Summary
- Adaptations of books into movies can differ vastly due to intentional choices by filmmakers.
- Reimagining classic stories, like Shakespeare plays and Austen novels, in modern contexts is common.
- The same source material can result in two movies with wildly different end products, both valid in their own ways.
Filmmakers have to make a lot of choices when adapting a book, and this means that two different adaptations can end up looking nothing like each other. Sometimes, this is completely intentional, especially when a filmmaker decides to radically change a story that has already been told many times before. This explains why so many Shakespeare plays and Austen novels are often reimagined in modern contexts.
Watching two movies which use the same source material highlights just how many decisions each adaptation makes. Book lovers often have gripes when their favorites are adapted in ways that they don't agree with, but two filmmakers with equally good intentions can often end up with two wildly different end products. There is no single correct way to adapt a book, and the directors, writers and actors always leave their mark.
9 Books Being Adapted Into Upcoming Movies & TV Shows
From suspense books to children's books, all sorts of stories are on their way to the screen in the form of Netflix and Amazon Prime shows and movies.
10 The Last Man On Earth (1964) & I Am Legend (2007)
Based on I Am Legend by Richard Matheson
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The Last Man On Earth (1964) |
I Am Legend (2007) |
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Director |
Sidney Salkow and Ubaldo B. Ragona |
Francis Lawrence |
|
Cast |
Vincent Price, Franca Bettoia. |
Will Smith, Alice Braga, Charlie Tahan. |
|
Rotten Tomatoes Score |
79% |
68% |
|
Audience Score |
69% |
68% |
People who only know I Am Legend from the Will Smith movie might be surprised to learn that Richard Matheson's novel isn't about zombies at all. I Am Legend is about a strange virus that wipes out most of the human population, but the undead are turned into vampires, not zombies, and they have all the classic weaknesses that vampires have, such as garlic, sunlight and wooden stakes.
Am Legend is about a strange virus that wipes out most of the human population, but the undead are turned into vampires, not zombies
The Last Man on Earth is much more faithful to Matheson's novel, even though it changes the title. The protagonist is alone in a city overrun by vampires, and the woman he meets isn't immune like Anna in I Am Legend. She is part of a group who are living with the virus, without succumbing to it. Although it has been 17 years since the first movie, an I Am Legend sequel is currently in the works with Will Smith returning alongside Michael B. Jordan.
9 Romeo & Juliet (1968) & Romeo + Juliet (1996)
Based on Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare
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Romeo and Juliet (1968) |
Romeo + Juliet (1996) |
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Director |
Franco Zeffirelli |
Baz Luhrmann |
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Cast |
Leonard Whiting, Olivia Hussey, John McEnery, Michael York. |
Leonardo DiCaprio, Claire Danes, John Leguizamo, Harold Perrineau. |
|
Rotten Tomatoes Score |
95% |
74% |
|
Audience Score |
74% |
77% |
William Shakespeare's plays have been adapted hundreds of times, and they have inspired countless more movies and TV shows in a much looser way. The Lion King tells the story of Hamlet, West Side Story is a musical retelling of Romeo and Juliet, and 10 Things I Hate About You places the characters of The Taming of the Shrew in an American high school. These are just some examples of Shakespeare's work being morphed and twisted beyond recognition.
Romeo + Juliet's script is almost identical to the original, making it similar to Franco Zeffirelli's version, considered by many to be the definitive movie adaptation.
Baz Luhrmann's Romeo + Juliet is much closer to the original text in some ways. Its script is almost identical to the original, making it similar to Franco Zeffirelli's version, considered by many to be the definitive movie adaptation. Romeo + Juliet makes a few changes here and there. The most obvious is that it brings the story into a more modern setting, with the feud between the Montagues and Capulets mirroring urban gang warfare.
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Shakespeare’s works have had a massive influence on the stories we tell today, and in fact, many movies are direct adaptations of the Bard’s stories.