Five Bad Books Made Into Bad (If Not Worse) Movies

By Elana Goodwin on July 28, 2014

Hollywood loves to take books and turn them into movies or TV shows, sometimes to overwhelming success and a good end product, and sometimes to pretty crappy results.

While turning a good book into a movie isn’t a guarantee the movie will turn out well, starting off with a bad book definitely doesn’t help. Here’s a list of bad books turned into bad (if not worse) movies.

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1. Twilight. Stephanie Meyer’s four “Twilight” books were made into five movies that together made a combined gross of over $1.3 billion at the box office.

“Twilight” is a story told from the perspective of teenager Bella Swan who moves to Forks, Washington, and falls in love with Edward Cullen, who she later discovers is a vampire.

This book soon caught on fire as preteen and teenage girls became obsessed with the series, regardless of the horrible writing, awful plot and weak characters.

In November 2008, the first movie in the series came out, with Kristen Stewart playing Bella and Robert Pattinson cast as Edward. The movie followed in the same vein as the book – in that it was awful.

Pattinson played a soft and constipated-looking Edward while Stewart’s acting was abysmal and included entirely too much lip-biting as Bella. Nevertheless, the movie did well at the box office, as did the next four, and the books all made the New York Times bestselling lists.

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2. The Nanny Diaries. Written in 2002 by former nannies Emma McLaughlin and Nicola Kraus, the book is a satire of Manhattan’s upper class told from the perspective of their kids’ caregivers.

The protagonist, Nanny, attempts to come across as selfless but really just seems whiny. Additionally, there was no character development to be seen and the authors failed to really engage the reader.

Of course, that didn’t stop it from making the NYT bestselling list and from being released as a movie in August 2007 starring Scarlett Johansson and Laura Linney.

Though the movie was just as bad as the book and tried to provide comic relief with instances of Johansson’s pants being pulled down by her young charge, it still managed to have a total lifetime gross of around $47.7 million.

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3. Eragon. The fantasy novel by 16-year-old Christopher Paolini is about a teenage boy who finds a blue stone in the forest that’s actually a dragon egg which hatches and changes his life.

The book’s writing was poor while the plot was cliché as it seemed like a bad knockoff of the “Lord of the Rings” books, with similarities to other fantasy novels as well.

Yet the book made the NYT Children’s Books Best Seller list and was made into a movie that came out in December 2006. Starring Ed Speleers and Sienna Guillory, the movie does stray from the book in terms of storyline but not in the right direction.

Despite the fact the book was awful and the movie no better, it had a total gross of $249.4 million.

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4. Diary of A Wimpy Kid. Written by cartoonist Jeff Kinney, the series is in diary-style form, with notes and doodles made by the the main character, middle schooler Greg Heffley.

While the title of the book would make it seem the protagonist is the one being bullied, in reality, Greg is the mean jerk in the series and the author provides no character development nor does Kinney really impart any important lessons to readers.

The first movie, “Diary of a Wimpy Kid,” was released in March 2010, with two more movies released in 2011 and 2012. The movies starred Zachary Gordon and Devon Bostick and were even worse than the book as bad casting weakened the already poor storylines. Nevertheless, the first movie had a worldwide lifetime gross of $75.7 million and the book was named a NYT bestseller.

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5. Fifty Shades of Grey. What started as “Twilight” fan fiction by British author E.L. James quickly became something else entirely as James wrote the highly sexualized erotic romance in 2011 and changed Bella and Edward’s names to Anastasia Steele and Christian Grey.

The “Fifty Shades” trilogy contains elements of BDSM and was originally self-published online before the rights were bought by Vintage Books in 2012. Word about the trilogy spread like wildfire among “Mommy”-aged women (among others) and it topped numerous bestselling lists in both the US and UK.

Readers were evidently nonplussed at the fact that “Fifty” reads like “Twilight” but with kinky sexual practices and a more messed-up relationship than the one Bella had with Edward (who wanted to pretty much KILL her so that’s saying something about Anastasia and Christian’s relationship).

Even worse than the storyline however, is the writing. An infographic by neomam.com counts the number of times James uses the term “eye-rolling” (14), “gaping” (23), “lip-biting” (43), and “blushing” (127), all while describing Anastasia and her actions.

Additionally, Anastasia has numerous dialogues and conversations with her subconscious (77) and “inner goddess” (53), all these combining for a repetitive and poorly-written novel (and there’s two more!).

While the movie has yet to come out and is slated for a 2015 Valentine’s Day release, the trailer came out last week and has already amassed over 13 million views. Starring Jamie Dornan as Christian and Dakota Johnson as Anastasia, the movie looks to be just as ridiculous and bad as the book, though it’s sure to open big in the box office.

These five movies notwithstanding, Hollywood has also done some amazing book-to-movie adaptations, which can be tricky as fans get attached to the book and can be harsh critics of the movie versions.

However, sometimes the movies do the books justice, such as with “The Harry Potter” series and ”The Hunger Games” trilogy, all of which earned praise and increased already huge fan followings and obsessions.

Advice? Go into movie adaptations of books with low expectations so you don’t get your hopes up — it’s then a lot easier for a movie to surpass whatever suppositions you had before watching it.

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