Not everything transfers from page to screen well, which means many changes have been made from countless original book source materials when adapting stories into live-action movies. Movie adaptations of novels have been part of Hollywood since its inception, but bringing these narratives to the big-screen has often imbued directors with a lot of creative liberty. From The Martian to Jaws, and from Annihilation to Jurassic Park, movie adaptations are seldom exactly like their novel inspiration, but these changes are usually to the benefit of the overall story.

Movies often need to condense the storylines included in books, as the latter medium offers greater chance for description and exposition, whereas, in movies, this is slightly less forgiving. Audiences want drama and action in movies, and while condensing storylines for movies, directors have often also made narratives more extreme. Some adaptations have been hugely successful as films, meaning that some of these changes might have given them a huge advantage.

7) Ridley Scott Changed the Duration of the Astronauts’ Stay on Mars in The Martian

The Martian saw Mark Watney (Matt Damon) become stranded on Mars when his crew presume him dead and leave during a storm. Adapted from Andy Weir’s 2011 novel of the same name, the crew planned, in both, to live on Mars for 31 days, or sols. In the novel, they leave after only six sols, whereas the movie has them remain on Mars for 18 sols. This change was made so that Watney had enough human waste available to make fertilizer for his potato farm – the crew would have excreted more in 18 days than they would have in six.

Bong Joon Ho’s sci-fi black comedy Mickey 17 saw Mickey Barnes (Robert Pattinson) join a space colony as an Expendable, a worker who is cloned every time he dies. Bong wanted the repetitive nature of Mickey’s job to be stressed in the movie adaptation of Edward Ashton’s 2022 novel, Mickey7. For this reason, Bong increased the number of Mickey’s clones from seven to 17, making his reaction to meeting Mickey 18 and his eventual destruction of the cloning device even more powerful.

5) Jaws Removed Matt Hooper & Ellen Brody’s Love Affair

You’d be forgiven for not realizing the 1975 classic, Jaws, was adapted from a novel, Peter Benchley’s book from only a year earlier. While much of the narrative was adapted faithfully, including the iconic opening scene, the love affair between Ellen Brody and Matt Hooper was omitted from the movie. Steven Spielberg wanted to display the camaraderie between Hooper (Richard Dreyfuss), Martin Brody (Roy Scheider), and Quint (Robert Shaw) on the Orca, and felt as though making Hooper and Brody enemies would have ruined this. This ultimately reduced Ellen Brody’s (Lorraine Gary) role in Jaws.

4) Alex Garland Made Sweeping Changes to Annihilation’s Storyline

Adapted by Alex Garland from the 2014 novel from Jeff VanderMeer, Annihilation was vastly different from its source material. In the novel, none of the characters have names, but are named by their role (biologist, surveyor, psychologist, and anthropologist), while the very nature of the Shimmer (Area X in the book), and the end of the story were also drastically altered for the movie. Garland adapted Annihilation as a memory of the book, rather than a direct adaptation, which enhanced the dream-like textures of the narrative. Both novel and movie are beautiful, and well worth your time.

1990’s Misery is one of the most famous and successful adaptations of Stephen King’s work, but one key detail was very different in the 1987 novel. In both, the captive Paul Sheldon (James Caan in the movie) tries to escape from crazed fan Annie Wilkes (Kathy Bates). In the movie, Annie uses a sledgehammer to break Paul’s ankles and hobble him, but, in the novel, she instead uses an ax and severs his foot. Director Rob Reiner wanted Paul to have both his feet at the end, retaining a sense of hope and victory having escaped practically unharmed.

2) John Hammond & Ian Malcolm Survived the Events of Steven Spielberg’s Jurassic Park

Much of the adaptation of Michael Crichton’s 1990 novel, Jurassic Park, was faithful to the book, but the ending was vastly different. In the novel, John Hammond (Richard Attenborough in the movie) is attacked and killed by a group of procompsognathus, the dinosaurs featured throughout 1997’s The Lost World: Jurassic Park. Additionally, Ian Malcolm (Jeff Goldblum in the movie) succumbs to wounds inflicted during the initial Tyrannosaurus Rex attack. Hammond and Malcolm both survived the events of 1993’s Jurassic Park, allowing them to return in future movies and making the original film more palatable for mass audiences.

1) Dorothy’s Shoes Became Red in The Wizard of Oz

1939’s The Wizard of Oz was one of the first movie’s filmed in technicolor, and director Victor Fleming wanted to take advantage of this vibrant new style. This led to him making Dorothy’s (Judy Garland) magical silver shoes from L. Frank Baum’s 1900 novel, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, red, becoming the now-iconic ruby slippers. The red stood out better on the yellow-brick road, and have since become an iconic fixture of Dorothy’s costume. Subsequent adaptations, including Jon M. Chu’s Wicked and its upcoming sequel, Wicked: For Good, have reverted the shoes to their original silver color to avoid any legal troubles.

What are your favorite changes that movie adaptations have made from their original novel inspiration? Let us know in the comments!