I prefer reading the book first. I rarely watch the movie after reading the book because 90% of the time I'm disappointed. What is it about Hollywood?
They see a book. Sometimes it's incredibly popular, a bestseller. At other times, it's just a great find they picked up from a shelf. They take this project, which was very important to the writer. And they butcher it. All under the guise of artistic license. I got that. But a book isn't, say, a painting. When someone goes into a gallery and the title of the show is 'An Interpretation of...', the patron knows it's going to be someone's creative views on whatever the subject is. With a movie based on a book, it's a whole different story. No pun intended. Viewers, more often than not, want to see the book come to life, not to be a loose, personal interpretation thereof.
Two books come to mind when I think of book I read that had VERY different endings as movies. I felt those endings were disparate enough that they blew the whole movie experience. First is THE FIRM by John Grisham. The book's ending was much, MUCH more thrilling.
The second book is THE HORSE WHISPERER by Nicholas Evans. In the book the guy does NOT ride off into the sunset as he did in the movie. I wanted to vomit I was so disgusted. I know there's artistic license and all but I think when H'wood is going to do that they should then add to the credits that the movie is very loosely adapted from the book, not just 'This movie is adapted from the book by...' And it should be the first credit rolled at the beginning of the movie.
With longer books? Difficult decision. After all, HBO took a normal sized book (Charlaine Harris) and turned it into an entire season (True Blood). I guess it all depends on the aptitude of the producer/screenwriter and how they're able to convey the most important poin
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