Some of this season’s most talked about movies are getting all that attention for a reason. Life of Pi, The Hobbit and Les Misérables, for example, already had a fan base long before the movies came out. Many movies nowadays first started out and became known worldwide as literature.
“So many movies now are based off of books,” junior Grace Zhang said. “I like it because I get to experience the story in two different ways.”
Life of Pi was written by Yann Martel and published in 2001. It quickly rocketed to fame and received critical acclaim, winning awards in the United Kingdom, Canada, France, South Africa and Paris within a year. Many students know Life of Pi as a middle school required reading, and despite the controversial ending, most are still eager to watch the film adaptation.
“I haven’t seen the Life of Pi movie or read the book either, but I will read the book because I’ve heard it was good,” junior Idrissa Ndiaye said. “I don’t want to watch the movie until I’ve read the book.”
The Hobbit was not only critically praised and famous as a standalone book, but was also a spinoff of the already widely popular Lord of the Rings series. After the Lord of the Rings books were turned into a film trilogy, the time for The Hobbit had arrived. Similarly to Life of Pi, The Hobbit was also required reading in middle school for Plano ISD.
“I read The Hobbit in middle school and I’m rereading it now,” Zhang said. “I can’t wait for the movie to come out because I liked the Lord of the Rings series.”
Victor Hugo’s Les Misérables has been famous since it was published in 1862. However, Les Misérables may in fact be best known for its musical interpretation. The play was first performed in 1980, and despite a rocky start and largely negative reviews, it quickly earned record orders in the box office and stands today as one of the longest running musicals performed on Broadway and West End.
“The Les Misérables musical really put the book into emotional perspective,” junior Evan Lane said. “I can’t wait to see my favorite musical on the big screen and just experience the amazing acting and have the action be right in my face.”
The movement of famous books being turned into movies is not a novel idea, but has become much more common in the past few years, with the Harry Potter series arguably being the most notable. However, while literature provides original stories and most books which were turned into films were already famous beforehand, there are those who do not enjoy the new trend.
“The books are always better,” Ndiaye said. “Directors always cut scenes off and the movies are never how the reader imagined it.”
