american nerd survey

What is the most disastrous movie adaptation of a book?

Mark Kalar: If by “disastrous” you mean “not a good representation of the book” I’d have to say David Lynch’s 1984 adaptation of Dune. I really enjoy this movie, especially the casting (Sting, Patrick Stewart, Max von Sydow, Dean Stockwell…). However, having read the book a zillion times, there were many times where I asked myself “is this based on some other book called Dune that coincidentally also involves spice and a desert planet?” If by “disastrous” you mean “painfully boring to sit through” I’d have to say John Harrison's 2000 adaptation of Dune, which more accurately followed the book and also made me hate William Hurt even more than before.

Reed Miller: I don't know about most disastrous, because there are a lot of books turned into movies that I haven't read and a lot of crappy movies that are based on books that are so bad that nobody would ever read them. I also think, for the purposes of this discussion, comic books can't count as books, because then we'd just be talking about Catwoman and Elektra, etc, and that's too easy.

But... hmmm... books... books...hhmmmm... That Demi Moore version of The Scarlett Letter was pretty crap, wasn't it?

Keith Pille: Larry McMurtry's Lonesome Dove is a kick-ass book, maybe the best Western of all time. But the miniseries it got turned into is god-awful. Robert Duvall is awesome, and Tommy Lee Jones is pretty good, but it's pure disaster beyond that. Animated lightning travelling around cows' horns does not look cool, and the uber-tough, nightmarishly threatening bad guy shouldn't have a bare-skinned paunch hanging out of a leather vest.

However, I fully expect that we're just a few years away from some ill-conceived film version of Watchmen coming along and sealing up this title for all time.

Simon Riordan: The Count of Monte Cristo.

Clint Weathers: The Ten Commandments.