Stories that cannot be told as novels

[WogglebugLove Productions]

Any movie can be told in a book.
Any book can be made into a movie.
That said, a great movie would be tough to do well in a book. They have so much more to dazzle an audience with.
But a book can be costly to make into a movie and do it well. The writer doesn't have to pay the thousands of extras that make the book. But the movie budget is limited.
One scene from a movie would take a chapter minimum to describe well. It would also be quite boring if the writer tried. Possibly even one scene could be a whole book.
You can hide things in movies easier then you can in a book. In a book you have to gloss over mentioning the one thing your trying to hide, but in a movie it can hide in plain sight.

Well said! I couldn't agree more.

For the record, I remember reading the novelization of Steven Spielberg's E.T. by William Kotzwinkle that was published just when the film was originally released in 1982. This was before the movie was received and so that is likely why it was so different. I don't know why but the novelization included so many concepts that were considered for the film by screenwriter Melissa Mathison but were dismissed and the film was a success without them, of course. And the novelization by Kotzwinkle had a lot of elements and concepts in it that were so inappropriate for a novel meant to be based off of a family-friendly movie. Also, E.T.'s characterization was inconsistent and arrogant.

However, the "sequel" Kotzwinkle wrote E.T. and the Book of the Green Planet was much more kid-friendly and had E.T. in a characterization relevant to the character type he was perceived as from audiences who loved him and the movie. This book was published in 1985 when the movie was first re-released. It's very imaginative and intriguing and blends sci-fi with gentle fantasy quite splendidly.

I read the "junior" novelization of E.T. when it was re-released for its twentieth anniversary and found it more satisfying as a novelization. Yet having read so many other movie novelizations, and different points of view on them, and including about E.T., I still felt it could have been done better.

I also think some books do better as standalone books than being made into movies for many reasons. Such as the Harry Potter novels. After all, about 90% of what was eliminated from the movies was vital to it bu the ending. Many have agreed the filmmakers should have waited until all the books had been written before they started filming them.