Tamara Feldman Quotes

I've made seventeen or eighteen films now, only two of which have been original screenplays, all the others have been based on short stories or novels, and I find the long short story ideal for adaptation.

There is a sort of theory that you should adapt bad books because they always make more successful films.

I felt like I haven't had the typical experience of a novelist whose book becomes a movie.

Adapting a book doesn't mean the book stops just because you've made a film out of it.

It is a challenging task to adapt a book to screen presentation and you will not be able to satisfy those who read the classic novel.

Most films are rooted in a book or a comic strip, but I don't go out there saying I want to do adaptations.

In 1916, Universal Studios released the first filmed adaptation of Jules Verne's novel '20,000 Leagues Under the Sea.' Georges Melies made a film by that name in 1907, but, unlike his earlier adaptations of Verne, Melies' version bears no resemblance to the book.

And it is a folly to try to craft a novel for the screen, to write a novel with a screen contract in mind.

Since my adaptation of Ian McEwan's 'Atonement,' I get sent a lot of novels that people think will work as movies. So every now and then I make a point of sitting down and reading a couple of them.

When a movie is being made out of a book, there is a mixed reaction on the part of fans because they are both extremely excited and they are also terrified. 'They are going to take my story, and they are going to mess it up; they are going to ruin it; they're going to do this; they're going to do that.'

Realistically, the chance of any book becoming a film is slim.

A screenplay adaptation of my 'Punktown' novel 'Health Agent' has been making the rounds. The screenplay was written by my friend, singer/songwriter Walter Egan of 'Magnet & Steel' fame!

It's tricky to take a book of short stories and turn it into a feature film.

If I'm in the bookstore, and I see a 700-page novel, my first thought is, 'Ooh, how could you cut this down to size and make a movie out of it?'

Most writers are unhappy with film adaptations of their work, and rightly so. 'Field of Dreams,' however, caught the spirit and essence of 'Shoeless Joe' while making the necessary changes to make the work more visual.

To be quite honest, I've been very blessed when I've worked with Hollywood. The studios that have purchased my work to be adapted to film have really liked the work and wanted to stay as close as they could to what the book was.

I know a movie and a book are two different things and you are going do different media in different ways. No author can want a movie to be exactly like the book because then it will be a bad movie.

The truth is that I know very few novelists who have been satisfied with the adaptation of their books for the screen.

Hope E. L .James doesn't think I'm being a prankster. I really want to adapt her novels for the screen. Christian Grey is a writer's dream.

I don't know if she should worry too much, I mean some of our greatest writers have had movies made of their books, lots of Hemingway novels were turned into movies, it doesn't hurt the book.

I am very lucky: not very many writers can say they genuinely like the film of their book. However, I do.

I'm always interested to see what films are made of books. I kind of don't participate as a filmgoer in any kind of debate about what's better, the book or the movie. So I think it's interesting when people want to do it.

It felt like the first thing, but when I first started out, I got a job adapting a book by Russell Banks called 'Rule Of The Bone.' I didn't do a very good job. I didn't really know what I was doing in general, let alone how to adapt a book.

By the usual reckoning, the worst books make the best films.

Movies are not novels, and that's why, when filmmakers try to adapt novels, particularly long or complex novels, the result is almost always failure. It can't be done.