Film Adaptations by FlaxmanR

The premise of the 2002 film Adaptation is that Charlie Kaufman cannot figure out how to adapt a book, so he writes a screenplay about his struggle to adapt it instead. What is the book in question, an expansion of a 1995 New Yorker article about the rare plant dealer John Laroche, written by Susan Orlean?

The 2005 Farrelly Brothers film Fever Pitch took a 1997 British film and moved the action to the United States. What English football club did the original film (and the 1992 memoir on which it was loosely based) feature as the object of its protagonist’s obsession, changed to the Boston Red Sox in the American version?

In Field of Dreams, Kevin Costner’s character Ray meets (and semi-kidnaps) the reclusive author Terence Mann, played by James Earl Jones. The Mann character was invented for the film version after what real-life author, who had appeared as a character in W.P. Kinsella’s original novel Shoeless Joe, threatened legal action if he was depicted onscreen?

Infamously, the 1930 film “adaptation” of this novel starring John Barrymore added a romance plot and changed the ending so that the main character defeats his nemesis and survives to return home. The later film starring Gregory Peck was far more faithful to the source.

One wonders if The Godfather would have become a beloved American classic had it devoted as much time to Lucy Mancini as the novel does. Lucy, a minor character in the film, gets significantly more attention in Mario Puzo’s work, with much of it spent discussing what abnormally large part of her anatomy?

Though certainly the most successful effort, Pirates of the Caribbean was not Disney’s first attempt to make a film out of a theme park attraction. A 2002 film featuring the voice of Haley Joel Osment as the main character was based on what musical attraction that opened along with the Magic Kingdom on October 1, 1971?

White-washing – casting white actors in roles either written as or originally based on people of color – is an old Hollywood tradition, so much so that racist moviegoers now apparently get furious when it DOESN’T happen. What character, described in the books as having dark skin, nevertheless ignited a racist firestorm on Twitter and elsewhere when Amandla Stenberg was cast to play her in the film version of The Hunger Games?

The 2012 film adaptation of Much Ado About Nothing, starring, among others, Alexis Denisof, Amy Acker, and Nathan Fillion, was filmed over twelve days at the home of what director?

1978’s Convoy was, if you can believe it, an attempt to adapt the C.W. McCall song of the same name. What notoriously volatile director saw Convoy, his second-to-last film, become the biggest box office hit of his career, surpassing The Getaway?

This ridiculous-looking character appears in the film adaptation of what video game?

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DC’s attempts to adapt their back catalog to the screen have not been quite as successful as Marvel’s. What character was the star of an ill-fated 2010 bomb that clocks in at just 81 minutes, nearly as slim as Megan Fox’s corset-wearing prostitute?

No less an authority than J.R.R. Tolkien himself stated that this character was not important to the narrative in Lord of the Rings, which has a lot to do with why Peter Jackson left him out entirely. Name this “master of wood, water and hill” whose whimsical singing interludes were missed by few in movies that were already three hours long.