By Craig Mazin - Taken from Artful Writer.
The trend seems inescapable. Studios are obsessed with adaptations. The movie business, which used to be powered by original screenplays, is now concerned mostly with converting pre-existing works into films. If it isn’t a comic book, graphic novel, book, foreign film or video game, well…no one’s interested.
That’s the conventional wisdom, at least.
But is it true?
I don’t have any statistics to back the claim up, but let’s stipulate that everyone’s gut sense is true: studios are more motivated to fund adaptations than they are originals.
It’s nothing new, of course. Movie studios have always chased best-sellers and Broadway musicals, but as culture grows around itself, the movies inspire books that inspire movies that inspire musicals that become CD’s that become movies.
That’s how John Waters can write an original film called Hairspray that becomes a musical called Hairspray that becomes a film of the musical called Hairspray.
Fair enough.
But why are the studios so attracted to adaptations?
Here are some theories (with attendant debunking).
http://artfulwriter.com/?p=540
The trend seems inescapable. Studios are obsessed with adaptations. The movie business, which used to be powered by original screenplays, is now concerned mostly with converting pre-existing works into films. If it isn’t a comic book, graphic novel, book, foreign film or video game, well…no one’s interested.
That’s the conventional wisdom, at least.
But is it true?
I don’t have any statistics to back the claim up, but let’s stipulate that everyone’s gut sense is true: studios are more motivated to fund adaptations than they are originals.
It’s nothing new, of course. Movie studios have always chased best-sellers and Broadway musicals, but as culture grows around itself, the movies inspire books that inspire movies that inspire musicals that become CD’s that become movies.
That’s how John Waters can write an original film called Hairspray that becomes a musical called Hairspray that becomes a film of the musical called Hairspray.
Fair enough.
But why are the studios so attracted to adaptations?
Here are some theories (with attendant debunking).
http://artfulwriter.com/?p=540
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