Reading the thread about Michael Creighton’s death made me think about his books that I read. In Jurrasic Park the character later played by Jeff Goldblum was killed. In the movie he wasn’t. In the next book he magically got better because the movie rights to the next book was already sold. (I think it was briefly explained that he was mistakenly reported as dead but was just injured. Nope. In the book he was dead)
Are there any other examples of where the book sequel was changed because of a movie?
In the book version of 2001 A Space Odyssey, the second monolith was found on Iapetus, a moon of Saturn. It was changed to orbiting Jupiter for the movie. Clarke just went along with the movie version when he wrote 2010 Odyssey Two.
I strongly suspect that Thomas Harris wouldn’t have based his last two novels around Hannibal Lecter if it wasn’t for the popularity of Anthony Hopkin’s portrayal in the movie.
In both ‘Silence of the lambs’ and ‘Red Dragon’ books, Lecter is a sort of two-dimensional, malevolent figure that gets his jollies by playing with the main character’s heads. He became more complex and almost sympathetic later on.
Also, the Monoliths in the original 2001 novel were crystalline and transparent. The ones in the movie were made black, and so were the one’s in Clarke’s book sequels.
In Winston Groom’s novel “Forrest Gump,” Jenny doesn’t die. Neither does Forrest’s mother.
But since few people read the book, and millions saw the movie, Groom’s 1995 “Gump & Company” sequel used the movie as the starting point, rather than his own book.
I’ve heard P.D. James say that she was so impressed by Roy Marsden’s performance as Adam Dalgliesh in the BBC productions of her books, she started giving Dalgliesh a number of Marsden’s characteristics and mannerisms in later mysteries.
John Le Carre supposedly said something similar about Alec Guinness’ portrayal of George Smiley.
In first two of the ‘Doctor…’ series of books by Richard Gordon, the main character was him. Also, in the first book ‘Doctor in the House’, Lancelot Spratt was described as being a thin, balding, ginger Scot who took himself away towards the end of the book to die from cancer.
In the later books Lancelot Spratt was now alive (can’t remember if he featured in the second book or returned in the third) and quite clearly became the version played in the films by the great James Robertson Justice and the main character was named Simon Sparrow, as played by Dirk Bogarde in the films.
Interesting, can you provide some examples? I don’t recall anything in particular from the movie 2010 that outright retconned anything in the movie 2001.
Only the very first monolith in the novel version of 2001, the one that uplifted the apes, was crystalline, and that one was changed to black for the movie. However, all the subsequent monoliths in 2001 and later novels were black to begin with and that didn’t change in the movies.
Likewise, Val McDermid’s Tony Hill mysteries were made into the TV series “Wire in the Blood,” and she has said that she has incorporated actor Robson Green’s mannerisms into her writing.
The protagonist of the novel Prizzi’s Honor bore no resemblance to Jack Nicholson. But when he wrote the sequel, Richard Condon said he could not get the image of Nicholson out of his mind.
Gary K. Wolf’s sequel to Who Censored Roger Rabbit? incorporated elements from the movie (Who Framed Roger Rabbit?) into his next book Who P-P-P-Plugged Roger Rabbit?. It’s not exactly a sequel, but the characters all have taken on traits of their movie counterparts.