15 Authors Who Hated Movie Adaptations Of Their Books

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For an author, getting their book adapted into a film can be seen as a great honor. It’s a way for their work to be accessible to a wider audience and hopefully spark or renew interest in the original work. While the common adage is that the book is always superior to the movie, it could be argued that many movie adaptations surpass the source material. 

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Still, there will always be novelists who wish they never got mixed up with Hollywood in the first place. It’s understandable for an author to hate an adaptation if it completely misses the point of the book or is just plain bad. But some authors hate stone-cold cinematic classics for one different reason or another. It might be unavoidable to an extent, with authors feeling absolutely precious over their works than anything else. Even if a change is made for understandable reasons, the author may still prefer what they did first. These authors hated movie adaptations of their books regardless of what the general public might think. 

Perhaps the best-known example of an author hating an adaptation is Stephen King’s contempt for Stanley Kubrick’s “The Shining.” Things were frosty between the two auteurs from the beginning, with King actually wanting Don Siegel to helm the film version of “The Shining.” Instead, Kubrick got the job and changed many aspects of the story, including the character of Jack Torrance (Jack Nicholson) as someone who’s always on the brink of madness rather than a fairly normal guy who becomes mad due to the Overlook Hotel.

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Years after “The Shining” movie, King spoke with Deadline about his qualms. “I think ‘The Shining’ is a beautiful film and it looks terrific and as I’ve said before, it’s like a big, beautiful Cadillac with no engine inside it,” he said. Few would argue Kubrick didn’t make a masterpiece with his “Shining,” but it’s understandable if King believes a filmmaker should work more in tandem with the original work’s author. “I can’t understand why any filmmaker wants to spend $1 million for a book and then do something that bears very little resemblance to that book,” he concluded.

Disney once tried to make an animated “Catcher in the Rye,” but author J.D. Salinger forbade any adaptations of his most enduring work. That’s at least partly due to a misguided attempt to adapt one of his other works in the form of 1949’s “My Foolish Heart.”

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Salinger’s original short story, titled “Uncle Wiggily in Connecticut,” is about a woman in an unhappy marriage reflecting on her first love, who has since died. It’s a nuanced look at relationships while also exploring and criticizing the modern middle class. Meanwhile, the movie seems more interested in offering audiences something akin to a melodramatic soap opera. Salinger hated the film although, to be fair, more superfluous material would be required for any feature-length film as the short story only comprises a few key scenes in Eloise’s (Susan Hayward) life. “My Foolish Heart” is a mere facsimile, a great big phony if you will, of the original story, adding to Salinger’s mystique as he prevented any more of his works from hitting the big screen. 

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1973’s “Charlotte’s Web” is a classic for many people’s childhoods. The tearjerker of a film follows Charlotte (Debbie Reynolds), the spider who writes inspiring messages in her web about what a great pig Wilbur (Henry Gibson) to save him from slaughter. You would think that would want to make bystanders save the spider at all costs since she’s the amazing one, but to each their own. The movie’s been a family classic for decades, but it didn’t have a fan in the story’s original author, E.B. White.

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There’s one major difference between the film and book — the inclusion of songs. Hanna-Barbera got the Sherman Brothers, who worked on many Disney films including “Mary Poppins,” to craft the tunes, and while the music may be a highlight for some, White hated it. “The story is interrupted every few minutes so that somebody can sing a jolly song,” he reportedly wrote to a friend (via The Boston Globe). “I don’t care much for jolly songs.” For White, the addition was far from being “Terrific, Terrific, Terrific.”

P.L. Travers’ reluctance toward Walt Disney adapting “Mary Poppins” into a film is so notorious that it became the subject of the 2013 film, “Saving Mr. Banks.” However, at the end of that movie, Travers watches the adaptation in a theater and is moved to tears by the story. In actuality, she detested the film.

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Travers was extremely reluctant to sell over the “Mary Poppins” rights in the first place, but after Disney wore her down after decades and she was running low on cash, she agreed. She maintained a firm hand over the production process and was unhappy about things such as the Sherman Brothers making up the word “responstable” to rhyme with “constable” during one of the songs. Despite the setbacks, the film eventually came out and was a huge hit for Disney, but Travers remained unimpressed. 

In fact, one humorous story following the premiere involves Travers approaching Disney and telling him to cut the animated sequence, only for him to inform her that the movie was done and getting released. As such, Travers prevented Disney from adapting any of the book sequels. Disney would eventually make “Mary Poppins Returns” in 2018, but it’s an original story not directly based on any others in the series. 

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1961’s “Breakfast at Tiffany’s” was a truly groundbreaking film at the time. It created the mold of a confident, charming, witty woman who didn’t need a man to define her place in the world. Holly Golightly (Audrey Hepburn) also became a fashion icon of sorts with her signature black dress and pearls. It’s hard to imagine anyone other than Hepburn embodying the role, but Truman Capote, who wrote the 1958 novella its based on, originally wanted Marilyn Monroe for the part. 

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That didn’t come to pass, in part because Monroe didn’t have the best reputation for arriving on set on time and remembering her lines. One can imagine Hepburn’s casting is part of the reason Capote spoke ill of the film for the rest of his life, saying how the whole thing is miscast, which can certainly apply to Mickey Rooney’s extremely racist Japanese caricature as I.Y. Yunioshi. Capote also criticized how the film lacked the nuance of the story, which keeps Holly as more of an enigma than a fleshed-out person. It would appear when it comes to Hollywood adaptations, preferring opaqueness over nuance is the name of the game. 

“I Am Legend” arguably remains Richard Matheson’s most enduring story. It follows a man who has survived a pandemic that has killed off most of humanity and turned most survivors into vampires except him. It’s been adapted into several films, and author Richard Matheson doesn’t care for most of them. 

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In an interview with the Tor/Forge blog, Matheson said he thought Vincent Price was miscast in 1964’s “The Last Man on Earth” while also failing to “capture the book all that well.” In regards to the 1971 adaptation, he said, “I didn’t care for the Heston movie [‘The Omega Man’]. It was so far removed from the book, though, it didn’t bother me.” In that same talk, the author mentioned being excited to see 2007’s “I Am Legend” although he admitted not having seen it at that point. 

There doesn’t appear to be any quotes from Matheson about his thoughts about the most recent iteration, which is a shame because it would be fascinating to hear what he thought of the controversial ending to “I Am Legend” as well as the alternate finale that’s more in line with what happens in the book. 

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Gene Wilder as the titular character in 1971’s “Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory” remains one of his most enduring roles. The sardonic, scheming candy maker is certainly a highlight, but the author of the book, Roald Dahl, hated Wilder in the role. Dahl reportedly wanted Peter Sellers or Spike Milligan for the part, but the casting was only one of his qualms. 

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Dahl took umbrage with the title change, seeing as the original work is called “Charlie & the Chocolate Factory,” which puts Charlie Bucket (Peter Ostrum) more front and center. Additionally, he thought the movie was ultimately more optimistic than his book. Dahl tends to work best when characters (particularly children) are going through immense, Dickensian misery, which the film has a bit of with all the bad children going through various ironic punishments. The author also didn’t like any of the movie’s musical numbers, calling them “sappy” and “saccharine” according to Donald Sturrock, author of the Dahl biography, “Storyteller.”

No author is harder to please than Alan Moore. He’s written some of the most influential graphic novels of all time but detests every adaptation to the point where he refuses to put his name on any of them. 2009’s “Watchmen” ignores the central thesis of his book, namely how all superheroes are fascists. Moore didn’t see the HBO sequel series but admitted he wasn’t a fan of it and didn’t want anyone contacting him about the show.

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When it comes to the adaptation of “V for Vendetta,” Moore told MTV (via ComicBook.com), “Those words, ‘fascism’ and ‘anarchy,’ occur nowhere in the film. It’s been turned into a Bush-era parable by people too timid to set a political satire in their own country.” It seems Moore doesn’t appreciate how Hollywood sanitizes his works, which generally take a no-holds-barred approach to the rise of authoritarianism and how superheroes placate adults into obsessing over infantile power fantasies. 

The only Alan Moore adaptation the author seems to like is the “For the Man Who Has Everything” episode of “Justice League Unlimited,” which actually has his name attached. Leave it to a cartoon to do Moore justice.

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“Percy Jackson & the Olympians: The Lightning Thief” came out during the Young Adult boon of the 2010s. But despite a massive fanbase from the original source material and being directed by “Home Alone” helmer Chris Columbus, the movie received a mixed response. It did well enough to garner a sequel “Sea of Monsters,” but the franchise quickly fizzled out, with author Rick Riordan slamming the films to the press. 

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Riordan admitted on X (Twitter at the time) that he didn’t even watch the adaptations but knew they would be disasters from the scripts (via Entertainment Weekly). “I still have not seen the movies, and don’t plan on ever doing so,” he said. “I judge them from having read the scripts because I care most about the story. I certainly have nothing against the very talented actors. Not their fault.” Riordan has been much kinder toward the Disney+ “Percy Jackson” show, probably because he’s more directly involved. He co-wrote several episodes in the first season and even developed a series bible to keep the show much closer to his original vision. 

Many may not even realize that the 1997 slasher film “I Know What You Did Last Summer” is based on a book. That’s probably because the two are immensely different tonally. While the original book by Lois Duncan is more of a morality play that reads like a thriller, the movie is a straight-up slasher with ample violence. And those kills are precisely why Duncan can’t stand the adaptation. 

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Duncan told The Daily Press, “They optioned my story, not my soul. There is no way I want to be part of desensitizing kids to violence and turning murder into a game to see who can scream the loudest.” She refused to help promote the film and didn’t attend the Hollywood premiere.

The bloodier elements may have hit a particularly sour note for Duncan, considering her 18-year-old daughter was killed in a shooting in 1989. The fact “IKWYDLS” is a more straightforward slasher is probably why multiple scrapped scenes could be repurposed for “Scream 2,” especially as both films were written by Kevin Williamson. 

According to Rotten Tomatoes, there have been three perfect Agatha Christie adaptations, and the prolific mystery author reportedly hates one of those, namely “Murder She Said.” Starting in 1961, MGM put out four movies starring Margaret Rutherford as Miss Marple, and Christie just didn’t think she was a good pick for the part. Christie didn’t harbor any ill will toward the actress, even dedicating her 1962 novel, “The Mirror Crack’d from Side to Side,” to the performer, but she felt as though she didn’t embody the famous detective. 

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It seems Christie had issues with adaptations changing too much about her books, which was a necessary evil given the time constraints of film. But she enjoyed other movies, like 1974’s “Murder on the Orient Express” starring Albert Finney as Hercule Poirot. For that one, her main criticism was that Finney didn’t sport Poirot’s famous mustache.

“American Psycho” is one of those films where if a man tells you it’s his favorite, you have to suss out whether he understood the satirical elements or not. But one person who definitely isn’t putting it into their Letterboxd Top 4 is Bret Easton Ellis, who wrote the 1991 novel it’s based on. 

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While the film pokes fun at consumerism, there’s ambiguity concerning whether Patrick Bateman (Christian Bale) is actually killing people, especially toward the end. This is Ellis’ primary issue with any adaptation of the work, as he told Film School Rejects, “‘American Psycho’ I also don’t think really works as a film. The movie is fine, but I think that book is unadaptable because it’s about consciousness, and you can’t really shoot that sensibility.” While “fine” is a much better review than other movies on this list have received from authors, he definitely has some issues with it. 

In an “American Psycho” oral history from MovieMaker Magazine, he also claimed the movie was part of “woke-ness in the culture,” elaborating, “I write this book that upsets so many people, I need to be put in my place. And what better narrative is there than that two women [director Mary Harron and co-writer Guinevere Turner] did it?”

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“One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest” is seen by many as a masterpiece, winning Best Picture at the 1976 Oscars in what’s one of the most competitive line-ups of all time, with “Jaws,” “Dog Day Afternoon,” “Barry Lyndon,” and “Nashville” also in the running. But Ken Kesey, who wrote the 1962 novel it’s based on, probably would’ve preferred something like “Jaws” take home the big prize. 

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Kesey has been outspoken about having never seen the film, knowing they changed key aspects. For starters, the story is no longer told from Chief Bromden’s (Will Sampson) perspective in the film, which lessens some of the book’s larger themes regarding conformity. Plus, in one interview (via NPR), Kesey criticized the movie’s tone, saying, “I wanted to do ‘The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari,’ and they wanted to do ‘Hogan’s Heroes.'” It may have been too silly for Kesey’s liking, but the Academy clearly didn’t mind.

Anthony Burgess’ feelings on Stanley Kubrick’s adaptation of his book, “A Clockwork Orange,” are somewhat convoluted. On a purely artistic level, Burgess apparently loved the film, even calling it “technically brilliant” in a review. The source of Burgess’ mixed feelings toward the project seems to stem from how the movie eventually overshadowed his original work. 

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In a separate quote (via The International Anthony Burgess Foundation), the author lamented, “Kubrick’s achievement swallowed mine, whole, and yet I was responsible for what some called its malign influence on the young.” Things only got worse as the years went on, such as journalists only wanting to talk to Burgess about the film adaptation or a publication of the movie’s screenplay that was titled “Stanley Kubrick’s A Clockwork Orange.” It appears Burgess could acknowledge that the movie was incredible, but the story became more affiliated with Kubrick rather than himself when it was born from his mind. It’s surely something that many authors deal with when a movie becomes more integral to pop culture than the book.

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A lot of people may hate “The Neverending Story” for traumatizing a generation of kids by giving the horse a slowly agonizing death. German author Michael Ende who wrote the book the film is based on hates it for deviating too much from his original tale. 

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In 1984, People chronicled Ende’s journey with the film, which he initially supported and worked on as an advisor. However, Ende later claimed they changed large chunks of the story without his knowledge. “I was horrified,” he said. “They had changed the whole sense of the story. Fantastica reappears with no creative force from Bastian. For me this was the essence of the book.” He’d even refer to the film as “revolting.” 

Ende wanted either to change the name of the movie to have no affiliation with his book or to half production to get things back on track to his original vision. He sued when the creative forces behind the scenes refused but lost the case. Ende, like many authors who hated movie adaptations of their books, feeling betrayed by Hollywood is sadly a tale as old as time.

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