Why are books rarely ever adapted into TV series?

Question

When ever books are turned into movies, the story usually ends up getting butchered due to time constraints. To me, a TV series would be better suited. If a single book equaled a season, then a chapter could equal a episode. The extra time would allow for more of the details to be included. I do not know of any cases of a book(s) adapted into a TV series.
As for some the Movies adaptions let me list my opinions. Lord Of The Rings was EPIC, Chronicles of Narnia could have been better. Harry Potter 1-3 was acceptable, 4 and up was horrible. Eragon was the worst adaption ever know to man, the director should have been shot. I loved all of these books, but I was disappointed with the movies, except for LOTR.. I know there are more book adaptions out their, I just haven't gotten around to them yet.

Answer 1

I fear I must disagree with your assessment of the LOTR adaptation. It looked amazing. But PJ spent so much time making sure it LOOKED good that he butchered the characters. That was completely unforgivable. I think I do agree with your idea of adapting the books to a television series instead of movies. The problem is that on the whole, the public does not have the patience to wait through the season to find out how the story goes. There have been a few book to television adaptations and some of them were successful. Some were not. Dresden Files was a great show but it didn't do well enough to continue through all of the books. Dexter stopped following the book series after about season 2. Bones stopped following their source material after season 1. On paper it's a good idea, in practice, no so much.

Answer 2

The Sookie stackhouse series was turned into the tv series True Blood. The pretty little liars series is also a tv show and the vampire diaries series is also a tv show. Movies are more common but there are books that are tv shows. I'm assuming it's because of two reasons.

1. You earn more money from a movie. You dont have to purchase a ticket to watch a tv show



2. People are more likely to watch a movie than tune into and actually follow a tv series. Not everyone has the time to follow a series

Consistantly

Books being turned into shows r starting to be a bit more common, though. Im seeing it often

Answer 3

I can think of a few TV shows that stem from books: True Blood (from Charlaine Harris' Sookie Stackhouse series), The Vampire Diaries (books of same name), Pretty Little Liars (books of same name), Gossip Girl (books of same name), Bones (from Kathy Reich's Temperance Brennan series - this one's not based on each book exactly, but the show has its roots in the book series), Game of Thrones (from George R.R. Martin's series of the same name), etc. Pride and Prejudice has also been adapted into a tv mini-series.





I think there are several reasons why books are usually adapted to movies, rather than tv shows:



- TV shows are usually expected to go on for many seasons. If you're going with one book = one season, there better be a lot of books in the series, or else the tv show's creators, producers, writers, etc, will have to make up their own way of carrying on the show. This could alienate fans of the books. The only alternative would be to end the show after whatever number of seasons (which has to happen eventually, I know, but think about it - if they're basing a show on a trilogy, the show's only going to last 3 seasons. Not long.)



- Dragging out one book over an entire season can end up being boring. Reading a typical book, you get all the action in maybe 5 hours at most. Over the span of a tv season, you're getting the same info spread out over 16+ hours. It could get boring, and if the show can't hold the audience's attention, it's a poor choice to let it continue. That many hours is also a bit of a commitment: are you going to make sure you tune in to watch every single week? (A movie, on the other hand, is usually 2 hours - you get all the action right there, and there's not much time to be bored, and you probably can free up 2 hours easily.)



- In order to avoid boring the audience, or even to just make the story more adaptable to the medium, tv writers might have to make changes to the original book plot. As I said before, this could alienate fans of the book series.



- I think tv shows, in general, have smaller budgets than films. All the cool special effects could easily be lost. Also, as the previous answerer said, it's easier to make a profit from a film than a tv show.







Personally, I think that most books should just stay as books. I can't complain when a movie brings a wider audience to a book I love, but I think that books were written as books - and not as movies, tv shows, or anything else - for a reason.

Answer 4

this would not extremely matter selection yet i study the fairway mile series while i became into extraordinarily youthful and suggested that of all his books, that's one that could desire to be made right into a action picture... and then a pair years later they did yet i nevertheless have not considered it. i'm ashamed to declare that i did no longer study harry potter till once I observed the 1st action picture. now this is my maximum loved e book, i reread each and all the time, extraordinarily while i bypass with the aid of a coarse time cuz this is often good and interior a internet site i'm absorbed and overlook something that is going on in my genuine life. with lotr, i observed the 1st action picture and HATED it. then i study the hobbit (probable no longer till after the 2d action picture). once I study the hobbit, i enjoyed the flicks a lot a lot. i did no longer study the trilogy till a pair of 365 days and a nil.5 in the past and that i'm satisfied i observed the flicks first because of the fact i like the books and could have been aggravated with multiple the discrepencies if the action picture hadn't been what i got here to nicely known initially. i'm listening to the da vinci code on tape now, although i wanted to study it earlier it grew to grow to be a action picture i'm merely now getting around to it. i did no longer love the action picture yet i'm liking listening to the audio e book a lot. i merely study inkheart and inkspell and shortly after ending them i found out that inkheart is now in preproduction to grow to be a action picture.

Answer 5

I don't believe t.v. is a waste material of your energy, it's that I see no real use than it nowadays and there is nothing at all educational or worthwhile on now. Children of today are exposed to 'entertainment' that is merely plain stupid and has no morale meaning in it

Answer 6

Just read a written book watching exactly the same publication that has been converted to that movie. A couple of details in a book that people take for granted watching a movie. We do not have the sense of color or smell our intellects can create.