What is with all these books being made into movies!?!

Have any of you read Stephen Chbosky's The Perks of Being a Wallflower?  I read it a few years ago and loved it.  Now, it is apparently becoming a movie with Logan Lerman as Charlie and EMMA WATSON as Sam.  There are no trailers out, but it is supposed to come out in sometime in 2011.  According to IMDb, Stephen Chbosky himself is directing the film, which is what I think might be it's saving grace.  Although I always get excited when my favorite books are made into movies, I am always somewhat disappointed.  As we talked about in class, we all read for something different and get something different out of every book we read.  Even rereading a book we get something different than we did the first time.  Movies made from books encompass only one person's vision and therefore can hurt our reading experience.  I've found that I have to go into a movie thinking of it as entirely separate from the book, no connections at all, or else I will be disappointed in it.  I do, however, think it's really great that the author himself is directing it because he of all people will be able to maintain the dignity of the book.

Hilary Korabik

Hollywood Hot Shots- Book Killers?

After hearing that The Chocolate War by Robert Cormier was made into a movie in the late eighties, I immediately sought out this film. When I finally found it (it's available on Netflix instant play if any of you want to watch for yourselves, see the preview here), I sat for the entire one hour and forty-five minute duration of the film- enjoying it for the most part up until the last fifteen-or-so minutes. For those of you who've read it, you know that it has a dark, intense ending. The movie version, however, ends with (go figure) Jerry beating Archie to a pulp. I was furious. The central question of the entire novel, "Do I dare disturb the universe?" was completely left out of the movie! Not only did they completely warp the book's central themes, but it also lost a lot of the great points of view the reader gains in reading the book from the teenager's perspectives.

Now, one of my favorite books of all time, Ned Vizzini's It's Kind of a Funny Story, has been made into a movie that comes out October 8th. Now, I've read Ned's positive blog entry about the film, but I'm still petrified it will not live up to my expectations.

BUT THE HUNGER GAMES?! I recently read that The Hunger Games has been optioned by Lionsgate Films and is slated to be released in 2012-2013. Frankly, I am anything but ok with this thought. I adore The Hunger Games series, and am relieved that Suzanne Collins is writing the script, but I am tired of Hollywood killing my favorite books. I know that these movies are often the best way to get the book to a large audience, but I hate having my imagination's renderings of the novels destroyed.


So what do you all think of this? Is Hollywood where our favorite books go to die, or do these movies provide new life to them? I think it's obvious I am not a fan, but are you?

-Shannon Hunt