Andrew Stanton Quotes

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.

I think successful movies that are based on books are their own thing. I think if you're too faithful, word by word, character trait to character trait, it can hurt the movie.

I don't hold with the notion that only bad books make good movies.

Movies can't ruin books. They can only ruin movies.

As an author, you can't expect a movie to be an illustration of the book. If that's what you hope for, you shouldn't sell the rights.

It's very hard to adapt something. You end up changing it too much to make a good movie out of it. I prefer to work with things that are custom made for my kind of animation.

Particularly when you're making a movie of a book, people are always waiting with their knives - you know?

You have plausible deniability, as they say in politics, as an author with movies. Because if the movie is terrible, you simply say they failed to catch the genius of the book.

I think my background in film taught me that a great book adaptation is not always slavishly faithful to the source material.

A movie is not a book. If the source material is a book, you cannot be too respectful of the book. All you owe to the book is the spirit.

An author entices the readers with their words, and it is painful for them to even lose a sentence. But films and books are two different mediums and should be dealt differently. What works in a book might not work for a film. When I saw 'Anna Karenina' on screen, I didn't like it at all, whereas 'The Godfather' was legendary.

You either ignore the comic book and make a great movie or you stay very close to the comic book.

Authors of books are not given very much control over the films that are made from their books.

All I can say is that I am not one of those writers who want 100% of their book in the film. I recognize that film is a different medium and the filmmaker must have the right to bring some new elements to the table, provided the soul of the book is preserved.

I firmly believe that you can't get a good movie without risking a bad movie. A good adaptation of your book is worth it because it is such a wonderful experience to see your world translated onto the screen.

You take some creative license when you make a movie, and things can be a little bit different.

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

I don't make movies. I don't feel that I have to have artistic control. Part of this comes from the fact that the book lives on no matter what Hollywood does to your novel in terms of a film. Now, you try to be careful who you allow to do your film because nobody wants their novel to become a turkey movie. But, on the other hand, it is a crapshot anyway, because even the best people can make a bad film.

I do know that the best way to make a mediocre movie is to just transcribe the book.

I can't think of any one film that improved on a good novel, but I can think of many good films that came from very bad novels.

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

I even knew some of the dialogue but it was definitely cool to look at. We always argue that the movies should be loyal but in this case I could argue that it might have been too loyal.

These properties that get made into movies, some are easier than others. When they first said, 'Yeah, they're making a movie out of Lego,' I said, 'Lego what? What does that even mean?' And it's such a good concept.

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.'

Sometimes I get to see a movie that's adapted from a book that I haven't heard about or that I love the movie so much that I will, of course, read the book.