Source link : https://las-vegas-news.com/13-movies-that-improved-the-book-they-were-based-on/
There’s this unshakeable belief among book lovers that adaptations are never as good as the original text. I’ve heard it countless times at dinner parties and seen it argued endlessly on social media. Reading is somehow more pure, more authentic than watching a film unfold on screen.
Yet here’s the thing. Sometimes a director takes a novel and refines it into something sharper, more emotionally resonant, more visually stunning than what existed on the page. The medium of film offers tools that novels simply can’t replicate: a haunting musical score, an actor’s subtle facial expression, the perfect framing of a shot that makes your heart skip. What follows are thirteen instances where Hollywood actually got it right.
Jaws Stripped Away the Unnecessary Drama
Peter Benchley’s 1974 novel was popular, yet the film version became one of the greatest movies of all time, making the book seem lacking by comparison. Steven Spielberg famously admitted that he did not like any of the characters in Benchley’s novel, and he set out to make them more interesting and amiable in the film. The book was bogged down with subplots about affairs and mob connections that diluted the core terror.
The novel is much darker and grittier, with deeply complex characters sometimes harder to root for, and a strong undercurrent of greed and corruption. It took a creative screenplay adaptation, the genius of Steven…
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Author : Matthias Binder
Publish date : 2026-02-17 10:08:00
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