Adapt-Nation

Posted on October 25, 2005 in Uncategorized

There’s an ad out at the moment: don’t judge a book by its film. If you’ve ever been disappointed by a big-screen version of one of your favourite novels, you’d probably be inclined to agree. However, although film adaptations are often a poor substitute for the real McCoy, there’s no getting away from the fact that they are big business. In 2004, the highest grossing UK films, Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason and Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, were both adaptations of best-selling books. The numbers speak for themselves – over $80 million in combined box-office receipts, and probably many times that with DVD and video sales. But although the results may be worth it, getting a book to the screen can often be a lengthy and tortuous process.

Films spend a long time in what’s known as ‘development’: a gestation period beginning with the acquisition of the source book and finishing, hopefully, with a final draft screenplay which can be ‘greenlit’ for production. Inevitably, many projects never get through this development gauntlet: the script might not work, the writer might quit or be fired, the option might lapse, or another film might come out that is too similar and effectively ‘kill’ the project. That’s why production companies tend to have a number of projects on their ‘slate’ at any one time; if one project dies, for whatever reason, there is always a back-up plan. The bigger the production company, the more scripts they will be developing simultaneously (Working Title, the biggest production company in Britain, currently has close to 60 projects in development).

The development process starts with the production company’s development team. In the case of literary adaptations, it is their job to keep abreast of what’s going on in the publishing industry, and to seek out hot new books that might make potential films. Development staff keep up a constant communication with book agents (the agents representing the authors of the books in question), listening to pitches and requesting copies of new manuscripts. They will then read the book, often within the space of one day, and decide whether or not it should be optioned. Since options are relatively inexpensive, and since so few films actually get made (only about 100 a year in the UK, in comparison to 125,000 books published), companies are pretty quick to buy up the rights to books that might have film potential. An option on a book tends to last between 12-18 months, by which time the company must pay the option fee again, or let the option lapse. On the whole, agents are very keen to get their clients’ books optioned by film companies, and they court development executives on behalf of their clients, sending them manuscripts often before the book has gone to the publisher. In fact, it’s not unusual for the latest Hornby or McEwan to be e-mailed as an unedited proof copy to film companies on the same day as it’s sent to the agency. Producers have to move fast if they are interested in a hot book, and there can often be a bidding war between production companies over the film rights.

After a book has been optioned, it’s time to look for writers. Although some authors express an interest in adapting their own books, film producers are generally wary about letting them do this, preferring instead to hire writers with proven screen credits. Usually a producer will ask a number of screenwriters to give their ‘take’ on the novel (their own view on how the book should be adapted, in terms of its plot, characters, point of view and so on), and will usually get them to write a treatment for the proposed adaptation. Depending on how the producer sees the adaptation working as a film, a writer will then be chosen on the basis of their treatment. It has to be said that film producers option novels for a variety of reasons, and their plan for an adaptation will vary as a result. Some merely want to reproduce the novel on screen, and will try to remain as faithful as possible to the book. Others may only have been piqued by one aspect of the book – a character, perhaps, or part of the plot – and the treatment will reflect this.

Once a writer has been chosen and the first draft has been delivered, script meetings will take place to assess the state of the script. It’s very unusual for a first draft to be entirely free of problems, and the script meeting is a chance for the producer, development staff and possibly the financial backers to discuss the direction of the script and suggest any changes. Sometimes these can be easily resolved, but sometimes there are more fundamental problems, which often require the script to be rewritten by a new writer. We’ve all seen feature film credits where the list of writers goes on and on – this is because, unlike theatre, film is not a writer’s medium. The development of a screenplay is an accretive process, and scripts are often built by many hands. Aside from complete redrafts, there are also what is known as ‘script doctors’ in the film industry. These are screenwriters (usually very successful ones) who are put onto existing scripts to ‘soupe’ them up, i.e. to ramp up the dialogue, make the jokes funnier, and generally make the script more commercially viable. All this means that when the script is finally in a position that the company is happy with, it may be far removed from the novel on which it is based.

By and large, most of the production companies in the UK are engaged in this process of adapting literary material. In fact, most of the development time in the UK is spent searching out new novels to adapt (development offices sometimes feel more like libraries than cinematic hotbeds). This is not necessarily the same in the US, where there is a bigger ‘spec’ (original) script culture. It is a distinction of the UK film industry that its best screenwriters are working not on original projects of their own, but on adaptations of existing material. One of the main reasons for film’s reliance on the book industry for its material is economic: films are notoriously expensive to make, and because no-one can ever predict which films will do well, they are also very risky. Adaptations provide a way to mitigate the risk entailed in producing expensive films and published books have a market value. A successful novel already comes freighted with its readership, which means there is already a built-in audience for adaptations, the upshot being that they are a less risky proposition to film producers and studio heads. After all, it’s not hard to predict that a film of Bridget Jones’s Diary, or the latest Richard and Judy book club favourite, will do well at the box office. Aside from this, the creative fecundity of the book world provides an invaluable source of new and original stories for movie producers desperate for the next great idea. However, while the film industry in the UK is indebted to books for much of its material, it is important to recognize the huge differences in the two mediums. Great books, as we often see, do not necessarily make great movies. Sometimes what makes a book great is specific to its prose, and cannot be recreated on the screen. Nevertheless, so long as there are successful adaptations out there, producers will continue to plumb the publishing industry for new material. Meanwhile, with the fourth Harry Potter just wrapped, pre-production is already starting on number five, and it doesn’t look like the Hogwarts Express will be stopping any time soon!

Russell Talbot is a part-time assistant at Heyday Films, the production company of film producer David Heyman. Heyday make the Harry Potter films, and have the rights to several literary novels including Mark Haddon’s The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, and the forthcoming Nicole Krauss novel The History of Love. They are also adapting Homer’s epic The Odyssey.