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5 Notable Novels That Are Adaptations of Movies and Plays
Movies are magical and wonderful of course, presenting us with eye-popping, realistically-rendered scenarios of adventure, action, romance, and intrigue. But where do the screenwriters behind those movies get their ideas? Well, sometimes they make them up, because writers are wired that way. But frequently, a movie is an adaptation of a work from another medium, like, say, a book, stage play, or TV series.
Oddly enough, it goes both ways. Some of the most beloved and/or notable novels in the Western literary canon are actually based on pre-existing material. These are some books that were adapted from other media…and not the other way around.
Peter and Wendy, by J.M. Barrie
Few childhood stories are as enduringly popular and universally beloved—and well-known—than the saga of Peter Pan. He’s the boy who would never grow up, living on and around Neverland (because he could fly), with London girl Wendy and cantankerous fairy Tinkerbell around to help him defeat nefarious pirate Captain Hook. Peter Pan, or Peter and Wendy as the first book by Barrie is more properly known, is the perfect book to read with your kids (or for kids to read themselves) at bedtime, because it’s got everything a bedtime story needs—pirates, fairies, rebellion, romance, and flying. J.M. Barrie created the Paniverse with the tastes of some children he knew in mind, except he didn’t write it as a novel or collection of stories. The first iteration of Peter Pan was a stage play. While Barrie mentioned baby Peter in his 1902 book The Little White Bird, the permanent-child Pan became the main character in his smash hit 1904 play Peter Pan; or, the Boy Who Wouldn’t Grow Up.
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The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, by Douglas Adams
Perhaps the greatest sci-fi saga ever written—and certainly the funniest—it’s hard to believe that The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy didn’t initially pour forth from Adams’ witty mind into prose-filled pages. There’s just so much exposition, omniscient narration, and wry comment as the reader plows through the adventures of Arthur Dent, forced to traipse around the known universe after the Earth is destroyed, along with his best friend/spaceman Ford Prefect, unhinged galaxy president Zaphoid Beeblebrox, sad robot Marvin the Paranoid Android, and all manner of exceptionally bureaucratic and hostile creatures from other words. While THGTHG has been a British TV show, a video game, and a feature film in addition to a novel series, the first time the world experienced this unique comic universe was as a radio play, broadcast on BBC 4 in 1978.
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The Wild Things, by Dave Eggers
In 2009, the classic children’s book, Maurice Sendak’s Where the Wild Things Are, finally got the big-screen adaptation it deserved after more than 45 years in print as one of the most memorably illustrated and written kid titles of all time. But like other slim children’s books turned long feature films (The Cat in the Hat, Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good Very Bad Day), screenwriters had to significantly bulk up the story’s plot, themes, and characters to fill in all that extra time. The result was not a bright and happy kids movie, but a sad, melancholy story for adults about the pain of growing up and being different. It so wildly veered from Sendak’s source material that co-screenwriter Dave Eggers, known for genre-defying works like A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius, adapted the screenplay into a pensive, downbeat novel called The Wild Things.
Jack Sparrow: The Coming Storm, by Rob Kidd
Here’s the rare case in which a book series was based on a movie…which in turn was based on an amusement park ride. Back in 2003, Disney took a chance when it made a pirate movie—the form hadn’t been popular for decades—and gave it a title taken from one of the most popular attractions at Disneyland, Pirates of the Carribbean. Thanks to Johnny Depp’s bonkers portrayal of unrepentant antihero pirate Captain Jack Sparrow, the film is now a five-film strong, billions-earning blockbuster juggernaut. People love Jack Sparrow, and Disney, which has a books division, gave the people what they want, or rather the young readers, with a prequel series of adventure novels about a not-yet-captain Jack Sparrow, a teenage adventurer engaging in thrilling adventures on the high seas.
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PS Your Cat is Dead, by James Kirkwood
Hitting shelves in 1972, P.S. Your Cat is Dead was pretty provocative for the time, what with its plot points about depressed actor Jimmy who, coming across a burglar in his not-great apartment, beats him within an inch of his life and then ties him up…before befriending him, and then falling in love with him. Then the two sell some drugs and live happily ever. (Oh, and also—spoiler alert—Jimmy’s cat dies.) Kirkwood’s darkly comic novel is so brash and zany, and takes place in so few locations, that of course it was based on a play, although it didn’t see broad success until it was staged after the novel version caused a stir.
What is your favorite novel that was actually an adaptation of a play?