Few things have filled my heart with as much dread as watching this video:

The thought that they were going to turn my beloved Where the Wild Things Are into a feature length movie scared me. How were they possibly going to capture the sense of wonder and magic that pervades the few short pages of the story and not completely destroy it by stretching it to over ninety minutes?

This is a problem that is regularly faced by readers: What do you do when a favorite book is mutated into something unrecognizable as it arrives at the local cinema? I have been trying to think of any movie that has lived up to the book. The recent adaptations of the Narnia books have been close, though I had issues with the actor playing Prince Caspian, but there has never been a movie that got it perfect. And of course, my perfect isn’t your perfect, which leads to a whole ‘nother set of problems.

So, beloved readers, is there any fantasy movie that has lived up to the book for you or one that has spectacularly failed to do so? And, assuming the technology existed for the perfect adaptation of a book to a movie, what fantasy movie would you most like to see at a theater near you?

Author

  • Ruth Arnell

    RUTH ARNELL (on FanLit's staff January 2009 — August 2013) earned a Ph.D. in political science and is a college professor in Idaho. From a young age she has maxed out her library card the way some people do credit cards. Ruth started reading fantasy with A Wrinkle in Time and The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe — books that still occupy an honored spot on her bookshelf today. Ruth and her husband have a young son, but their house is actually presided over by a flame-point Siamese who answers, sometimes, to the name of Griffon.