While it may seem like an easy process, there are many different steps needed in order to turn a novel into a film. The first step is acquiring the rights to the novel. Legally, this will allow you to write the screenplay. If this step is not followed, the novel’s author could sue you for millions of dollars for plagiarizing his novel. Purchasing rights is usually a very expensive step that can escalade into millions of dollars. However, Stephen King sold the rights to his novella, Rita Hayworth and The Shawshank Redemption to Frank Darabont for one dollar. Frank Darabont went and made The Shawshank Redemption, which is the highest rated movie of all time on IMDb.com. This shows that it doesn’t necessarily take a lot of money to secure the rights to a good film.
After securing the rights, the next step is to write the script and have it approved by a producer, a director, and a studio. Not only does it have to meet their expectations, but it also has to meet the expectations of the fans and the author. In 2005, author Clive Cussler sued Crusader Entertainment for not consulting him on the revised final draft of the script and for allegedly causing the film to flop in the box office. Once the screenplay is approved, it gets put into production where the movie is created.
The 1944 film Double Indemnity, was originally a novel of the same name written by James M. Cain. This film is an incredible example of how the novel adaptation process should go. First, Paramount Pictures purchased the rights to Double Indemnity from Cain for $15,000. Billy Wilder took the next step and decided to write the screenplay. Nevertheless, the novel was considered to be impossible to film. The characters and the double suicide ending were considered too immoral to film according to the Hay’s Production Code. To make the script film-able, the characters were toned down and the ending was changed. After watching the film several times, author James M. Cain said, "It's the only picture I ever saw made from my books that had things in it I wish I had thought of. Wilder's ending was much better than my ending, and his device for letting the guy tell the story by taking out the office dictating machine — I would have done it if I had thought of it." Wilder had received one of the highest praises a screenwriter can receive, a commendation from the original writer. Wilder’s successful adaptation is one of the reasons Double Indemnity was so widely praised.
Overall, the plot of Double Indemnity is the same in the novel, the screenplay, and the film. An insurance salesmen decides to help a client’s wife kill her husband to receive the insurance money. Also, the characters, the setting, and most of the character’s actions and relationships are the same in all three mediums. It is important to the story to keep the movie as faithful as possible to the original novel. If any characters were changed too much, the film may have flopped.
While they both have to do with creative writing, novels and screenplays are very different pieces of literature. Novels can span hundreds of pages while screenplays usually stay around 110 pages. Screenwriters must condense the novel, which can include erasing and combining characters, plot lines, and entire scenes. For example, the relationship between Walter and Lola remains friendly in the movie Double Indemnity, while in the book, they become romantic. This subplot may have been removed to cut down the movie’s time or to make the film seem more believable.
Not all changes are necessarily bad. Having the escape car stall on the train tracks was not important to the storyline, but it added tension that was not there in the book. The same applies to the scene when Phyllis almost gets caught by Keys at Walter’s apartment. Some scenes were changed in order to increase the believability of the film. In the novel, Walter sneaks into Phyllis’ car to kill her husband in broad daylight, but in the screenplay and film, Walter sneaks into their car when it is parked in the garage at night. If this had not happened, the story may have seemed less convincing. In addition, the “little man in the chest” was added to Keys’ character in order to describe his detective-like intuition about murder cases. If these few lines of dialogue were omitted from the film, nothing drastic would have changed. However, adding the “little man in the chest” created more of a personality and believability to Keys’ character.
Because novels, screenplays, and films are all different mediums, they need to be examined and created differently. Adapting a novel into a film is difficult because the writer needs to acquire the rights to the novel, have their screenplay approved, while remaining faithful to the original medium. If time and effort are put into this adaptation process, then successful films such as Double Indemnity are able to be created.
