Adapting literary works into a full-fledged film is a favourite pastime of Hollywood studios. Not all films can do justice to their source material but the past few years have seen plenty of worthy adaptations.
In the upcoming Danny Strong biopic, Nicholas Hoult will essay the role of J.D. Salinger. The film will be based on Kenneth
Slawenski’s biography, JD Salinger: A Life.
From J.D Salinger to Dave Eggars, Hollywood is gearing up for curious literary adaptations.
Adapting literary works into a full-fledged film is a favourite pastime of Hollywood studios. Not all films can do justice to their source material but the past few years have seen plenty of worthy adaptations. In other words, it’s not always a disappointing affair. Baz Luhrmann, for instance adapted F. Scott Fitzgerald’s timeless novel, The Great Gatsby in 2013 in impeccable fashion.
Gone Girl, adapted from Gillian Flynn’s novel of the same name, is another near-perfect adaptation. Directed by David Fincher, the film was released in 2014 and stays in memory due to an eerie and deeply disturbing albeit unforgettable performance by one Rosamund Pike and Fincher’s unmistakable narrative style.
Several other worthy adaptations include The Social Network, The Perks of Being a Wallflower, The Martian, Carol, The Big Short, Moneyball and A Beautiful Mind among many others.
Dave Eggars’ The Circle is getting the Hollywood treatment with Emma Watson and Tom Hanks starring in the film adaptation.
In the coming days ahead, several fantastic books are getting the Hollywood treatment. Significant among them is a film on the life and times of J.D. Salinger, the man behind the iconic novel, A Catcher in the Rye. Published in 1951, the novel is famous for its first-person narration – presented by Holden Caulfield - as well as its teenage angst, loss and alienation theme and continues to find readers after all these years.
A film, however, was never on the cards as long as Salinger was alive given the fact that the famed author shunned publicity and was obsessive about privacy. Having died in 2010 at the age of 91, Salinger is no longer around to see just how Hollywood tackles his life but a film on Salinger is already on the works.
British actor Nicholas Hoult, who was last seen in the recent release, X-Men: Apocalypse as The Beast will star in Rebel in the Rye as Salinger while Danny Strong is attached to the project as writer and director. The film will be based on Kenneth Slawenski’s biography JD Salinger: A Life.
Another adaptation worth exploring will be Dave Eggars’s novel, The Circle. Released in 2013 to critical and commercial acclaim, the book follows the story of Mae Holland as she joins the world’s best tech company and learns soon enough that nothing is as it seems.
A commentary on the dilemmas of the tech age and the question of too much power wielded by corporations, the story is relevant to both society and the individual. The great news, of course, is that Emma Watson and Tom Hanks will star in this film alongside a host of other actors.
Suffering from superhero fatigue, which won’t be going away anytime soon since Marvel and DC Studios plan the next few decades’ worth of superhero films, these literary adaptations will serve as a nice change of pace and provoke you in more ways than one.
