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The Book Was Better?

2018-08-28 · letter vlog · John · 3:59 · watch on YouTube

Topic: Books & writing · mode: Personal essay · tags: self promotion

After reading Elizabeth Berger and Isaac Aptaker's screenplay of Turtles All the Way Down, John corrects misconceptions about book-to-movie adaptation: authors mostly decide only whether to sell the rights, studios do care about fans but need far larger audiences, and the book is not always better, only different, since a great adaptation can be a great movie.

What is said

The parts of the video and what is said in each (★ — how much it matters to the video).

00:00:00 — Greeting; John has read the Turtles All the Way Down screenplay and is excited and nervous

  • ★★★ John has just read Elizabeth Berger and Isaac Aptaker's beautiful screenplay adaptation of Turtles All the Way Down; he thinks it might actually become a movie and is excited but nervous. (hedged) — 00:00:10 · Turtles All the Way Down

00:00:24 — Misconception one: authors make one decision, selling the rights; casting and the Nat Wolff example; decisions authors don't control

  • ★★★ John says book authors almost always make exactly one decision in the movie process, whether to sell the rights; buyers can usually make whatever movie they want. — 00:00:24
  • ★★ After John sold The Fault in Our Stars film rights to Fox 2000, they could have set the movie on Mars. (playful) — 00:00:40 · The Fault in Our Stars, Fox 2000 Pictures, Mars
  • ★★ Authors only very occasionally get approval over casting, script or director; some, John among them, get one seat at a big table. — 00:00:45
  • ★★ John thinks casting directors are usually better at casting movies than authors are, which is often good news. (hedged) — 00:00:59
  • ★★ Fans were very mad when Nat Wolff was cast as Isaac, who is blond in the book, and John was concerned too, but Wolff turned out to be the perfect Isaac. — 00:01:06 · The Fault in Our Stars
  • ★ John calls Nat Wolff a national treasure and one of his all-time favorite people. — 00:01:18
  • ★★ Bad decisions are rarely one person's fault, yet authors are criticized for ones they don't control: shooting location (in the US mostly tax incentives) and release timing (marketing executives). — 00:01:21 · United States
  • ★★ Authors are often asked to communicate such decisions to fans; John has messed this up a lot in the past, part of his nervousness. — 00:01:41

00:01:51 — Misconception two: studios care about fans but need much larger audiences; books are cheaper; the burning-robot car chase gag

  • ★★★ Against the misconception that studios don't care about fans, John says in his experience they care a lot, they just can't care exclusively about them. (hedged) — 00:01:51
  • ★★★ Paper Towns, a New York Times bestseller, sold about 50,000 copies in its first year; a movie selling 50,000 opening-weekend tickets loses a lot of money, and even 500,000 is usually a failure. — 00:02:02 · Paper Towns, The New York Times
  • ★★ Studios must balance fans with a much larger audience; even cheap movies cost plural millions to make while books are viable on a much smaller scale, so books can do things movies can't. — 00:02:24
  • ★★ Writing a burning-robot car chase costs no more than any scene, yet John has never managed one; he mocks himself that he can't write plot, only people talking in a room. (playful) — 00:02:41

00:02:59 — The book is not always better, just different; a great adaptation can be a great movie

  • ★★★ John is not sure the book is always better: it is different, as it must be, and there is no faithful adaptation when scratches on a page become visible humans speaking. (hedged) — 00:02:59
  • ★★★ A written story lives in the reader's mind in an intensely personal way movies can't match, while movies engage sight and hearing as books can't. — 00:03:14
  • ★★★ Expecting a book at the movies disappoints; a great adaptation explores the same questions and gives the same self-expanding empathy, and while no movie is a great book, it can be a great movie. — 00:03:27 · empathy

00:03:53 — Ask for book-to-movie questions in comments; sign-off

  • ★★ John asks viewers with questions about the book-to-movie process to leave them in comments and says he will answer as many as he can. — 00:03:53

Threads in this video

Where the stories that moved here went next

Mentioned

Central: film adaptation

Also: People: Nat Wolff

Works: Paper Towns · The Fault in Our Stars · Turtles All the Way Down

Organizations: Fox 2000 Pictures · The New York Times

Concepts: empathy

Places: Mars · United States

Characters: Isaac (character, “The Fault in Our Stars”)

Only in the description or credits: Elizabeth Berger · Isaac Aptaker · Love, Simon

Also centred on film adaptation: Is the Paper Towns Movie Like the Book? Thoughts on Adaptations · The Truth of How Books Become Movies · I Already Got Paid

Later videos replying to this one