"Now a Major Motion Picture"--just like every other published novel

    

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Young adult novels have been in the pop culture news recently with the release of the newest Twilight Saga movie and the trailer release for the Hunger Games adaptation.

I've started pondering a bit about the almost instantaneous assumption that readers have that if a book is popular, there will be a movie adaptation. We see this not only with YA literature, but with adult fiction novels as well. But there is truth in my theory, because there does seem to be a correlation between a book's popularity and an adaptation being made.

This has not just been going on recently, but in years passed as well. John Steinbeck's novels Of Mice and Men and The Grapes of Wrath were adapted for the big screen (and the stage) within years of being published.

There is a slight difference however between these adaptations and more recent adaptations. Steinbeck's novels are considered to be literary classics and the adaptations were beneficial to the general public. The timelessness of the stories is what made them popular.

We see almost the complete opposite with adaptations today, especially with YA literature. If a book is popular with teens, production companies battle over who gets those film rights. It does not matter if the book is good, substantive, timeless material. It just has to be interesting and popular.

I think that is why we haven't seen adaptations of great YA novels like Lois Lowry's The Giver or Laurie Halse Anderson's Wintergirls. Although these books have material that can make a teen think or provides them with realistic, timeless situations, they haven't been as popular with the teenage audience as books by Stephenie Meyer, Suzanne Collins and J.K. Rowling.

But do we need all of these adaptations? Does putting a novel on the big screen take away the element of imagination that many readers relish? I think there is a certain point, and I think as a society we have reached it. It is ridiculous that any book that is popular and reaches #1 on the New York Times bestseller list is becoming a film. Not only does it detract from the reader's imagination, but it has also caused a bit of laziness in the film industry. New, innovative story ideas for films have taken a seat on the bench while adaptations have become the star athletes in the film world.

I'm not saying all film adaptations of novels are bad. Peter Jackson created great adaptations of the Lord of the Rings  trilogy that are much easier and painless to watch than reading J.R.R. Tolkein's excessive description.

I think we need to step back and think about why an adaptation is made and if there is any need for a certain novel to be made into a film. Because doing so just gives teenagers another excuse to say "I'll just watch the movie" instead of delving into the book themselves.