61 Book To Movie Adaptations That Created Some Unintended Uproar

"Yep. They didn't have enough material for three movies. It felt stretched. Like not enough butter over too much bread."

"The Percy Jackson movie  It's bad enough the casting and effects were sub par  But changing the story completely after act 1 really soured my enjoyment. The changes weren't that good either.  Hoping the streaming series is better."

"This a classic example of a poor adaptation. It was not merely different from the book: it literally didn't hold together as a story. My husband and I went to see the film, and then we went to dinner, where I spent the entire conversation explaining all the parts of the film that didn't make sense for anyone who hadn't read the book."

"I watched the film recently and what a mess. The kids especially the boys were so badly directed and they cut out the twins. I also can't stand Oprah due to her massive ego."

"The Witcher. Characters are all portrayed really well but they've absolutely butchered the story beyond comprehension. Honestly id be fine with changes if the result ended up good but the latest season was just a gradual descent into awful tropey writing and reliance on unimpressive cgi monster fights."

"World War Z. They somehow turned one of the most unique books into the most generic movie possible."

"Should never have even been adapted in the first place. The color-blindness twist is so satisfying when you read it as a kid, and basically impossible to translate to film by its very nature."

"The Maze Runner series. The first movie was OK, and the rest were utter nonsense."

"I will never recover from the adaptations of book 5 and 6. I remember being 12-14 and appalled. Don’t even want to attempt to revisit those movies now, I’d be even harsher."

"Hitchhikers guide to the galaxy ranks pretty high because of the delta between how fantastic the books are and how horrible the film."

"Anne With an E on Netflix is so depressing and dull. It has almost nothing in common with Anne of Green Gables except for character names and setting, honestly. I hated it. At least we have the 1985 TV movie that is a much more faithful adaptation!"

"A Series of Unfortunate Events. To be super clear I loved the new Netflix show; it finally did that series some justice, and Neil Patrick Harris was incredible, in my opinion. But the original movie (with Jim Carrey) from my childhood was such a major letdown and probably the first time I felt really betrayed by something like that. Those books were so, so incredibly important to me growing up, and that movie was a travesty. Jim Carrey was an interesting choice, and I feel like he was capable of doing it right, but the whole thing just came off so silly. And combining the first three books into one confusing and sloppy movie... Just like, why? It's like they knew they'd never get the chance to tell the rest of the story, so they just slapped together what they could and said, 'Eff it — we'll do it live.'"

"I Am Legend. I loved the ending of the book so much and was so disappointed by the movie."

"The Dark Tower series by Stephen King. They compressed seven books into one movie. Needless to say, all atmosphere and feel with the characters and story disappeared. I'll go read the books again."

"Fahrenheit 451. As someone who knows every word of that book, and who also loves Michael B. Jordan, that movie just hurt. I couldn’t make it 10 minutes."

"Do comic storylines count? If yes, the monumental Dark Phoenix Saga has been butchered twice by Fox. Like, why?! The thing is the whole arc can't be impeccably delivered in just a single movie. It should have been a trilogy or something."

"Some of the casting was great, but the lackluster script and extremely watered-down story and themes ruined it."

"Divergent. Fourteen-year-old me never got over the heartbreak that was the movie adaption."

"The original ending had left me in tears. It also seemed quite fitting for the story. She was born for her, and at the end, when she died, it was also for her. The movie totally ruined it and made it something that can be predicted by everyone, whilst the book ending took me by surprise."

"I think the movies, especially the first, are genuinely good on their own. As Reacher movies however, they are terrible. Was really pleased with the show."

"I loved the Eoin Colfer book series Artemis Fowl. I even had The Artemis Fowl Files and the comic remake from the first book, so I was very excited to see my favorite antihero main character in a movie adaptation. So yeah, let's not talk about the Artemis Fowl movie... I'll go re-read the books instead."

"I hate how dumbed down Moiraine was on the show. She was just running around reacting to things instead of the spymaster and strategist she was in the books. Book Moiraine knew things and her greatest strength was also her greatest flaw. She felt she had to control everything around herself. She's one of my favourite characters in the book and they turned her into a generic, armwavy magic lady.

Not to mention all of the set pieces that were changed or omitted that is going to change the end of the story. I get it's a different medium, but they didn't even try."

"That was my first experience with a bad adaptation to a beloved book. I was so mad they left so much out - like I know it’s one movie and the book is stacked af, but don’t remove the entire history of how the vampires came to be to force in a romance that was never even hinted at in the book, sincee they interacted for mere seconds and without really talking. The soundtrack, and Aliyah, deserved better."

"The newest “All Quiet on the Western Front” completely missed the point even if it’s visually pretty cool."

"True Blood always comes to mind. I loved how it started. The first few seasons were mostly faithful, and even with the changes it was still good. But it started to go downhill in Season 4 with how they treated the witches storyline, and then from Season 5 and onwards it was completely unrecognizable from the books. I still mourn what it could have been because during the first few seasons, I considered it one of my top favorite shows."

"I’m so glad someone else was as disappointed I’m Ready Player One as I was! My husband didn’t get it so I made him listen to the audiobook. Just like why make so many changes, the book was so rich!"

"I was coming here to see if anyone else had mentioned Earthsea. I have no words for how terrible the Syfy channel version was and then the Ghibli version...ugh. I wish it could get a proper adaptation."

"Under the Dome by Stephen King. It's not my favorite book by him by any means (wtf that ending), but I still enjoyed it and was interested in the tv series when it came out. Nonsensical changes, mediocre acting, the works. I didn't watch Season 2 and can't say I was at all surprised it was canceled."

"This one was painful. Also how did they manage to make it so brown, dull, and ugly?!"

"I loved the book Pet Sematary by Stephen King, and the 1989 movie (I haven’t seen the newer one) was complete garbage."

"It was one of my favorite series when I was younger. I get why they tried to combine three books into one movie. But it would have been better as a darker sort of Mini series."

"Misery was overall a good movie and a great performance by Kathy Bates, but so much of the book was the protagonist’s internal monologue and the novel he was writing while being held hostage, and the movie couldn’t capture that."

"Came here to say this too. I don’t understand why they have to rush through everything when there’s so much worth exploring. it had potential but just didn’t take its time building the world or the characters. I didn’t like the original adaptation either."

"I did not enjoy the film adaptation of The Lovely Bones. The book was so dark and sad, and it seemed like they wanted the movie to be aimed for a younger audience, perhaps? This is a difficult task for a story that starts out the way it does."

"The Time Traveler’s Wife. They took a dark, bittersweet story with two very complex characters and made it a boring, sappy romance. Family is a huge theme in the book, and that isn’t there at all in the movie. Loss and grief are huge in the book, not in the movie. And lots of references to punk culture and the Chicago of the '80s and '90s…not there in the movie."

"In The Man in the High Castle, Philip K. Dick presented the most chilling alternate history of World War II where the Axis powers win. There's a deep but very understandable horror in how the novel does not hinge on any plucky freedom fighters, because overturning the new Nazi world order just isn't conceivable. Rather, the book is about desperate humanity under triumphant fascism and how that shapes what is and is not possible. The Amazon Prime series based on the book is about plucky freedom fighters overturning the new Nazi world order. It is absolute garbage for morons."

"The Dark Is Rising by Susan Cooper. They turned it into a movie called The Seeker: The Dark Is Rising. Just blatant commercialization: Give it a catch phrase, make a franchise, and churn out lots of mindless crap. I was sad that Eccleston was in it."

"That movie was tragic! I was literally scrolling to find this. My friends and I were SO obsessed with Gail Carson Levine and that movie was such a miserable, silly letdown."

"Legends of Ga'Hoole (based on Guardians of Ga'Hoole) they made a lot of pointless and unnecessary changes to the world, lore, and characters, which was even more baffling when they already bit off more than they could chew by deciding to cram the first 3 books into one film. Turning Otulissa into a soft spoken, shy, "girl next door" was especially heinous. The marketing too was absolute "genius". They made it look like a light-hearted kids film, completely going against the tone of the series, while the actual film was quite dark; true to the series tone, but scaring the crap out of the kids they tricked into coming to see it. It just showed they had zero faith in the source material and its own audience, in which case... why make a movie at all?"

"Timeline. They took my favorite Michael Crichton book and absolutely butchered it so badly that Michael Crichton refused to license any more movies based on his novels."

"Netflix's take on Jane Austen's Persuasion. I endured 10 minutes of it. Then again, it's Netflix's. I did it to myself."

"The Beach. The book is AMAZING but the movie is just horrible. Probably because it entirely omitted one of my favorite characters from the book."

"The Dresden Files TV series. Continuity errors in the story because episodes were broadcast out of order. Trying to crush an entire novel, Storm Front, into a less than one hour (when counting commercials) episode and failing. I will never not be disappointed that Dresden's car in the books, a Volkswagen Beetle named the Blue Beetle in the books (a non-sentient character in its own right), changed to a Jeep for the TV series. I think Paul Blackthorne as Dresden hit it on the nose with his looks and performance. The actors portraying the characters of Lt. Murphy and Warden Morgan did a great job capturing the essence of the books characters. But looked different from the physical descriptions of the characters in the book series. I'm okay with this. For me, the end result was The Dresden Files TV series coming across as being okayed by the powers that be, but without a clear and coherent path for the series."

"Honestly, it’s prob easier to name one that didn’t disappoint but if I have to pick the one I hated the most, it’s the Aurora Teagarden mysteries. The books are so good and then Hallmark sucked all the quirk out of the characters and plots. The acting is so terrible and bland."

"The Book Thief. That book made me sob my heart out, and to have such a poor film adaptation was disappointing."

"Foundation. Loved the books, and had high hopes for the series, especially after the first ep. Then, straight into the toilet. Why film an "adaptation" that has almost nothing to do with the source material? So disappointing."

"Annihilation was a let down for me. They omitted quite a few things that I was looking forward to seeing adapted in the movie. They even omitted the reason why it is called annihilation!"

"A Discovery of Witches. I didn't even make it past the first episode. I had just started re-reading the books when someone mentioned that there was live series that had just released. Didn't even make it past the first episode."

"Inkheart. I loved the story of a man with such a beautiful, melodic voice that the stories he told came to life. No hate but that is not Brendan Fraser. Not to mention they changed the plot so much that they couldn't have done the sequels if they wanted."

"Altered Carbon. They got the look and atmosphere of the book, but diverged on every other count. The book was built around themes of anti-imperialism and anti-capitalism, the show homogenized everything and stripped out everything contrary to the establishment. Not only that but because they savaged and mashed together 3 books of plots and characters into one season, they kinda shot themselves in the foot for doing any more seasons, as evidenced by the limp second season."

"It made me question if I even read the book or just skimmed it. So, I reread the book and still loved it. The movie was just boring."

"I recently watched Joel Coen’s adaptation of Macbeth and it made me very unhappy. The cinematography was beautiful and I found Kathryn Hunter’s interpretation of the Weird Sisters as a sort of gestalt consciousness inhabiting a single body to be interesting but Denzel Washington and Frances McDormand as Macbeth and Lady Macbeth were just awful."

"The book was SO GOOD! I read it as a teenager and when they finally made a movie about it I was so stoked! And wow, what a dog of a film... I refuse to watch it ever again."

"Johnny Mnemonic was so deeply disappointing. What made it worse was that apparently William Gibson was involved in the production."