Entertainment
18 Famous Movies You Didn't Know Were Based On Books
Everyone knows that iconic films like The Shining and A Clockwork Orange were based on novels, but there are plenty of movies that you might not know the origins of. Tons of films are adapted from works of literature, though not every movie wears its source on its sleeve. Some films are adapted from novels that didn't quite make it into our cultural conscious the way that, say, 50 Shades of Grey or Gone Girl did, and some diverged so far from the original text that it's hard to remember the movie is based on anything at all. So what surprising movies were really based on books? Click through to find out.
Image: Columbia Pictures
'Blade Runner'
The dystopian Harrison Ford flick is based on a book by a famous science fiction author.
Image: Warner Bros.
'Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?' by Philip K. Dick
The film is an extremely modified adaptation of Dick’s novel, which is told from multiple perspectives, but they share the “world” of Dick’s original story.
Image: Doubleday
'The Rules of Attraction'
The dark college dramedy is based on a novel from the author of American Psycho.
Image: Lions Gate Films
'The Rules of Attraction' by Bret Easton Ellis
The novel was published before Ellis’ controversial American Psycho and actually features a character crossover — Patrick Bateman is the brother of Sean, one of the main characters from the novel.
Image: Simon & Schuster
'Mrs. Doubtfire'
Believe it or not, this Robin Williams comedy was actually based on a book.
Image: 20th Century Fox
'Madame Doubtfire' by Anne Fine
The overall story of the 1987 British novel is surprisingly close to its film adaptation, though far fewer hijinks ensue.
Image: Hamish Hamilton
'Pitch Perfect'
The book version of Pitch Perfect had far less music. (Because it was, well, a book.)
Image: Universal Pictures
'Pitch Perfect: The Quest for Collegiate A Cappella Glory' by Mickey Rapkin
The film may have been based on this non-fiction book about a capella competitions, but we imagine that it’s just not the same without all of the mashups.
Image: Universal Pictures
'Jaws'
Before Jaws became a movie, this novel made readers terrified to go into the water.
Image: Universal Pictures
'Jaws' by Peter Benchley
Scarily, Benchley the novel was based on true events — specifically, a series of shark attacks at the Jersey Shore.
Image: Universal Pictures
'Die Hard'
The film that turned Bruce Willis into an action star was originally a real page turner.
Image: 20th Century Fox
'Nothing Lasts Forever' by Roderick Thorp
The novel is the sequel to Thorp’s The Detective , which was also made into a movie and starred Frank Sinatra.
Image: 20th Century Fox
'Shrek'
The twisted fairytale comedy is loosely based on a picture book.
Image: DreamWorks Pictures
'Shrek!' by William Steig
Steig’s story is about an ogre who falls in love with an “ugly” princess, so at least it’s basic concept remained intact.
Image: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
'He's Just Not That Into You'
'He's Just Not That Into You' by Greg Behrendt and Liz Tuccillo
The book (which borrowed the sentence from a Sex and the City episode) told women to cut loose the shady men in their lives. The movie intertwined some of these ideas with short vignettes between the arcs, but, ultimately, the movie makes finding and keeping love a far grayer area than the book does.
Image: New Line Cinema
'How To Lose A Guy in 10 Days'
Surprisingly, He’s Just Not That Into You wasn’t the first movie to borrow from a self-help book.
Image: Paramount Pictures
'How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days: The Universal Don’ts of Dating' by Michele Alexander and Jeannie Long
The rom-com was inspired by the short cartoon book of the same name which gave women a tutorial on how not to “scare a man away.”
Image: Paramount Pictures
'The Birds'
Alfred Hitchcock’s famous horror flick wasn’t a completely original idea.
Image: Universal Pictures
"The Birds," or 'The Apple Tree' by Daphne du Maurier
Evan Hunter penned the screenplay, which he based off of this 1952 short story. The major difference? In the story, the birds — of the “east wind” — are metaphors for communism.
Image: Universal Pictures
'Psycho'
The Birds wasn’t the only Hitchcock film surprisingly adapted from a novel.
Image: Universal Pictures
'Psycho' by Robert Bloch
Bloch’s 1959 novel was published one year before the release of Hitchcock’s suspense thriller. The film follows the storyline of the book relatively closely, though Bloch’s sequels do not correlate to the film’s.
Image: Simon & Schuster
'Homeward Bound'
Everyone’s favorite animal flick was based on a book.
Image: Buena Vista Pictures
'The Incredible Journey' by Sheila Burnford
The 1993 film is a remake of the 1963 silent film The Incredible Journey, which was based on this novel.
Image: Buena Vista Pictures
'Forrest Gump'
Yep, one of the biggest movies in America was actually based on a novel — and hardly anyone knows about it.
Image: Paramount Pictures
'Forrest Gump' by Winston Groom
Though the Forrest of the novel has a similar journey to that of the film version, the filmmakers made a few alterations to the story. For example, in the novel, Forrest gets sent on a mission for NASA.
Image: Paramount Pictures
'The Exorcist'
Freaked out by The Exorcist? Maybe you should skip the novel.
Image: Warner Bros.
'The Exorcist' by William Peter Blatty
Blatty also wrote the screenplay for the horror flick and scored the Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay.
Image: Warner Bros.
'Mean Girls'
There was no Regina George in the book that Mean Girls was based off of, though there were certainly many references to girls like her.
Image: Paramount Pictures
'Queen Bees and Wannabes' by Rosalind Wisema
The self-help book explained how teenage girls formed cliques and the problems with girl-on-girl aggression, which can be summed up pretty nicely with this quote from Ms. Norbury: “You’ve got to stop calling each other sluts and whores. It just makes it okay for guys to call you sluts and whores.”
'Clueless'
If the story from this film reminds you a little bit of something you read in high school, there’s a reason for that.
Image: Paramount Pictures
'Emma' by Jane Austen
The film is a modern-day adaptation of Austen’s Emma , which has had quite a few straight-forward adaptations of its own, including the one from 1996 pictured above. In Clueless, it’s Cher who takes on the role of “Emma” and Tai (Brittany Murphy) in the role of “unsophisticated” Harriet.
Click Here To Buy; Click Here To Watch
Image: Miramax Films
'Cruel Intentions'
This sexy high school drama is based off an equally-as-scandalous French novel.
Image: Columbia Pictures
'The Dangerous Liaisons' by Pierre Choderlos de Laclos
Though Cruel Intentions was set on the Upper East Side and told the story of rich Manhattanites, the original novel was set in France and depicted the twisted lives of the French aristocracy.
Image: Columbia Pictures
'The Brave Little Toaster'
The movie that made you feel bad about tossing out your old appliances (no matter how much they sparked during use) isn’t an original concept.
Image: Walt Disney Studios Home
'The Brave Little Toaster' by Thomas M. Disch
With a concept this out there, it makes so much more sense for this animated flick to be based off a popular science fiction novella.
Image: Walt Disney Studios Home
