# Books that became better known only after being turned into visual media (TV, movies, stage)
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-that-became-better-known-only-after-being-turned-into-visual-media-tv-movies-stage/589445
**Category:** Cafe Society
**Created:** [July 18, 2011, 2:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-that-became-better-known-only-after-being-turned-into-visual-media-tv-movies-stage/589445 "2011-07-18T14:27:12Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@Annie-Xmas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Annie-Xmas)
#### Post date: [July 18, 2011, 2:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-that-became-better-known-only-after-being-turned-into-visual-media-tv-movies-stage/589445/1 "2011-07-18T14:27:12Z")
Forrest Gump was unknown until the Tom Hanks movie.
Kathy Reichs’s Bones mysteries were not popular until the TV series
Richard Hooker’s novel M_A_S\*H received a small boost from Altman’s movie and a huge one from the TV series.
But the biggest boost has to belong to Wicked. Author Gregory Maguire had written three movels that barely managed a cult following. One hugely successful stage musical, and he gets to write three more Wicked novels. And the books are so worth reading.
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### Author:  [@Swords\_to\_Plowshares](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Swords_to_Plowshares)
#### Post date: [July 18, 2011, 2:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-that-became-better-known-only-after-being-turned-into-visual-media-tv-movies-stage/589445/2 "2011-07-18T14:59:29Z")
The Godfather immediately comes to mind.
I was going to list a few other films that were wildly successful that were derived from books (The Maltese Falcon, Gone With the Wind), but it appears like their respective novels were fairly successful anyways. While both those and others were popular in both forms way back when, now they’re mostly remembered for the films only.
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### Author:  [@Annie-Xmas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Annie-Xmas)
#### Post date: [July 18, 2011, 3:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-that-became-better-known-only-after-being-turned-into-visual-media-tv-movies-stage/589445/3 "2011-07-18T15:01:54Z")
The Godfather was on the best seller list when it was published. The paperback rights went for $100K, a record at the time.
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### Author:  [@Justin\_Bailey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Justin_Bailey)
#### Post date: [July 18, 2011, 3:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-that-became-better-known-only-after-being-turned-into-visual-media-tv-movies-stage/589445/4 "2011-07-18T15:22:35Z")
> [@Annie-Xmas](#):
>
> Kathy Reichs’s Bones mysteries were not popular until the TV series
Untrue. The Kathy Reichs “Bones” series was (and is) tremendously popular. It’s more popular because of the show, but the books were always bestsellers.
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### Author:  [@phreesh](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/phreesh)
#### Post date: [July 18, 2011, 3:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-that-became-better-known-only-after-being-turned-into-visual-media-tv-movies-stage/589445/5 "2011-07-18T15:59:11Z")
Philip K Dick didn’t have mainstream appeal until a ton of his stories were turned into movies.
[http://www.philipkdick.com/films\_intro.html](http://www.philipkdick.com/films_intro.html)
They include Blade Runner, Total Recall and Minority Report
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### Author:  [@howye](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/howye)
#### Post date: [July 18, 2011, 4:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-that-became-better-known-only-after-being-turned-into-visual-media-tv-movies-stage/589445/6 "2011-07-18T16:40:07Z")
> [@phreesh](#):
>
> Philip K Dick didn’t have mainstream appeal until a ton of his stories were turned into movies.
>
> [http://www.philipkdick.com/films\_intro.html](http://www.philipkdick.com/films_intro.html)
>
> They include Blade Runner, Total Recall and Minority Report
Little good it did him, being dead when his stuff became popular movie fodder.
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### Author:  [@Tom\_Tildrum](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tom_Tildrum)
#### Post date: [July 18, 2011, 6:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-that-became-better-known-only-after-being-turned-into-visual-media-tv-movies-stage/589445/7 "2011-07-18T18:47:12Z")
Willy Wonka?
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### Author:  [@Alka\_Seltzer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alka_Seltzer)
#### Post date: [July 18, 2011, 6:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-that-became-better-known-only-after-being-turned-into-visual-media-tv-movies-stage/589445/8 "2011-07-18T18:57:25Z")
Frankenstein only became widely known after it was adapted for the stage.
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### Author:  [@kelly5078](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kelly5078)
#### Post date: [July 20, 2011, 2:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-that-became-better-known-only-after-being-turned-into-visual-media-tv-movies-stage/589445/9 "2011-07-20T14:15:13Z")
“A River Runs Through It”
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### Author:  [@Don\_Draper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Don_Draper)
#### Post date: [July 20, 2011, 3:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-that-became-better-known-only-after-being-turned-into-visual-media-tv-movies-stage/589445/10 "2011-07-20T15:23:41Z")
> [@Annie-Xmas](#):
>
> But the biggest boost has to belong to Wicked. Author Gregory Maguire had written three movels that barely managed a cult following. One hugely successful stage musical, and he gets to write three more Wicked novels.
I’m not too sure how true that is, based largely on the fact that I had known about and even read the book a few years before the musical premiered. And I tend to be behind the curve on all pop culture stuff nowadays (I only just recently began watching “Breaking Bad.”)
Anyway, as for other suggestions - how popular were the “Sookie Stackhouse” books before “True Blood” began? I at least heard of the TV show before I’d heard of the books.
How about James Bond? I’d always been under the impression that Ian Fleming’s books were not too well known until the movies came out. True yea/nay?
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### Author:  [@Khadaji](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Khadaji)
#### Post date: [July 20, 2011, 8:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-that-became-better-known-only-after-being-turned-into-visual-media-tv-movies-stage/589445/11 "2011-07-20T20:19:29Z")
I may be wrong, but I think The Princess Bride falls into this category.
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### Author:  [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)
#### Post date: [July 20, 2011, 9:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-that-became-better-known-only-after-being-turned-into-visual-media-tv-movies-stage/589445/12 "2011-07-20T21:03:49Z")
I’ve heard that Hitchcock deliberately sought out bad books to make into movies, because that way, he couldn’t ruin them.
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### Author:  [@KneadToKnow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/KneadToKnow)
#### Post date: [July 20, 2011, 9:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-that-became-better-known-only-after-being-turned-into-visual-media-tv-movies-stage/589445/13 "2011-07-20T21:56:51Z")
> [@Don\_Draper](#):
>
> Anyway, as for other suggestions - how popular were the “Sookie Stackhouse” books before “True Blood” began?
Moderately, at least here in the library. You could usually count on finding a couple on the shelf, but almost never was the entire series in at one time, which is usually a sign that one or two regular patrons were working their way through it.
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### Author:  [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)
#### Post date: [July 20, 2011, 11:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-that-became-better-known-only-after-being-turned-into-visual-media-tv-movies-stage/589445/14 "2011-07-20T23:51:31Z")
> [@Don\_Draper](#):
>
> How about James Bond? I’d always been under the impression that Ian Fleming’s books were not too well known until the movies came out. True yea/nay?
No. James Bond was successful enough to begin with, but became massively popular when **Dr. No** was listed as one of JFK’s favorite books. The movie rode that crest.
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### Author:  [@Lamia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lamia)
#### Post date: [July 21, 2011, 12:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-that-became-better-known-only-after-being-turned-into-visual-media-tv-movies-stage/589445/15 "2011-07-21T00:02:40Z")
Wouldn’t practically every book that’s ever been adapted into another media become better known through the adaptation? It seems like the only way this could fail to increase the profile of a book would be if only people who had already heard of the book ever heard of the adaptation, and that’s unlikely to be the case with a Hollywood movie or TV show.
If the OP is looking for books that were actually _obscure_ before being adapted, I remember hearing that the novel _Sideways_ wasn’t even published until after someone bought the movie rights. I don’t think the book is particularly well-known even now, other than as “the book the movie _Sideways_ was based on”, but that’s better than it was doing before the movie was released.
FWIW, I have read _Sideways_ and thought the movie was much better. I’d say the novel \*deserves \*to only be known as the book the movie _Sideways_ was based on.
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### Author:  [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)
#### Post date: [July 21, 2011, 2:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-that-became-better-known-only-after-being-turned-into-visual-media-tv-movies-stage/589445/16 "2011-07-21T02:22:15Z")
Lots of comic books series were relatively unknown before being made in movies; The Crow, Ghost World, A History of Violence, Kick-Ass, The Mask, Men in Black, Road to Perdition, Scott Pilgrim vs. the World, Sin City, 300, V for Vendetta, Wanted.
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### Author:  [@PSXer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PSXer)
#### Post date: [July 21, 2011, 2:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-that-became-better-known-only-after-being-turned-into-visual-media-tv-movies-stage/589445/17 "2011-07-21T02:42:58Z")
> [@RealityChuck](#):
>
> No. James Bond was successful enough to begin with, but became massively popular when **Dr. No** was listed as one of JFK’s favorite books. The movie rode that crest.
From Russia With Love was one of JFK’s favorite books
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### Author:  [@Annie-Xmas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Annie-Xmas)
#### Post date: [July 21, 2011, 3:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-that-became-better-known-only-after-being-turned-into-visual-media-tv-movies-stage/589445/18 "2011-07-21T15:41:42Z")
Had anyone but Spielberg read _Jaws_ before his movie came out?
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### Author:  [@Crotalus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Crotalus)
#### Post date: [July 21, 2011, 3:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-that-became-better-known-only-after-being-turned-into-visual-media-tv-movies-stage/589445/19 "2011-07-21T15:44:56Z")
> [@Annie-Xmas](#):
>
> Had anyone but Spielberg read _Jaws_ before his movie came out?
It was on the bestseller list for 44 weeks before the movie was released.
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### Author:  [@NAF1138](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/NAF1138)
#### Post date: [July 21, 2011, 3:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-that-became-better-known-only-after-being-turned-into-visual-media-tv-movies-stage/589445/20 "2011-07-21T15:50:59Z")
> [@Khadaji](#):
>
> I may be wrong, but I think The Princess Bride falls into this category.
The Princess Bride is a weird special case. It was written as a movie first, but the movie script didn’t sell so it was novelized and the book ended up being published first\*. Sort of like 2001: A Space Odyssey, it isn’t so much an adaptation as a concurrent re-imagining.
I think Fight Club belongs on the list.
\*I’m going by memory of Goldman’s autobiography. I feel like I am a bit fuzzy on a couple of details, but that’s more or less what happened.
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