Entertainment and media come in many forms, but they are intermingled with each other when you look into it. A significant example is the cross-medium of book-to-film adaptations in place for years. There are many reasons that a book would be adapted into a film if it’s for profit. Alternatively, to bring attention to the original book by making it more accessible to other fans. Join us in this article as we see how deep adaptations of books to visual media can go.

Page to Stage

The first book-to-film adaptation was the 1896 short silent film Trilby and Little Billee, which George L. Du Maurier wrote. Unfortunately, no remains of the film have made it to the modern day, making it a piece of lost media. The same is true about the 1897 Death of Nancy Sykes, a film based on the Charles Dickens novel Oliver Twist. Fortunately, the 1899 silent film Georges Méliès- Cinderella remains an early adaptation. The film is six to seven minutes long and is a summarized retelling of the original fairytale. It is available to watch online.

By the 1930s, studios saw the commercial potential of turning popular novels into films. This was considered a Golden Age of Hollywood, with classic adaptations of The Wizard of Oz and Gone with the Wind’ becoming iconic films.

Reasons adaptations

In the entertainment industry, it’s common to see novels/book series made into films or TV series. Unsurprisingly, some of the most famous films in history are adaptations of books, such as The Lord of the Rings Middle Earth series, The Godfather, The Hunger Games series, and so much more. These film franchises became popular after their adaptations by drawing in new fans. Since some film adaptations can’t cover everything in the books, fans would seek out the original story to learn more.

Animated adaptations are the standard in the anime industry. For years, manga/light novel series and even classic Japanese stories were adapted into anime. In some cases, an anime would adopt a portion of the story it’s sourced from, and there are two main reasons. The main reason is that an anime would have a short run of twelve episodes and can’t adapt to the whole story. Another rumored reason is that they created anime to advertise the manga/light novel series by drawing in more fans.

Closing thoughts

It is interesting to see how long the idea of adapting books into shows and movies has been around. Some may see it as a way to keep retelling, but I see it as good. It’s not only keeping these classic stories relevant, but it’s also making them more accessible. So, storytelling and entertainment aren’t exclusive to only the written page or the big screen.

https://theableshow.com/the-fist-adaptations-of-literature

Sources:

https://online.utpb.edu/about-us/articles/humanities/the-art-of-book-to-movie-adaptations

https://www.goodreads.com/list/show/17956.Best_Movie_Adaptations