User:John Cummings/Articles/Movie novelisations

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Movie novelisations, also known as film novelisations are novelisations of movies. Novelisations became popular, and remained popular especially before the ability to view movies at home, movie novelisations often featured on best sellers lists. best Movie novellisations often varied considerably from the final film due to the novelisations being based on the scripts rather than the finished film. There are sometimes novelisations of movies based on novels.

History
Movie novelisations became popular in the early days of cinema due to the lack of any way of seeing a film at home.

Novelisation occasionally already presents material which will later on appear in a director's cut.

Process
Rewrites of scripts are not uncommon. The script for the 1966 film Modesty Blaise for example was rewritten by five different authors. The writer or script doctor responsible for the so-called "final" version is not necessarily the artist who has contributed the original idea or most of the scenes. The patchwork character of a film script might even exacerbate because the film director, a principal actor or a consulting script doctor does rewrites during the shooting. An acquiring editor who intends to hire one of the credited screenwriters has to reckon that the early writers are no longer familiar with the current draft or work already on another film script. Not every screenwriter is available, willing to work for less money than what can be earned with film scripts and able to deliver the required amount of prose on time. Even if so, there is still the matter of novelisations having a questionable reputation. The International Association of Media Tie-In Writers concedes that by saying their craft went "largely unrecognized".

Differences between films and novelisations
Publishers aim to have novelisations available to buy when a film is released, which means it is usually necessary to base the novelisation on a screenplay instead of the completed film. The writer of a novelisation is supposed to multiply the 20,000–25,000 words of a screenplay into at least 60,000 words. Writers usually achieve that by adding description or introspection. Sometimes the "novelizer" moreover invents new scenes in order to give the plot "added dimension".


 * Yoga is blue in the novelisation of Star Wars
 * There is no description of the alien in the book of Alien

Some novelisations blur the line between a novelisation and an original novel that is the basis of a film adaptation. Arthur C. Clarke provided the ideas for Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey. Based on his own short stories and his cooperation with Kubrick during the preparation and making of this film adaptation he wrote the film novelisation of the same name which is appreciated by fans because the film provides little exposition, and the novelisation fills in some blanks. David Morrell wrote the novel First Blood about John Rambo, which led to the film adaptation of the same name. Although Rambo dies at the end of his original story, Morrell had a paragraph in his contract stipulating he remained "the only person who could write books about Rambo". When the film producers changed the ending and decided for a sequel David Morrell accepted to carry out the novelisation and negotiated unprecedented liberties which resulted in an unprecedented success when his book entered The New York Times Best Seller list and stayed there for six weeks.

Novelisations of films based on novels
Novelisations also exist where the film itself is based on an original novel: novelist and screenwriter Christopher Wood wrote a novelisation of the James Bond film The Spy Who Loved Me. Although the 1962 Ian Fleming novel was still available in bookstores, its story had nothing to do with the 1977 film. To avoid confusion, Wood's novelisation was titled James Bond, The Spy Who Loved Me. This novel is also an example of a screenwriter novelizing his own screenplay. Star Wars: From the Adventures of Luke Skywalker was published under the name of George Lucas but his script had been novelized by the prolific tie-in writer Alan Dean Foster.

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If a film is based on a novel, the original novel is generally reissued with a cover based on the film's poster. If a film company which holds the rights for a film wishes to have a novelisation published, the company is supposed to approach in the first place an author who is in possession of "Separated Rights". A writer has these rights if he contributed the source material (or added a great deal of creative input to it) and if he was properly credited.

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Multiple novelisations of the same film
In some cases, separate novelisations of the same film are written for publication in different countries, and these may be based on different drafts of the screenplay, as was very clearly the case with the American and British novelisations of Capricorn One. Writers select different approaches to enrich a screenplay. Dewey Gram's Gladiator, for example, included historical background information. Shaun Hutson refused to write a novelisation of Snakes on a Plane because he found the source material too "poor". Still Christa Faust accepted and filled the pages by inventing detailed biographies for some of the early killed passengers. She was then praised for having presented "full three-dimensional characters".

James Bond
Simon Templar and James Bond are examples of media franchises that have been popular for more than one generation. When the feature film The Saint was released in 1997 the creator of this character (Leslie Charteris) had already been dead for four years. Hence its novelisation had to be written by another author. Ian Fleming had official successors who wrote contemporary "Post-Fleming" James Bond novels. During his tenure John Gardner was consequently chosen to write the novelisation of Licence to Kill in 1989 and also the novelisation of GoldenEye in 1995. John Gardner was succeeded by Raymond Benson who wrote besides several original Bond novels three novelisations including The World Is Not Enough.

Star Wars
several large differences between the movie novelisation and the film, yoda was blue