By Philip Berk March 1, 2020
Since the early days of silent movies Hollywood has had a lucrative symbiosis with the publishing industry.
Case in point: Gone with the Wind, The Exorcist, Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter. And during the 1940s almost all the successful movies were based on novels, some schmaltzy best sellers but others were the work of America’s foremost writers such as Hemingway and Faulkner.
That may change now as a result of last year’s embarrassing failure of The Goldfinch, Motherless Brooklyn, and The Good Liar. All three tanked at the box office despite being best selling novels. And in the case of The Goldfinch, a beloved work which had stayed on the NY Times bestseller list for 100 weeks, an unmitigated disaster.
As to why these projects failed we’ll leave to the critics, but rather than analyzing that, let’s examine the historical record.
Surprisingly the most recent successful transfers from book to screen were 2018’s Steven Spielberg’s Ready Player One and a self published book The Martian which both grossed over $400,000. (Goldfinch sadly grossed a worldwide total of only $10 million.)
Small fry when you compare it Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 11 or Lord if the Rings: The Return if the King which grossed over a billion each.
To match those blockbuster numbers you’d have to go back ten years when two young adult novels Hunger Games and the Twilight series, each grossed over a $800 million…
Two years later The Life of Pi captured the same audience that loved the book to the tune of $600 million, and 2015’s Fifty Shades of Gray seduced its readers to the tune of $570 million. That same year was also a bonanza for author Michael Punke whose only novel The Revenant became a Golden Globe and Academy award winning movie which grossed over half a billion dollars.
Ten years earlier the best selling The DaVinci Code grossed over $700 million and I Am Legend, based on the Richard Mathieson 1o54 classic, grossed almost $600 million, although it had been filmed twice before with little success.
1994’s Forrest Gump based on a novel that sold only 30,000 copies grossed over $670 million dollars. It later became a best seller thanks to the Tom Hanks blockbuster.
On the other hand Peter Benchley’s Jaws was a blockbuster novel but it grossed slightly less.
Ironically, last year’s top earning film based a novel was Little Women published 140 years ago!
But then there’s Jurassic Park published in 1990. That best seller has spawned three sequels and has grossed an astonishing five billion dollars.
Reason enough I guess not to give up on best selling novels, yet.
Here then are the top box office performers based on a novel that became lucrative franchises:
l. Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone by J.K. Rowling which spawned Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, and Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Parts 1 and 2
2. Dr. No by Ian Fleming which spawned Casino Royale, Live and Let Die, Moonraker, Diamonds are Forever, From Russia With Love, Dr. No, Goldfinger, For Your Eyes Only, Thunderball, The Spy Who Loved Me, On Her Majesty’s Secret Service, You Only Live Twice, The Man With the Golden Gun, Octopussy and The Living Daylights
3 . Lord of The Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien which spawned The Hobbit, The Fellowship of the Ring, The Two Towers, The Return of the King Parts 1 and 2
4 Jurassic Park by Michael Crichton, which spawned The Lost World, Jurassic Park. Jurassic Park 111, Jurassic World and Jurassic World Fallen Kingdom
5. Planet of the Apes by Pierre Boulle which spawned Beneath The Planet Of The Apes, Escape From The Planet Of The Apes, Conquest Of The Planet Of The Apes, Rise Of The Planet of the Apes, Battle for the Planet of the Apes,, Dawn Of The Planet Of The Apes, and War For The Planet Of The Apes
6. The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins which spawned Catching Fire, Mockingjay Part 1 and 2
7. Twilight by Stephanie Meyer which spawned Twilight, New Moon, Eclipse, Breaking Dawn by Stephenie Meyer