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Adaptations: movie tie-ins

February 17

There is Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep and then there is Blade Runner, Q&A and Slumdog Millionaire, Close Range: Wyoming Stories and Brokeback Mountain, Pride and Prejudice and Pride and Prejudice. Novels adapted to film are almost always accompanied by the release of a new movie tie-in edition, usually looking like another version of the movie poster with the words ‘Now a Major Motion Picture’ (or, worse still, ‘As Seen on TV’) emblazoned on the front. This is not for the author’s benefit, or because the movie-related cover is more aesthetically pleasing than the original design. Rather, it is intended to engineer the desired ‘spike’ in sales that comes with the crossover of books to film. Fans of the movie are encouraged to relive the cinematic experience through a special paperback edition, which generally runs for three months (the same duration of the availability of the movie).

Taken further, there may even be a whole franchise of tie-in publications. Just think of the Peter Jackson-imagined hobbits and dwarves and dramatic Middle-Earth landscapes that flew across all Tolkien related fodder in the wake of Lord of the Rings, or Disney’s re-envisioned Narnia series. After the huge success of The English Patient, Penguin released a small volume entitled Tales From Herodotus: As Featured in The English Patient, with a not-so-subtle cover of the red desert dunes featured in Anthony Minghella’s film. The success of these tie-ins is thought to be a given. According to Penguin, Pride and Prejudice_Jane_Austen#) enjoyed ‘phenomenal’ sales when Keira Knightley’s face was printed on the front. The next ones off the block include special editions of Cormac McCarthy’s The Road and Shantaram by Gregory David Roberts.

However, despite the obvious benefit of sales, there is an issue of integrity at stake. After all, as any avid reader will know, the movie is not the same as the book. And while it is possible to enjoy both film and book as separate entities (particularly if you have read the book first and then decide to see the movie when it comes out), there is also the possibility that the film may be a disappointing rendition, or else at least out of sync with what you imagined. Even when the movie is beautifully and truthfully executed, readers may not always want to be reminded of that particular interpretation of a beloved text each time they glance at the cover. After all, the beauty of a novel is in the chemistry of reading – where the descriptions of characters and places evoke so precisely a certain image in your head, a version which is entirely yours alone. Jeremy Irons may or may not have been how you saw Humbert Humbert. Elizabeth Bennet and Cecelia Tallis are two distinctly different characters, yet they may be the same face on your bookshelf. Given the choice, would readers really prefer the movie tie-in or simply just the original?

One of the few books to defy the trend is the Harry Potter series. Although there have been adult and collectors editions, as well as large-print and boxed-set volumes, you won’t find Daniel Radcliffe’s face anywhere in your local bookstore. One reason is that J. K Rowling doesn’t need the sought after ‘spike’ – the books already dominate. However, it also shows that you don’t always need a movie tie-in to garner success. Perhaps some readers will be relieved that they can buy a copy with only those old school illustrations on the cover, and leave the rest up to their imaginations.


 

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