Wednesday 13 August 2008

Top 48 Films Based On A Book

Saw this on Mark Charan Newton's blog. No one tags me on these meme things, but I'm going to do it anyway. So there.

Below is a list of the top grossing 48 films based on science fiction novels. Apparently, the list is from Box Office Mojo, and it looks distinctly dodgy - at least one isn't from a novel, and several are obscure straight-to-video films. And there are a lot of not very good ones there, too.

Anyway, the rules are: mark in bold those books you've read, italicise those films you've seen. I've also annotated it because, well, I wanted to.

1. Jurassic Park
2. War of the Worlds - seen all three versions, in fact.
3. The Lost World: Jurassic Park
4. I, Robot
5. Contact
6. Congo
7. Cocoon - nope, not based on a novel.
8. The Stepford Wives - seen both versions.
9. The Time Machine - seen both versions.
10. Starship Troopers - book bad, film good.
11. The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy
12. K-PAX
13. 2010
14. The Running Man
15. Sphere
16. The Mothman Prophecies
17. Dreamcatcher
18. Blade Runner (Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?)
19. Dune - new film adaptation in production!
20. The Island of Dr. Moreau
21. Invasion of the Body Snatchers
22. The Iron Giant (The Iron Man)
23. Battlefield Earth - to my eternal shame, I have read the book. And it's a toss-up which is worse, the book or the film.
24. The Incredible Shrinking Woman
25. Fire in the Sky - not novels, then: this is "based on a true story". About a UFO abduction. Ah, so it is science fiction.
26. Altered States
27. Timeline
28. The Postman
29. Freejack (Immortality, Inc.)
30. Solaris - seen both. The Tarkovsky version is vastly superior. Lem apparently hated it.
31. Memoirs of an Invisible Man
32. The Thing (Who Goes There?) - seen both versions.
33. The Thirteenth Floor
34. Lifeforce (Space Vampires)
35. Deadly Friend - never even heard of this, looks like a straight-to-video.
36. The Puppet Masters
37. 1984
38. A Scanner Darkly
39. Creator - never heard of this one, either. These are supposed to be the 48 top grossing sf films?
40. Monkey Shines
41. Solo (Weapon)
42. The Handmaid’s Tale - I have the book, not read it yet though.
43. Communion
44. Carnosaur
45. From Beyond - apparently based on something by HP Lovecraft.
46. Nightflyers - another straight-to-video, although it seems the novel was by George RR Martin.
47. Watchers
48. Body Snatchers

I tag Jim Steel, Gary Gibson, Craig Andrews, and Mike Cobley.