Friends who have sold their works to the movies

Cafe Society
1

I have friends, successful writers in a way that I am not successful (though we did get to be friends because of their respect for my writing), who have made a lot of money selling their work to be adapted to the movies. One of them just had a miniseries showing on cable TV, the other had a major motion picture made of one of his best novels.

Both of these adapted works sucked eggs.

In one case, the TV adaptation made absurd caricatures of the (real life) people that my friend had written so profoundly about. It was silly, and not very well done at all. In the other case, the lead actor cast was a very well-known Brit playing a lifelong New Yorker, and although the guy had chops, it didn’t quite work. Worse was that the movie cut out about half of the intricate plot that my friend had created in the book, and it was the half that I admire most. The movie lost half of the characters, too, and for me at least, all of the charm.

Both my friends have been singing the praises of the adaptations of their work to the heavens on FB, on X, and even privately to me–“It was great, see it again, and again, I love what the producers did with it, etc.” and I can’t help thinking, “No, you’re much smarter than that. Maybe what you’re loving about what the producers did was that they gave you a shitload of money. They butchered your fucking book, man, and you know it.”

But I don’t say this, of course. I can’t, however, contribute to the threads they start online, or even very much contribute to the conversations I’ll have with them about the adaptations because I know it won’t be long before I start giving them shit. And sadly I’ve lost a little respect for both of these guys, who are still among my very favorite writers. I hope to work with them again (I’ve collaborated on a few projects with them in the past) and don’t want to start any discord between us. But they profess to be genuinely impressed by the moronic choices the adaptors made with their sensitive, insightful books, so I guess the only choice I have is to pretend I agree with them on this one subject.

2

Since judging TV and Movies is subjective, perhaps these successful writers who have been paid a lot for their work and like the result are correct?

In any case you can congratulate them on their achievements without having to say how poor you think the results were!

3

Well, that’s what I’ve been doing.

But i know both these guys well enough to understand their tastes. I know that there is enough falsity in the films/ TV shows for them not to be raving about the excellence of the adaptation. I’ve seen both of them going off when someone (not me) voices any criticism, however mild or sensible, online to know to keep my mouth and my fingers to myself. I just find it weird that they’re both so passionate in their rhapsodic praise of works that got a ton of critical panning and not much adulation.

It’s like they’re saying "i know i seem like a mindless hack flacking for this mediocre adaptation, but i don’t care. It made me a lot of money and i want people to like it much more than they do. "

4

For example, my friend raved to me about the great job the British actor did in playing the lifelong New Yorker. I said something like, "yeah he was great even if his accent did slip a few times. " now this friend is a fiend on accents, it’s one of the things that brought him and me together, but he said in response to my observation , "no, he was perfect " So i changed the subject at that point. But i would have said to anyone else “Are you crazy? He slipped here and here and here” and would probably have argued the point for 20 minutes.

5

What, like the way you figure they’re pretending?

6

Actually, what I think is going on is that both of my friends are very savvy at marketing themselves, and they’ve decided that they value the contacts they’ve made on the production end very highly, so much so that they don’t want to risk the chance of blowing a future adaptation on the chance that someone on the production end will hear that Slicedalone told someone a story about Famous Writer #1 disliking the adaptation of his work, and since we’re not intimate pals, they’d rather bullshit me about their true feelings than take that small chance. Probably what’s happening, I figure.

7

If I’m being honest, I can’t guarantee that I would behave any differently than your writer friends are.

It is easy to stand on your convictions when you have no skin in the game.

mmm

8

Are you envious at all? That’s sort of the vibe I’m getting, but that might not be correct.

I had a long time coworker, who at the time was writing on the side, have one of his books sold as, as they say, a major motion picture. The movie didn’t do all that well, but I didn’t care in the sense that I was glad that he had that success, and at least some sort of good financial windfall. It was enough for him to retire from his day job and go to writing full-time.

9

Not really. I like these guys, admire their work, wish them all the money they can get, which is a fraction of what their talents deserve.

Am I envious of writers in general who’ve had more success than i have? Sure, but some of them are writers who I don’t know and don’t feel a connection to, both of which don’t apply here.

My supposition above just confirms what I already knew–we’re not intimate lifelong buddies, and they’re perfectly right to think of me as potentially capable of spreading stories about them that they don’t want spread, not because I’ve given any indications that I would but just because we’re not that close. It’s just uncomfortable when I presume on our friendship to ask “Come on, you don’t really believe that bullshit” which is why I don’t go there.

10

I’ve known some movie and TV writers. I wasn’t especially impressed with their work but I realized producers are looking for a complete and polished product, even though they are likely to heavily rework it.

I suggest you avoid living in LA, you can’t swing a cat without hitting someone trying to sell a script. The ones that are successful don’t seem to be great writers. Connections make a huge difference in the biz, there are too many scripts for producers to be looking for the next Hemingway. They’re looking for a script that they can use to raise money. They’ll value a script that look like it was written by trusted and experienced professionals on the surface with less regard for the quality of the content. Once they have the money everything else is fixable.

11

You can’t even say something like “I don’t think the adaptation did your work justice” or “The book was better”?

12

“And do me a favor…swing it hard.”

13

I think they’d say “No, the adaptation was terrific.” Better at this point to avoid the subject when I can.

I’ve been successfully avoiding living in L.A. for my entire career. One high school buddy moved out there in the 1970s, got a few screen credits, has made a steady living writing screenplays (remarkably few of which get produced), and has become a bit of a blowhard, personality-wise, over the decades. I see him every few years now, and every time I do, I always think, “Wow! I thought he couldn’t possibly be more of an asshole than he already was, but I’m wrong again.” He was a funny, modest, honest kid in high school.

14

I heard one writer talk about his experience: he had misgivings, but was lured by the possibility of having his story adapted to the big screen by a famous director, and of course the millions of $ were not a disincentive. The director died, the project was stalled, there was some funny business involving bringing in other writers and how much he himself would ultimately get paid… finally he said that it was the first time and the last time he agreed to have one of his stories made into a Hollywood movie. So it was not all false puffery on his part in that case. (Ebert gave the finished film 4 stars, though.)

15

That’s what the place does to people. I wasn’t in the writing end of the biz but it’s the same in every aspect of the industry so I knew I couldn’t stay there long.

I do agree with others that say you should find a way to be happy for your friend’s success and tell them about it. Since you don’t want to do what they’ve done you have no reason to begrudge their prosperity.

In Hollywood the saying has to be modified to: “Can’t swing a dead cat…” and the cat must be a realistic looking but artificial prop or one that died a natural death at a cat farm to guarantee that no animals were harmed when swinging one hard at people trying to sell scripts.

16

Did you watch Saving Mr. Banks?

It isn’t a simple matter to sell what one has written in such a way that one retains the right to approve or disapprove what the movie folks do to it. Travers was one of the stubborn few who did and who wasn’t easily deterred from voicing her strong opinion to Disney and his people. But the final product, Mary Poppins, bears little resemblance to the story she wrote. It’s pretty much everything she feared they’d do to it. I mean, I suppose it could have been worse yet if she hadn’t put her foot down, but yeesh.

Perhaps if an author was perpetually willing to see the project nixed and no movie resulting, and had paid close attention to all the legal contract clauses and whatnot, it could be done. But that’s a lot of eyes on your work to turn away from; there are a whole lot of people who’ve seen but not read Frankenstein (various incarnations), The Shining, Little Women, Jaws, Pride and Prejudice, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s/Philosopher’s Stone, 2001: A Space Odyssey, or Interview with the Vampire. An author lives for an audience and that’s a lot of audience to turn down.

Stephen King didn’t like what Kubrick did to The Shining. And he already had an impressive amount of clout as an author at the time.

I think it’s easy to get swept up in the excitement of success. I’m sure the dollar part of success isn’t irrelevant but it probably takes a back seat to the prospect of huge numbers of people coming to check out something that you created. If it starts to look and feel like it isn’t true to the original, or even an out-and-out betrayal of it, one may only have the choice of becoming one of those authors, the curmudgeonly sour ones who go around saying “they didn’t do my great work of literature justice, it’s a piece of shit, don’t see it”. Movie folks don’t make it easy for an author to retain the right to say “nope, wrong casting, get someone else” and “you have to do that scene over, you’ve got the feel of things all wrong there”.

17

Sure, but that’s not what I’m saying here at all. These guys didn’t have any input into the casting, or anything else, at all.

After the movie/TV series had been made, these guys went WAY out of their way to assert how wonderful the adaptation was. (Neither had anything to do with adapting it, btw. Just collect the big check for the rights.) They might post, using my example again, how spectacular a job the British actor did in the role of a NYer, and someone (again, not me) might have written online “I thought he did a good job, but he didn’t quite master the NYC accent that you’d written so well in the book,” and my friend responded with a heated, hurt post like, “He was GREAT!! Why the need to run down a beautiful performance like that? I thought you were supportive, and I’m disappointed to…” blablabla. Just wild, over-the-top defensive protestations that I’m positive they don’t actually believe.

18

Perhaps they -or you- could write a screenplay of their experiences in writing and the results of selling out. Isn’t that what Episodes is about?

19

Likely so, and not only do they not want to jeopardize their chances of selling rights to another book by publicly criticizing the adaptation, but they want to show the studio that they are, in fact, an active supporter of the adaptation (and, thus, a worthwhile business partner).

It’s a balance that every creator who sells the rights to their work has to navigate, and I think what you’re seeing is an understandable response. Are they being disingenuous? Are they not voicing their actual opinions about what was done to their creative works? Probably so, but what of it?

20

Yes. But this thread has been helpful to me in understanding better what was going on. I think I’ve got it now.