Picture this. You’ve been waiting for months for the blockbuster adaptation of your favorite book, and finally, you’re sitting in the cinema watching the title come up on the giant screen. Anticipation fills you as you imagine what your favorite scenes will look like in real life.

However, once the credits roll, you’re left with a slightly empty feeling inside. Your friend turns to you and asks, ‘So, what did you think?’. You reply with four words- the book was better.

Since cinema became popular, books have been a frequent source of information on which films are based. The first-ever book-to-film adaptation was Cinderella, released in 1899 and based on French author Charles Perrault’s version of the classic fairy tale. It soon became clear that literary adaptations were here to stay in cinema, with an uncountable amount released each year.

In most cases, these adaptations are great films, or at least they respect the source material. Even so, a truly awful ‘Hollywood Treatment’ of a book is sometimes made, repelling original readers and newcomer movie-goers alike. In honor of these questionable films, let’s revisit some of the worst adaptations that have made readers wonder whether the scriptwriters had even read the synopsis, let alone the actual book.

Chaos Walking

Written by Patrick Ness just before the early 2010s teen dystopian craze, the Chaos Walking trilogy took a unique approach to the genre. Set in a world where men can hear each other’s thoughts and all women are dead due to a germ released by aliens called ‘Spackle,’ the first novel in the trilogy introduces Todd Hewitt, a boy who is about to come of age in his community.

After discovering that the mayor of his hometown is hiding something, he runs away and is forced to survive with only a map and his annoying but loyal dog, Manchee. If things weren’t confusing enough for Todd, he finds something he didn’t know still existed- a girl.

Heartbreakingly, what could have been the movie that rejuvenated the teen sci-fi genre instead fell flat, grossing only $27.1 million against a budget of over $100 million. In all fairness, its box office was restricted due to being released quickly after COVID-19. However, this doesn’t excuse its underdeveloped characters and lack of the strong, darker themes that made the original novel stand out.

Not even its star-studded cast could save it, with Tom Holland, Daisy Ridley, and Mads Mikkelsen playing leading roles. Even Lionsgate gave up on it, leaving fans feeling robbed of the adaptation that could have been.

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Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children

After spending 45 weeks on the New York Times best-seller list, Ransom Riggs’s debut novel seemed destined to become a great movie. The novel centers on Jacob Portman, a teenager who, after witnessing his grandfather’s death, has begun to experience nightmares about the monsters that his grandfather had told him about. Fearing he has gone crazy, his parents speak to a psychiatrist who recommends that they take him to the Welsh island where his grandfather spent his childhood in an attempt to confront his trauma.

There, he discovers the peculiars, children who have special abilities and live in a time loop created by their caretaker, Miss Peregrine, to protect them from monsters known as Hollowgast. It’s soon clear that the peculiars are in danger, and Jacob has to protect his new friends.

It seemed almost perfect that the film was picked up by director Tim Burton, famed for his dark, quirky style, which perfectly matched the book. However, it soon became obvious to fans that the film was not meant for them, with characters being switched regarding their role in the story for no apparent reason. Although the film didn’t do badly at the box office or with critics, the style was clearly prioritized over the story, and without the film’s stunning visual effects, there isn’t much to get excited about.

Percy Jackson & the Olympians: The Lightning Thief

The most famous out of all the adaptations on this list, Rick Riordan’s Greek mythology-based series, took the world by storm back in 2005 and still is to this day. It is centered around Percy Jackson, a demigod who recently discovered that his father is Poseidon, the Greek god of the sea. He finds himself in Camp Half-blood, a summer camp for demigods where they learn to fight against the various monsters that attack them. Suddenly, Percy is accused of stealing Zeus', King of the Gods, lightning bolt, leading him to be sent on a quest to find it with his friends.

The first sign that this fast-paced adventure novel’s adaptation was doomed was when the characters were inexplicably aged up. To make matters worse, Riordan was completely excluded from the writing process, leading to the characters losing the charm that they had in the books.

As several of the books’ storylines were merged together, the plot of the movie is rather unfocused and gives a general impression that the studio intended to set up a franchise rather than just make a good movie. Unlike the other movies on this list, Percy Jackson had a second adaptation recently- a TV series called Percy Jackson and the Olympians- which succeeded in the areas where the movie failed, reintroducing the characters and books to a new generation.

Don’t be disheartened by the movies on this list, though, as many recent book adaptations have been some of the best yet! Dune Part 2 captured the novel’s essence perfectly while making the novel into something more manageable (although it doesn’t seem like it with its 166-minute runtime!), and Netflix’s One Day has made everyone who’s watched it break down into floods of tears before running off to buy the book. These show that literary adaptations don’t have to be bad; in fact, they can be amazing. All it takes is a few enthusiastic fans who love the book more than the money that its adaptation could make.