Why we love films based on books

Given that roughly 200,000 books are published in the UK alone every year, it should come as no surprise that films based on books are currently booming at the box office. According to recent figures, novel adaptations have enjoyed up to 57% more ticket sales at the cinema than their non-adaptation counterparts, which is an impressive figure indeed.

It’s not just one ‘type’ of film that has proved successful, either. This year alone, to name just a few, we have seen the likes of Ryan Gosling sci-fi blockbuster Project Hail Mary, friends-to-lovers romance People We Meet on Vacation, grief drama H is for Hawk, and the Oscar-nominated historical saga Hamnet.

One of the most surprising successes was the screen version of Freida McFadden’s The Housemaid, which set the box office alight to the tune of $401m worldwide and resulted in the fast-tracking of a sequel, which is due in December 2027.

Of all the genres continually raided for reinterpretation, though, it’s classic literature that rules the roost. In the past year, we have seen a lavish (if divisive!) reimagining of Wuthering Heights and an epic Netflix version of Frankenstein. On the horizon is Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey (starring Matt Damon) and a new Sense and Sensibility led by Daisy Edgar-Jones, among many more.

All of this begs the question: just what is it about book adaptations that keeps drawing us in? I believe that there are a number of reasons, and one of them is, naturally, ‘brand’ awareness. Clearly, if a book is a monetary success and hits all the best-seller lists, we all know about it, and we’ll be more inclined to take a risk on a film based on familiar material. For film financiers, this equates to proof of an audience for that particular story, hence more books are made into films, and the cycle continues.

Novels are attractive to filmmakers, too. As a film journalist writing for Radio Times, I once interviewed a director who revealed that they preferred adapting books for the screen to writing their own original scripts. Why? Because a lot of the hard work had already been done – when it came to the story, at least. This particular filmmaker liked having a blueprint from which to work, even if the demands of visual storytelling meant cutting or changing certain elements.

You can imagine a lot of filmmakers feel similarly. Certain directors routinely look to literary works for inspiration, with the likes of Stephen Spielberg, Greta Gerwig, Andrea Arnold, and Martin Scorsese all having directed numerous films based on novels. Hollywood titan Reese Witherspoon has even set up her own studio, Hello Sunshine, which has a team dedicated to reading early manuscripts and pre-empting their screen rights before they have even been published.

It’s interesting too, to note that streaming services such as Netflix like to highlight films that are based on books, often giving them their own category on their home page. This might appear strange at first – why would anybody be specifically looking to watch movies inspired by novels? – but it seems to me that, most often, it is because films with literary roots often denote ‘quality’.

A certain pedigree of storytelling is associated with these movies, as if a film’s literary origins endows it with inherent excellence. It can’t hurt that awards bodies tend to agree. The likes of Rebecca, The Godfather, The Shawshank Redemption, Atonement, Call Me by Your Name and Nomadland were all garlanded with awards on release, helping to establish a firm link in audience’s minds between ‘book adaptations’ and ‘high quality’.

Clearly, screen versions of our favourite stories are here to stay. How could they not be, when they prove so successful? And while we readers enjoy an embarrassment of riches when it comes to books, films offer an altogether different experience. Not better, not worse, just different, and I for one will always embrace that kind of variety.

Josh Winning