Differences between original version and movie tie-in.

[Zarq]

I always thought the only difference between an original version and a movie tie-in version was that they changed the original cover to a still from the movie, and that's it. However, on another forum I frequent there's a guy who says movie tie-ins often change stuff in the book so it's closer to the movie. Books he says where that happened are the Eragon series, My Sister's Keeper, the Twilight series, The Golden Compass and The Help. I can't find anything about this on Google, and it just seems counterintuitive to me. They'd have to actually put effort in that, instead of just slapping on a new cover.

Can anyone debunk or prove this?

[Fedechiar]

"In extremely rare cases, a movie tie-in book may also be a "re-telling" or abridgement of an original novel. For instance, H. Rider Haggard's She was re-told/abridged by author Don Ward when it was issued as a mapback in 1949 although it is not directly related to a specific filmed adaptation—the number of characters was reduced, the activities of the plot were simplified to match the plot of the film, and the language of the original novel was simplified."

From wiki - so yeah, if the author says it's OK and works on it him- or herself, the book may be changed, but I don't think there are a lot of writers who would accept that

[Zarq]

Yeah, that's what he told me. Using an example of something that's not a movie tie-in to prove that movie tie-ins sometimes change stuff? I'm surprised it even stayed on wikipedia that long. The version that paragraph is talking about also clearly specified it was "Retold" version.

[AvatarIII]

The Golden Compass was originally called The Northern Lights before the movie came out, but as far as I know there is no difference in content.

[semicharmed]

The Golden Compass was originally called The Northern Lights before the movie came out, but as far as I know there is no difference in content.

It was actually released as The Golden Compass in the US originally; my grandparents gave it to me for a birthday or Christmas when I was somewhere between 11-13, so late 90s/early 00s, the book had an image of the aelethiometer on the cover and so the title fit pretty well. Same thing with Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, it was Sorcerer's Stone in the US. And I've read the movie tie-in LOTR series - after someone else read them for the second time - and he didn't say anything about the content being different.

[Adacore]

It was actually released as The Golden Compass in the US originally; my grandparents gave it to me for a birthday or Christmas when I was somewhere between 11-13, so late 90s/early 00s, the book had an image of the aelethiometer on the cover and so the title fit pretty well. Same thing with Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, it was Sorcerer's Stone in the US.

The difference there, though, is that in the UK the Harry Potter movie was still called Philosopher's Stone (in agreement with the book, not with the US movie), whereas the Dark Materials movie was titled The Golden Compass (as opposed to the book's Northern Lights title, in order to conform with the US movie title). Therefore, in the UK, it made sense to retitle the book for the film (otherwise people may not have realised that The Golden Compass and Northern Lights were the same thing); it made no sense to do so for Harry Potter, where the film title and book title were already the same in the UK.

[SurgicalSteel]

Well, there are these:
http://www.amazon.com/Jurassic-Park-Jun ... 044840172X
http://www.amazon.com/Lost-World-Jurass ... 0448415763

They're novelizations of the movies and have no ties to the books unless it was in the film. I remember reading the Lost World one when I was a kid, and later reading the actual Lost World. It wasn't a simplification of the novel, like the Great Illustrated Classics books, it was a narrative of the movie.

[PatrickRsGhost]

Well, there are these:
http://www.amazon.com/Jurassic-Park-Jun ... 044840172X
http://www.amazon.com/Lost-World-Jurass ... 0448415763

They're novelizations of the movies and have no ties to the books unless it was in the film. I remember reading the Lost World one when I was a kid, and later reading the actual Lost World. It wasn't a simplification of the novel, like the Great Illustrated Classics books, it was a narrative of the movie.

Never read those two specific ones, but I do remember reading other movie novelizations. The main one that sticks out in my mind is novelization of "The Addams Family", with Raul Julia and Angelica Houston. The novelization actually had more "meat" as far as the plot went. There were a few minor differences, such as at the very beginning, the carolers are singing "Deck the Halls" in the movie; in the novelization, they're described as singing "Jingle Bells".

One would suspect that some of the novelizations were taken from an original script of the movie, or else before the final script was approved, and before the movie was edited to what we saw in the theaters or on video. Sometimes scenes were filmed, tested, and found to drag the storyline out too long, so it's shortened and refilmed. Other parts are left out, either because they didn't add too much to the general plot, or dragged the story out too long.

[PAstrychef]

And then there's The Thing. It started out as a short story, Who Goes There?, then became an episode of Outer Limits on TV, then became a movie, then Alan Dean Foster wrote a novelization of the movie, which was then remade at least twice. Although one remake I saw was in claymation, and used penguins for characters.
I've known authors to write scenes to make the book match the cover art. I know that my favorite hero of thrillers, a 6'4" 250 lb brick shithouse, is being played by Tom Cruise. I sort of doubt they could change the seventeen novels written to date to make Jack Reacher match Tom Cruise in height or heft.

[semicharmed]

The difference there, though, is that in the UK the Harry Potter movie was still called Philosopher's Stone (in agreement with the book, not with the US movie), whereas the Dark Materials movie was titled The Golden Compass (as opposed to the book's Northern Lights title, in order to conform with the US movie title). Therefore, in the UK, it made sense to retitle the book for the film (otherwise people may not have realised that The Golden Compass and Northern Lights were the same thing); it made no sense to do so for Harry Potter, where the film title and book title were already the same in the UK.

Ahh, I didn't realize that. It makes sense, though - The Golden Compass and The Northern Lights don't seem related, at all, while the first book/movie was still "Harry Potter and the *Stone".

And Tom Cruise playing Reacher... seems wrong. I've only read a few of the Reacher books, but my head-Reacher looks nothing like Cruise. Also, I have seen (and used) a brick shithouse, and I think it might be smaller than the picture in my head of Reacher.

[AvatarIII]

And then there's The Thing. It started out as a short story, Who Goes There?, the. Became an episode of Outer Limits on TV, then became a movie, then Alan Dean Foster wrote a novelization of the movie, which was then remade at least twice. Although one remake I saw was in claymation, and used penguins for characters.
I've known authors to write scenes to make the book match the cover art. I know that my favorite hero of thrillers, a 6'4" 250 lb brick shithouse, is being played by Tom Cruise. I sort of doubt they could change the seventeen novels written to date to make Jack Reacher match Tom Cruise in height or heft.

I'm not sure if the Pingu remake really counts,

[Jorpho]

As I recall, The Bridges of Madison County had a book based on the movie based on the book, I guess since there was Money To Be Made. No idea what the differences are, though.

[Adacore]

Obviously not quite the same, but most comic book movies qualify - they were all based on source material that was originally in book format, and many have novelisations which differ substantially from the original comic.