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10 iconic films based on weird sources
10 iconic films based on weird sources

Video: 10 iconic films based on weird sources

Video: 10 iconic films based on weird sources
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Many grossing and sensational films have been borrowed from other iconic works. For example, the movie "Jaws" was based on the novel "Jaws", a number of "Pirates of the Caribbean" moments on the behavior of guitarist Keith Richards, and Terry Gilliam's work on dementia. The following cult works were made on the basis of, to put it mildly, strange sources. Surely, many would not even think that a movie could be made of such a thing.

1. Producers (2005)

It is quite possible to forgive moviegoers who got confused in the plot of "Producers" (2005), the adaptation of the Broadway musical of the same name. Or it was an adaptation of a 1968 film by Mel Brooks … Or both, who knows.

The 2005 film is a rare successful example of recursive adaptation - that is, adapting to “situation A” from “situation B,” which was originally adapted from “situation A”. The 1968 film was remade into a Broadway musical, which was then adapted back into a 2005 film. That being said, the producers of the last film didn't even watch Brooks' original - they were completely based on the 2001 musical.

In fact, it was a great adaptation, but if you try to understand what happened in the original film from it, you can just break your brain.

2. An Inconvenient Truth (2006)

After losing the 2000 presidential election, Al Gore returned to his long-standing passion - global warming. He finished a slideshow on the topic that he started doing a few years ago and went on tour with him, presenting his presentations to hundreds of different audiences over the years.

In 2005, the presentation was seen by Laurie David, a part-time television producer and environmental activist, who somehow managed to persuade Gore to turn the presentation into a film. Although Gore was very passionate about his hobby, he was clearly not an outstanding speaker, but still decided to read his texts himself.

The 2006 film An Inconvenient Truth is largely just a filmed version of Gore's presentation, making it the only film we can say is based on a lecture. Of course, there is no reason to argue about the potential importance of the topic covered in it, but such "adapted lectures" still should not become regular.

3. Adaptation (2002)

If you ask any screenwriter to adapt nonsensical reflections on poaching and the life of orchids, such as Susan Orleans' The Orchid Thief, most likely the end result is just a pile of spoiled paper. This will be so unless the author is Charlie Kaufman, who has an epic twist on the plot, containing two of Nicolas Cage's best scenes, and considered one of the greatest scripts in history.

Kaufman transformed the non-adaptable novel, based on an original article by Susan Orleans in the New Yorker, into a reflection on the nature of adaptation itself - not only in a literary but also in an evolutionary sense.

Only Kaufman could carry out such an approach, and whoever initially had the idea to make a film out of The Thief of Orchids, he should thank heaven for the fact that it was Kaufman who wrote the script.

4. Promising is not the same as getting married (2009)

This romantic comedy with Ben Affleck and Jennifer Aniston is pretty standard, but few people even suspect that it is one of several incorrect adaptations of self-help books (more specifically, Oprah's 2004 book), which was inspired by the TV series Sex and the City. …

The book is, in fact, a long series of really obvious signs that the person with whom the character is in love is indifferent to him. And now the question is - how to make a feature film out of such triviality, and not a commercial. The result was a series of (supposedly) comic situations set against the backdrop of a sluggish romance between Ben Affleck and Jennifer Aniston.

Needless to say, the film is not well received by either critics or moviegoers.

5. The package (2009)

For his next film, Richard Kelly turned to the adaptation of a beautiful but extremely little-known story, whose most famous version is a 15-minute scene in the 80s Twilight Zone remake called Button, Button. And initially it was an adaptation from a very short (only 8 pages) story by Richard Matheson.

The story was too short to stretch even 15 minutes into a TV series, let alone a feature film, so it's no surprise that the film received very mixed reviews, to say the least.

6. Shop around the corner / you are being served

The popular English sitcom "You're Served" is essentially an updated version of the 1940 romantic comedy A Little Shop Around the Corner, which replaced the US Postal Service with AOL.

The first film, for some reason, was adapted from a little-known Hungarian play, Perfumery (1940), which was never even translated into English. As a result, both films have almost the same plot, and for this we can thank the Hungarian playwright Miklos Laszlo.

7. Fast and Furious (2001)

Vin Diesel's 2001 hit was based on an article in Vibe Magazine about illegal street racing called "Racer X". A 1998 article described the underground drag racing that spread throughout Southern California in the early 1990s. Many may be surprised that, apparently, there was no other source material for adaptation.

This is how an article from Vibe magazine spawned a series of eight feature films and two shorts.

8. I know what you did last summer (1997)

This 1997 film is known mainly for being released on the wave of hype by another youth slasher "Scream", which appeared on the screens a year earlier, and also has many similarities to it. Perhaps this is because the scripts for them were written by the same person - Kevin Williamson.

Unlike "Scream" or almost any other slasher film, this tape was adapted from the novel of the same name by Lois Duncan. That's right, this film was originally a dramatic youth novel (published 1973).

Of course, there were no bloody murders in the novel (one character was shot, but he survived), and it focused mainly on the romantic relationship between the main character and her boyfriend.

9. Braveheart (1995)

The historical film "Braveheart" is remembered as one of the last films in which Mel Gibson was simply amazing. Usually, no one even knows that it was based on the 15th century epic poem Wallace by the medieval Scottish bard known as Blind Harry.

Although the poem, which recounted the deeds of the Scotsman William Wallace, was used to write the plot of the film, very little is known about Blind Harry, as well as about Wallace himself.

10. Die Hard 4.0 (2007)

The Die Hard films are known for adapting their scripts from weird stuff, but in this case, it's not really weird. The 2007 film was based on John Carlin's 1997 article A Farewell to Arms in Wired magazine. The article describes the "war games" designed to anticipate and respond to an information attack.

Originally a 1999 WWW3.com article was written about a cyber terrorist attack on the United States, but filming was frozen after 9-11. Subsequently, the script was given to the Die Hard franchise. The film, as you know, failed to please fans and critics with its bloodless violence, "emasculated" dialogues and absurd explosions.

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