Hollywood Fails Classic Lit 101
They used to make great adaptations. What happened?
Hollywood’s greatest trick used to be adapting beloved books into movies that were better than the books. Gone with the Wind. Jurassic Park. The Godfather.
What happened?
Book adaptations are still the hottest thing in Hollywood, but alas, good book adaptations are in short supply. The days of bestselling novels leading directly to blockbuster movies are long gone, with a few exceptions.
In just the last year or so, these movies and TV shows have premiered or been announced: Wuthering Heights, The Odyssey, Harry Potter (a new HBO series), Project Hail Mary, a new Narnia movie, a new Animal Farm movie, and even a Lord of the Flies series.
The job of great fiction is to reveal truth. It shows us ourselves, and invites us to learn how human beings respond to life experiences. When a work of fiction is warped from this singular mission with the distortions of politics, or ideologies, or “messages” of any kind, that essential truth revealing magic is wiped away.
All that’s left is a bunch of characters that ring false in situations no one believes.
