Author Success and Movie Adaptations: Why Are They Linked So Closely?

Meredith Hahn

It’s no secret that society has begun to move away from traditional media. Reading books has become a niche and even unpopular activity. Stories that were once consumed via words on a page are now consumed via famous actors and over-the-top CGI. As a result, the concept of success for authors everywhere has undergone drastic changes. New media have presented new opportunities, and a new understanding of what it means to be a formidable author.

In the early 1800s, the pinnacle of success for an author was having their book read all over the world. All they wanted was to have their book displayed front and center in bookstores and see it in the arms of passing strangers. Today, authors still want those things, but their idea of success includes one thing that never crossed the minds of early authors: movie and TV show adaptations. Why be content with appealing to the small population of readers in 21st-century America when you can appeal to a much larger population of people with flashy images and crazy effects?

Today, having author’s books turned into movies for the masses is the mark of success. It’s been done since the creation of movies in the late 1800s, when people realized they could make about 50% more at the box office with a movie than they could with that same story in a book. Taking a story that people know and love and turning it into a movie with visually pleasing effects and attractive actors? Instant success.

Movies make money. That’s the bottom line. The movie industry is three times as big as the publishing industry, so if a modern author wants to make money, a movie adaptation is the way to go. This can be hard, especially for authors who hate viewing their work as a potential movie instead of a novel that was not created to be transformed into a “higher” method of storytelling. It’s insulting to imagine that their novel can’t be fine on its own, that it must be made into a movie or TV show in order for a significant number of people to care. Now, authors have to make a choice. Will a movie adaptation be their goal? Or will they refuse to let society’s wants influence their personal goals and idea of success?

Of course, the success of the movie adaptation industry is not all bad. The change means that stories can reach a larger audience, especially people who struggle with reading comprehension, focus, or finding the time in their busy schedules to read. Authors’ stories are more accessible to a wider audience and have a bigger chance of being discovered. For authors who care the most about their story being told, movie adaptations don’t seem all bad. Instead, they’re an opportunity to make more money and reach a larger audience. Reading the entire Harry Potter series by J.K. Rowling, or The Hunger Games series by Suzanne Collins, takes time and focus, things that some people just don’t have. But because these stories have been made into movies, they’ve become classics that nearly everyone knows about. Even for me, an avid reader and writer, I have discovered novels because of their movie or TV show adaptations.

On the other hand, movie adaptations don’t always make more money than the books they were based on. In fact, Collins’ Hunger Games series has made about eight billion from the book series and only about three billion from the movies. Similarly, Rowling’s Harry Potter generated about the same amount of money from the films as it did from the books. The movies usually made more upon initial release, but the popularity of the books was in no way usurped by the movie adaptation. If anything, it added to the popularity. Even though movies are a more popular form of media, movie adaptations seem to only add to the popularity of the book and add to the author’s paycheck.

It’s up to the author to decide what their expectations are for success, but whether you believe success is a movie adaptation, having your book in a Barnes & Noble, or both, don’t deny the validity of movies and TV shows as methods of retelling stories. The expansion of online media has made stories accessible on a level that the world has never seen. It hasn’t taken away from the value of books and novels, but offered authors a way to take their book and offer it up again to the world.