These days, the book market has become increasingly difficult to penetrate. The proportion of the market the prefers to read a book over watching a movie is shrinking because a 90-minute film is simply much easier to enjoy than a novel with hundreds and hundreds of pages. And, it’s rather uncommon nowadays for a superb book to reach true iconic status on its own.
By contrast, the film industry has grown significantly in recent years. Despite this, its relationship with the book industry remains vital, and there is an undeniably strong connection between the two markets. For example, the James Bond character, created by novelist Ian Fleming, has been adapted into almost too many films to count.
Movie writers may rely on books, whose legacies are preserved through on-screen adaptations, making cinema adaptations of great written stories mutually beneficial to both industries. It’s easy to see how the increase in interest from a movie adaptation can spur book sales, but the benefits an iconic novel or book series have for their movie adaptations are less obvious.
Below, Betway casino discusses a few.
Fans Watch For Better or For Worse
In reality, the most popular book series also lend themselves to the most successful adaptations — in films, as much as in games, products, and spin-offs.
Harry Potter, The Hobbit, and Lord of the Rings were already renowned novels or book series before being adapted into films. All three have made it into the top ten grossing cinematic adaptations of books. The Hobbit is a one-novel adaptation into a trilogy of films, while Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings are seven- and three-book series, respectively.
Here, too, the significance of a series is obvious. With each release, the franchise’s popularity grows, as does the audience and their anticipation around it.
The enthusiasm surrounding the Harry Potter series had reached dizzying heights after seven novels and seven films, and there was no realistic chance that the Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part II film would fail.
The Ratings Don’t Lie
This is backed up by IMDB ratings, which demonstrate that the most commercially successful book-to-film adaptations aren’t usually the best films in terms of critical acclaim.
Only two of the top ten most grossing books-to-movie adaptations are ranked in the top ten on IMDB. Three of the Harry Potter films are among IMDB’s top seven most profitable, despite none of them being among the top ten best-rated film adaptations.
When comparing the Harry Potter ratings on Goodreads and IMDB, it’s clear that the book series’ greatness prompted the films to become some of the most popular in history. Though the Goodreads scoring system may encourage more favorable reviews, it is remarkable that each and every single book rating is higher than any of the corresponding movies.
This trend of the most renowned book series leading to the most commercially successful films can be seen across the film industry.
The Source Material Takes a Backseat to Popular Appeal
Six of the seven solo releases in the top ten IMDB movie adaptations had a better IMDB rating than Goodreads, indicating that the movie was deemed objectively superior to the book but did not gross as much as films based on higher-rated novels.
None of the movies in the top ten highest-grossing book-to-film adaptations are ranked higher than the novels. The Harry Potter novels, Lord of The Rings, and The Hobbit are considerably more popular.
While films are now considerably more popular and widespread than books, the movie remakes of classic book series are most likely to convert into commercial successes.
Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings are the finest examples of how lucrative a book-film series can be when put together. They show that good adaptations are possible and can even achieve commercial success on top appreciation from fans. But at the end of the day, it’s not the ranking that matters.