interview with me she mentioned a couple of books that led to great films. The first one is The Silence of the Lambs by Thomas Harris, which has a protagonist (Clarice Starling) whom we can identify with as she goes on her journey to find a serial killer. To find him she must engage with her antagonist (the incarcerated cannibal killer Hannibal Lecter). He agrees to give her clues, but he taunts her non-stop about her past—forcing her to face her true self. An antagonist who becomes part of the protagonist’s own transformation is a particularly powerful story-line.
The second book is Jaws by Peter Benchley. In this novel, a summer community watched over by Chief Brody, a family man and a humanist, is threatened by a shark. The killer shark threatens not only Brody’s neighbors, but the economy of his town. Brody wants to protect the community and close the beaches, while his antagonist, Mayor Vaughn, wants to keep the beaches open for profit. Human compassion is pitted against human greed.
Like This Boy’s Life, which has echoes of classic stories, Jaws also has echoes of a classic—Ibsen’s Enemy of the People.
At its core, Crazy Rich Asians by Kevin Kwan is Romeo and Juliet set in Singapore. A Chinese American girl of modest background is brought home by her boyfriend to meet his fabulously wealthy family. Her antagonist is his ancestor-obsessed mother, who is against the marriage. The characters are funny and charming and the setting is exotic. Both the book and the movie are contemporary and timeless and were enormously successful.
Other things to keep in mind: Period stories are often rejected outright by Hollywood because the physical production can be so expensive, but there are always exceptions. Shonda Rhimes had the idea of turning Julia Quinn’s Regency novels into a multi-racial streaming series. In this series the struggle for status, the appetite for sex feels very contemporary. Bridgerton brought excitement to streaming as Rhimes added something new to the novels.
In the publishing business there is now a great deal of interest in Romantasy fiction, promoted widely on Tik-Tok. This is fiction that combines romance with fantasy and depicts relationships with social and political themes. Horror is also a growing genre in both publishing and film as well.
Like Romantasy fiction, romantic comedies are often being picked up for films and streaming services. The Devil Wears Prada by Lauren Weisberger was a romantic comedy that gave us insights into a world about which few of us know anything—the fashion business. Opening a new world to a reader is definitely an essential component in attracting film interest.
This has certainly been the case in Lessons in Chemistry by Bonnie Garmus. This is the story of a brilliant female scientist, who has to deal with male chauvinism in the 1960’s and who goes on to become a celebrated chef; she cannily applies chemistry to her recipes in order to open up the world of science to America’s housewives. Reading the book we are immediately drawn to the funny and smart voice of the heroine, and we always cheer for her as she overcomes obstacles posed by men. With all the ingredients of a “ good story”—a compelling protagonist, a clear arc, formidable antagonists, and a transformation, this best-selling book has become a lauded streaming series on television.
Of course non-fiction books make good movies too as recent adaptations of Oppenheimer by Kai Bird and Martin Sherwin and Killers of the Flower Moon by David Grann demonstrate. The first of these, though great in scope, is centered on one flawed and fascinating man; while the second reveals one of the worst massacres of indigenous Americans in recent history. Though books like these take years to research and write, when they come to the screen they often feel very timely. Oppenheimer’s career, begun in brilliance, ends in the questioning of his loyalty to America, something that feels very contemporary in our politics. Killers of the Flower Moon brings to light the murders of Osage Indians for the oil rights to their land. The depiction of greed and man’s will to dominate the natural world feels very current and relevant. Books about big issues still need human, riveting characters to drive them.
The movie business is always looking for the next bestseller, the next great mystery or thriller, but they are also looking for intimate stories that open new worlds and have characters of depth and dialogue that is alive. Successful movies based on books convey the essence of their source material, making sure that the power of the original story survives on the screen.