Top Ten Tuesday: books I would like to see made into a movie

Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly feature hosted by The Broke and the Bookish. Every week they post a new topic that the participants come up with a top ten list for.

This week's topic is the top ten books we would like to see made into a movie... in a world where movie studios don't butcher our precious books.


Honestly? I'm not even so crazy about books I like being made into movies. Not because of casting choices and the like but because when I read, that already is like a movie in my head. I also never imagine characters modeled on certain actors - they look a certain way in my head, but it's not like any real people I know.
That being said, here are ten books/series I would like to see made into a movie or TV series, in no particular order.

Laini Taylor - Daughter of Smoke and Bone
There actually is talk of a movie! But anyway, it'll probably be years until it comes out. The world building here is just so amazing - I would love to see Karou's Prague and the exotic places she goes to, as well as Eretz of course! The special effects/make-up would have to be out of this world amazing to pull it off though.

Kendare Blake - Anna Dressed in Blood
This would actually be cool as a series! It would mean more time to develop characters, plus new episodes could be written, for instance about some of the ghosts Cas hunted before he met Anna. It would be awesomely creepy!

Cassandra Clare - The Infernal Devices
I know it's been optioned with the same studio that made City of Bones, but again, it'll take forever until there's a movie - if there is. I would love to see it though! I'm a sucker for Victorian London :)

Erin Morgenstern - The Night Circus
Okay, this is pretty much impossible to make into a movie, partly due to the narrative style and how much it relies on language as a medium, but wouldn't it be epic? It would be like 12 hours but whatever - while I was reading, I so wished I could see the circus for real and walk among the tents!

Holly Black - The Curse Workers trilogy
I know I feature this series all the time in my top ten lists! But it just somehow has a cinematic quality to it. It would have to be sharp, with quick cuts, an a lot of light and shadows - sort of in the style of old film noir movies!

Stephen King - The Dark Tower series
Definitely would have to be a series, this is a couple thousand pages too long for movies. But god it would be soooo amazing! But Stephen King would have to have a lot of say on the set or it wouldn't work. Or maybe the scope is too big and the series is better off staying a book? Hm...

Kim Harrison: The Hollows series
Too epic for a movie - this would have a to be a series! I'd love to see Jenks, Rachel, and Ivy on the screen! And Kisten *gets all nostalgic* I don't think it'll happen though. I remember Kim Harrison saying a few years back that so far she always declined offers from producers and the like.

Lia Habel - Dearly, Departed
Steampunk costumes, airships, and zombie battles! I would love to see this amazing mixture of Victorian and digital age! It's somehow like being in the future and in the past at the same time. And it would be great visually!

Melissa Marr - Wicked Lovely series
There's also been talk of a movie or TV series but I have no idea where that's at. It's one of my top favorite fairie series though so I'd love to see it on the screen! The characters are some of my top favorites :)

Anonymous - The Book with No Name (the Bourbon Kid series)
This simply because it would be batshit crazy. Quentin Tarantino would have to direct it. It would be funny and gruesome at the same time.

I'm not sure that those are the top most amazing-est picks I could have made. In fact, I bet that I'll check out other blogs and think 'damn, how could I forget?!' - so link me up, and let me know what you think of my picks :)

Top Ten Tuesday: best / worst book to movie adaptations

Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly feature hosted by The Broke and the Bookish. Every week they post a new topic that the participants come up with a top ten list for.

This week's topic: top ten best or worst movie adaptations

The question what makes a 'good' movie adaptation of a book is a beast all its own and I don't really want to get into it here. Just for the record: just because a movie is very much like a book does not automatically make it a good adaptation for me. If it follows the book to the letter without offering an interpretation of its own, I don't really see the point.

So here are five adaptations that I think work well:

The Lord of the Rings - J.R.R. Tolkien (Peter Jackson)
Those movies are a work of art all of their own. The setting, the costumes, the music, the acting... it's all absolutely incredible. Jackson took some liberties but I think he really stayed true to the spirit of the books. I'll never grow tired of watching them.


Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray (Mira Nair)
Again, this adaptation takes some liberties with the book (it makes Becky quite a bit more likeable) but it's absolutely gorgeous and the acting is great!


Harry Potter - J.K. Rowling (various directors)
Well, can't simply skip those movies, can I? Some I like better than others, but all in all it was well-done. The movies also managed some things the books didn't. They made me really like Luna Lovegood. And The Halfblood Prince made me actually feel sorry for Draco Malfoy at one point, which I didn't really while reading the book. Oh, and Helena Bonham Carter is fantastic as Bellatrix Lestrange!


Scott Pilgrim vs. The World - Bryan Lee O'Malley (Edgar Wright)
This is originally a 7-volume comic, and especially the later volumes are quite different from the movie, but it really takes up so many comic- and video game elements that it becomes a league of awesome all of its own! It's hilarious and crazy and quirky. I can watch it a dozen times and I still think it's funny! The soundtrack rocks, too.


Fight Club - Chuck Palahniuk (David Fincher)
I actually prefer the movie. There's a dimension to the book it didn't quite capture but the movie is waaaay more of a mindfuck than the book is. And it drives the main points home wonderfully. Not to forget that once More, Helena Bonham Carter does one hell of a job as Marla!


I could have added a couple others that I like, among them adaptations of Shakespeare plays and Hornby's About A Boy, but let's leave it at this for now.



... And five adaptations that didn't quite do it for me:

Cirque du Freak: The Vampire's Assistant - Darren Shan (Paul Weitz)
I hurried to finish the first book before going to watch the movie, and they just changed so many things. Some I liked, some I found unnecessary, and some took the movie into a whole different direction. They also made the snake-boy (Ezra? Can't remember his name...) look sort of stupid and ridiculous, which he isn't at all in the book. All in all, it wasn't horrible but it left me with a bad taste in my mouth.


Eragon - Christopher Paolini (Stefen Fangmeier)
To be honest I don't remember the movie all that well, but I think it was really reductive and just cut too much from the book. It lacked the complexity I enjoyed about it. Maybe they should have made it into a TV series instead?


Interview with the Vampire - Anne Rice (Neil Jordan)
This is partly a problem with the book. I don't know how, but it's just rather dull. Louis is just soooo mopey!! I like the later books where Lestat is the narrator much better. The movie has some good scenes but over all, it just didn't do it for me.


Twilight - Stephenie Meyer (Catherine Hardwicke)
Back in 2007 when I came across the book shortly before Eclipse was released, I fell for them. Hard. I've since gotten a different perspective on what goes on in them (and I really didn't like Breaking Dawn) but let's talk about the movies. I think they're actually good adaptations - apart from that first one. What made me like Twilight back when was apart from other things the dialogue between Edward and Bella. In the movie, that's all cut in favor of shots of trees and awkward exchanges in the cafeteria. Um, no. I've seen a few of Hardwicke's other movies and liked them a lot, but not this one. Sorry.


I'm not quite sure what else to pick. Quite often I'm in the situation that I've either not read the book or not seen the movie, so I can't really compare them. I think The Golden Compass looked pretty but wasn't really much like the book. I sort of liked the first Percy Jackson, but from what I've heard it's also a lot different from the books and kind of mixes a few of them together. As for more recent films, I haven't seen Beautiful Creatures but the cast doesn't look AT ALL the way I imagined the characters. Ethan and Lena look like they belong in college, not high school.


Anyway, that's what I could come up with. What are your most loved or most loathed ones?