# Books that became better known only after being turned into visual media (TV, movies, stage) **URL:** \ **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:** 2
**Author:** ![bmasters1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/b5e925/32.png) [@bmasters1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bmasters1)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2011, 4:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-that-became-better-known-only-after-being-turned-into-visual-media-tv-movies-stage/589445/21 "2011-07-21T16:14:26Z")
Could it be said that Beverly Cleary’s _Ramona_ series became a little better-known upon the release of the _Ramona and Beezus_ film last year? I think it could. ---
**Author:** ![KneadToKnow](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kneadtoknow/32/3999_2.png) [@KneadToKnow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/KneadToKnow)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2011, 4:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-that-became-better-known-only-after-being-turned-into-visual-media-tv-movies-stage/589445/22 "2011-07-21T16:38:38Z")
> [@bmasters1](#): > > Could it be said that Beverly Cleary’s _Ramona_ series became a little better-known upon the release of the _Ramona and Beezus_ film last year? I think it could. Perhaps among adults who somehow missed it or forgot about encountering it as children. Beverly Cleary’s books about Henry Huggins, Beezus, and Ramona have been mainstays of children’s literature since the Eisenhower administration. ---
**Author:** ![RealityChuck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/realitychuck/32/195_2.png) [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2011, 5:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-that-became-better-known-only-after-being-turned-into-visual-media-tv-movies-stage/589445/23 "2011-07-21T17:16:55Z")
> [@NAF1138](#): > > 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. **Fantastic Voyage** would qualify on this count. It was originally a story by Jerome Bixby\* that was turned into a screenplay. The producers asked Isaac Asimov to novelize it. He did, but the book was released six months before the movie (Hollywood didn’t know how to handle tie-ins back then). The book didn’t sell particularly well until the movie came out (and people complained about how poorly they had adapted Asimov). \*You may not know his name, but you know his work if you’re a **Twilight Zone** fan. Bixby was a _good_ writer and it was _good_ that he wrote the story. ---
**Author:** ![Jim\_s\_Son](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e19adc/32.png) [@Jim\_s\_Son](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jim_s_Son)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2011, 6:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-that-became-better-known-only-after-being-turned-into-visual-media-tv-movies-stage/589445/24 "2011-07-22T06:16:49Z")
How about “Paul Clifford” by Edward Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Baron Lytton? Granted the book isn’t read much but the “peanuts” comic strip and others have mad the phrase “It was a dark and story night” infamous. ---
**Author:** ![typoink](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ecb155/32.png) [@typoink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/typoink)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2011, 11:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-that-became-better-known-only-after-being-turned-into-visual-media-tv-movies-stage/589445/25 "2011-07-22T23:41:37Z")
This is a tough thread because, I think, _most_ books that do get turned into a visual medium get their popularity boosted. Even genre-defining, fantastic books will get a popularity boost by an adaptation – Harry Potter was already a massive success as a book, but the film adaptations turned it into a huge cultural phenomenon. It’s hard to have people waiting in costume for midnight launches of a book if nobody’s quite defined what those costumes look like. I’m trying to think of anything rescued from true obscurity by a succesful adaptation. Can’t think of anything immediately; most adaptations I’m aware of are made from bestsellers or critical darlings. In the cases I can think of where the source material is truly obscure (Roger Rabbit comes to mind), only the adaptation is really succesful. I think the comics that **Little Nemo** mentioned are a good call, although it’s cheating a bit since comics are already a visual media. I’d also add Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles to the list – a violent, goofy, offbeat comic turned into a major cultural phenomenon by the TV show, but the comic (and comic universe) getting a popularity boost as a result. ---
**Author:** ![Melysnl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/76d3ee/32.png) [@Melysnl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Melysnl)\ **Post date:** [July 28, 2011, 4:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-that-became-better-known-only-after-being-turned-into-visual-media-tv-movies-stage/589445/26 "2011-07-28T16:40:11Z")
Good Books, Better Movies: Fight Club Basic Instinct The Rules of Attraction In the Cut Bad Books, Worse Movies: The Beach Striptease ---
**Author:** ![BrotherCadfael](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@BrotherCadfael](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrotherCadfael)\ **Post date:** [July 28, 2011, 8:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-that-became-better-known-only-after-being-turned-into-visual-media-tv-movies-stage/589445/27 "2011-07-28T20:47:31Z")
Meh book, good movie: Jaws. ---
**Author:** ![Ponch8](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ponch8/32/9883_2.png) [@Ponch8](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ponch8)\ **Post date:** [July 29, 2011, 2:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-that-became-better-known-only-after-being-turned-into-visual-media-tv-movies-stage/589445/28 "2011-07-29T02:37:01Z")
_Sex and the City_ comes to mind, although I’m not sure how well the book actually sold before the TV show aired. They managed to make a great TV show out of a terrible book. ---
**Author:** ![Justin\_Bailey](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/justin_bailey/32/8792_2.png) [@Justin\_Bailey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Justin_Bailey)\ **Post date:** [July 29, 2011, 11:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-that-became-better-known-only-after-being-turned-into-visual-media-tv-movies-stage/589445/29 "2011-07-29T11:30:30Z")
> [@BrotherCadfael](#): > > Meh book, good movie: Jaws. It really amazed me how terrible the Jaws book is. I mean, obviously, Mrs. Brody wanting to be raped by a black man is much more interesting than a giant killer shark and the crazy shark hunter who goes after it. ---
**Author:** ![Boyo\_Jim](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/87869e/32.png) [@Boyo\_Jim](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Boyo_Jim)\ **Post date:** [July 29, 2011, 12:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-that-became-better-known-only-after-being-turned-into-visual-media-tv-movies-stage/589445/30 "2011-07-29T12:10:21Z")
> [@Annie-Xmas](#): > > The Godfather was on the best seller list when it was published. The paperback rights went for $100K, a record at the time. Sure it was a best seller – for books. It hardly matters, if the movie is at all popular, it will be seen or talked about by 10x the number of people who know about the book. It’s just the nature of the medium, or perhaps the nature of the marketing of the medium. I can hardly think of a book that _wouldn’t_ be given a big boost by a successful movie. Maybe the bible – hard to imagine the bible would have an impressive jump in sales. ---
**Author:** ![DragonAsh](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/db5fbb/32.png) [@DragonAsh](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DragonAsh)\ **Post date:** [July 29, 2011, 12:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-that-became-better-known-only-after-being-turned-into-visual-media-tv-movies-stage/589445/31 "2011-07-29T12:22:51Z")
Stand By Me and Shawshank Redemption were both Stephen King stories. Both excellent reads, but don’t know how popular they were before the movies came out. It’s pretty much impossible not to hear the voice of Morgan Freeman when reading Shawshank now… ---
**Author:** ![raspberry\_hunter](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/b19c9b/32.png) [@raspberry\_hunter](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/raspberry_hunter)\ **Post date:** [July 29, 2011, 1:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-that-became-better-known-only-after-being-turned-into-visual-media-tv-movies-stage/589445/32 "2011-07-29T13:17:48Z")
A Song of Ice and Fire, I think, hit the mainstream once the HBO version came out (judging by whether my sister had heard of it, which is how I usually judge such matters). I personally had never heard of the book Ragtime (though I had heard of Doctorow) before the musical came out… I still like the musical better. ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [July 29, 2011, 2:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-that-became-better-known-only-after-being-turned-into-visual-media-tv-movies-stage/589445/33 "2011-07-29T14:45:08Z")
As sometimes noted above, many of these were immensely popular as books before the adaptations. James Bond was not only popular because of JFK’s endorsement, they were very popular beforehand – if they hadn’t been, Fleming couldn;'t have written and published so many of them. _Casino Roylae_ was adapted for televisiion in _1954_! _Jaws_ was on the bestseller listm, as noted. _Wicked_ wasn’t exactly unknown – I was aware of it well before the play came out, and it was selling pretty briskly in a trade-paperback edition. It didn’t need the play to become a success. I wouldn’t characterize it as “barely a cult following.” I might say that of Philip K. Dick – although well-known in the science fiction community, I don’t think he made much of a dent in mainstream audiences until they started basing movies on his books (and changing them outrageously. Although Dick is famed for his _is it live or is it unreal_ plots, that is _not_ present in several of his stories that have been turned into films.) A correctiion to the usually-accurate (especially onscience fiction) **Reality Chuck** – Jerome Bixby (who also wrote the excellent _It! The Terror from Beyond Space_, which deserves to be much better known, and IMHO is a helluva lot better than _Alien_). Otto Klement wrote the original, apparently as a periood piece, and Bixby rewrote and updated it to present day. When the Asimov novelization came out, my recollection is that every edition of it carried a notice that it was a forthcoming movie, and that Klement and Bixby wrote the screenplay. People who thought the movie was a bad adaptation of Asimov weren’t paying attention. By the way, that book, like _Planet of the Apes_ and _2001_, remained in print forever, it seems, with the same cover saying that it was also a movie. Other cases of stories probably not well known until the movie: **they Live** — I never heard of ray Nelson or _Eight O’Clock in the Morning_ untuil this came out. **The Thirteenth Floor** – Similarly, never heard of Daniel F. Galouye and _Simulacron 3_ before this (even though Werner Fassbinder had turned it into a German TV movie **Who Framed Roger Rabbit** – I _had_ seen and read Gary Wolfe’s _Who Censored Roger rabbit?_ before this came out, but I’m pretty sure that in this case I was in the minority \*\* Touch of Evil\*\* – I understand Orson Welles deliberately chose the obscure _Badge of Evil_ by Whit Masterson for this film. **Rear Window** – Cornell Woolrich wasn’t exactly unknown, nor were his stories, but I’ll bet this one got a big boost when Hitchcock filmed it. **The Bride Wore Black** – Frqancois Truffaut’s tribute to Hitch used another story by Woolrich that undoubtedly gave it a boost. (He used composed Bernard Herrman to do the score, to, one of Hitchcock’s composers) **2001** – How many people heard of Arthur C. Clarke’s _The Sentinel_ before the movie came out? ---
**Author:** ![postcards](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/8e8cbc/32.png) [@postcards](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/postcards)\ **Post date:** [July 29, 2011, 5:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-that-became-better-known-only-after-being-turned-into-visual-media-tv-movies-stage/589445/34 "2011-07-29T17:30:40Z")
> [@raspberry\_hunter](#): > > I personally had never heard of the book Ragtime (though I had heard of Doctorow) before the musical came out… I still like the musical better. Then I guess you weren’t aware that it was made into a movie a decade and a half before it was adapted for the stage? And notable for being James Cagney’s first theatrical movie in the previous twenty years (as well as his last). Kids these days..mumble, mumble… ---
**Author:** ![KneadToKnow](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kneadtoknow/32/3999_2.png) [@KneadToKnow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/KneadToKnow)\ **Post date:** [July 29, 2011, 8:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-that-became-better-known-only-after-being-turned-into-visual-media-tv-movies-stage/589445/35 "2011-07-29T20:35:11Z")
Martin Caidin’s book _Cyborg_ was by no means unheard of, but the TV show based on it is iconic for it’s era: _The Six-Million Dollar Man_. ---
**Author:** ![WhyNot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/c77e96/32.png) [@WhyNot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WhyNot)\ **Post date:** [July 29, 2011, 8:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-that-became-better-known-only-after-being-turned-into-visual-media-tv-movies-stage/589445/36 "2011-07-29T20:44:48Z")
> [@NAF1138](#): > > 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. Nope. The Princess Bride - the book - was published in 1973, while the movie of the same name came out in 1987. As far as I know, you’re right about 2001, though. ---
**Author:** ![JohnT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnt/32/15048_2.png) [@JohnT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JohnT)\ **Post date:** [July 29, 2011, 8:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-that-became-better-known-only-after-being-turned-into-visual-media-tv-movies-stage/589445/37 "2011-07-29T20:51:24Z")
**Atonement** The short story that became the basis for **Brokeback Mountain** (for all I know, that was the name of the story as well) Both IMHO, of course… ---
**Author:** ![Miss\_Woodhouse](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/838e76/32.png) [@Miss\_Woodhouse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miss_Woodhouse)\ **Post date:** [July 29, 2011, 9:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-that-became-better-known-only-after-being-turned-into-visual-media-tv-movies-stage/589445/38 "2011-07-29T21:11:12Z")
I don’t think the Sookie Stackhouse books count. Those books were Danielle Steele levels of popular for years before the TV show. It surprises me every year how many movies are based on other source material. (I don’t know why it still surprises me, but it does.) I wish I could remember some of those surprises now. We’ll be watching the opening credits and at least half the movies we choose to watch are based on a book. I suppose Castle would be the opposite sort of thing. The books were written by ghost writers as a tie in for the tv show. (I’m assuming on the ghost writer thing. I suppose Nathan Fillion could have time in his life to write books that quickly.) ---
**Author:** ![tnetennba](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/7993a0/32.png) [@tnetennba](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tnetennba)\ **Post date:** [July 29, 2011, 9:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-that-became-better-known-only-after-being-turned-into-visual-media-tv-movies-stage/589445/39 "2011-07-29T21:15:47Z")
> [@DragonAsh](#): > > Stand By Me and Shawshank Redemption were both Stephen King stories. Both excellent reads, but don’t know how popular they were before the movies came out. It’s pretty much impossible not to hear the voice of Morgan Freeman when reading Shawshank now… They were published in the same volume, Different Seasons (along with Apt Pupil, also made in to a movie, which bombed). Because it was by Stephen King at the height of his fame, the book sold well. ---
**Author:** ![Justin\_Bailey](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/justin_bailey/32/8792_2.png) [@Justin\_Bailey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Justin_Bailey)\ **Post date:** [July 29, 2011, 9:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-that-became-better-known-only-after-being-turned-into-visual-media-tv-movies-stage/589445/40 "2011-07-29T21:22:06Z")
> [@Miss\_Woodhouse](#): > > I don’t think the Sookie Stackhouse books count. Those books were Danielle Steele levels of popular for years before the TV show. They were mildly popular, but “Danielle Steel popular” is a level the Sookie Stackhouse books never sniffed until the TV show premiered. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-that-became-better-known-only-after-being-turned-into-visual-media-tv-movies-stage/589445.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-that-became-better-known-only-after-being-turned-into-visual-media-tv-movies-stage/589445.md?page=3)