Movie Adaptations
The other day, my sister and I were discussing what books we’d like to see adapted to feature films. Since we are avid readers, our list is very long. Here are just a few of our suggestions.
“Hidden in Time” and “A Rift in Time” by Michael Phillips - Biblical archaeological thrillers
“A Skeleton in God’s Closet” by Paul L Maier - A Harvard professor finds evidence that could sound the death knell for the Christian faith
Crew from Thr3e: Robbie Henson (Director), Joe Goodman (Producer), Ted Dekker (Author), Bobby Neutz (Producer)
Any “Spa Girls” novel by Kristin Billerbeck - A collection of stories about 4 best friends; Billerbeck writes fun “chick-lit” for the Christian marketplace
Any book from “The O’Malley Series” by Dee Henderson - Kids who grew up together in an orphanage formed their own family, and now as adults they all have positions as public servants (police, FBI, fire department, etc.). Each book highlights one sibling and chronicles their path to Christ.
“The Boxcar Children” by Gertrude Chandler Warner - A great series for children
Other authors who have multiple books that would make good movies are: Karen Kingsbury, Jan Karon, Bill Myers, Terri Blackstock and Jerry Jenkins (who has a number of excellent books in addition to the Left Behind series)
This last year has brought us several good movies based on books. Here are just a few we’ve seen come out.
Author Donna VanLiere: The Christmas Blessing and The Christmas Shoes
Jerry Jenkins: Midnight Clear
Janette Oke: The Love Comes Softly series (the first 5 books are on DVD, the 6th one showed on the Hallmark Channel just before Christmas)
Beverly Lewis: Saving Sarah Cain (coming out on DVD in just a few days!)
Francine Rivers: The Last Sin Eater
Ted Dekker: Thr3e
Frank Peretti: The Visitation
There are also some great documentary DVDs
skeleton in Gods closet was made into a movie a few years back. It was called the Body and stars Antonio Banderas, No credit was ever given to the Books author, even though the script follows closely the book. Thought you might like to know
December 27th, 2007 at 10:34 pm
i would love to see the book Blood from heaven or soul traccker both books by Bill Myers. Both are excellent books and would make great movies.
December 27th, 2007 at 10:37 pm
I’m happy books by Peretti are being made into movies. I’m waiting for The Oath. I also think his Cooper kids stories would make good films. More stuff by Francine Rivers would be cool.
December 27th, 2007 at 11:24 pm
I didn’t know that about “The Body” being “Skeleton in God’s Closet.” I’ll have to check that out. Thanks for the note!
December 28th, 2007 at 12:31 pm
Sometimes adapting a book to film is a very difficult thing to do. All readers have envisioned the story in their mind and rarely does the adaptation fulfill expectations. I had really high hopes for the great book ‘The List’ and while it was an OK movie it failed to depict the faith aspect of the book in a way that was true to the book. So adaptations are indeed challenging.
December 28th, 2007 at 5:07 pm
the o’malley family series would make amazing movies!!! A couple of ideas for actors:
Dave - Clive owen, hugh jackmon
kate - jenny Blakey
marcus - still thinking…..
Lisa- reese witherspoon
rachel - sandra bullock
Stephen- James Franco , Christian bale, jake ghyllenhal
jack- still thinking…..
Quinn - still thinking……
January 2nd, 2008 at 1:40 am
While I can’t agree about Thr3e or The Last Sin Eater being good movies by any long shot, I would whole-heartedly agree that Peretti’s Cooper Kids series would make excellent films. The only problem is that most of them would require budgets that would make most Christian film producers faint at the sight of.
January 2nd, 2008 at 5:00 pm
It would be good for the movie directors with the book authors to set-up private meetings with avid readers of the books and hear what their vision of the book would look like into a movie. Hear the book readers views on it as they are the first major fan base to attract to the movie. When having the meeting don’t deal with finance first but just hear their views before computing the dollar amounts. This will further enrich the work of the movie director’s vision for the film. Movie adaptations of books are not difficult they just need to discover better ways to relate books to movie.
January 4th, 2008 at 5:13 am
Though i am glad perettis movies are being made i think they lack message and references to God are few and far between, as was the case in three. I thought sin eater was very good, left the door open to great dicussion. the Movie Narnia was such a great movie because it stuck right to the book. Most Christian movies are a disappointment to Chrsitians for the lack of message, and a turn off to unbelievers because they are so low budget, thus they struggle to make it. I think facing the giants was a great job because it had a strong message and did not look low budget.
January 4th, 2008 at 7:41 am
I have to disagree about Narnia being a “faithful” adaptation. Many, many things from the book were altered or left out, and the final battle was much more, ‘explosive’ than it was in the book. Much of the discussion of Aslan’s father was also left out.
Movies are not books. Movie adaptations are not, and should not, be visualizations of every page of the book. It is a different art form. The main thing for movie adaptations is to be faithful to the spirit of the book.
Personally, I think that the best movie adaptations of books, ever, are:
The Fellowship of the Ring
Apocalypse Now
Fight Club
Contact
AI: Artificial Intelligence
Dances with Wolves
Peter Pan(recent live-action version)
Princess Bride
3 Musketeers(Michael York version)
Planet of the Apes(original)
Many of these are not faithful at all. Many are dramatic re-tellings of a similar story. But all, in my opinion, are faithful to the spirit of the original books, and are pleasing to fans of the book as well as those who have never read the original. In many of these films, I didn’t read the book until after seeing the film, and I was pleasantly surprised to see the same ideas being played out differently on the page.
January 4th, 2008 at 9:34 am
Okay Angela while I think Thr3e and The Visitation are both good books I did not think they were very good movies. However I did enjoy the movie adaption of The Christmas Shoes.
I would like to see “The Shack” turned into a movie.
January 6th, 2008 at 2:14 pm
How might an author submit his novel for consideration or review by a Christian film-maker? Are there review committees or certain individuals–possibly agents–that would like to evaluate new stories?
February 11th, 2008 at 8:41 am
Since most Christian filmmakers are working as independents, the best thing is to contact them directly and ask if they will consider submissions. There aren’t any review committees, and I don’t know about agents; not my area of expertise.
I suggest looking at the websites of filmmakers whose work you like, then contacting them from there asking if they take submissions. Don’t send a book unsolicited unless you’re OK with not hearing back from someone, because they might have several projects they’re working on already.
February 11th, 2008 at 12:42 pm