Most Disappointing Movie Adaptations

The Golden Compass has been named the most disappointing movie adaptation by Entertainment Weekly.

The film, based on Philip Pullman’s fantasy novel Northern Lights, topped a list of 23 movies that didn’t match up to their parent books.

Ron Howard’s version of Dan Brown’s The Da Vinci Code was placed second, the US remake of Nick Hornby’s Fever Pitch came third, Memoirs of a Geisha, based on Arthur Golden’s bestseller was fourth, and the 2005 Ray Bradbury adaptation A Sound of Thunder rounded out the top five.

Sequel Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason, the 2001 remake of Planet of the Apes and Brian De Palma’s 1990 take on Tom Wolfe’s acclaimed novel Bonfire of the Vanities also featured on the list.

The Golden Compass was a relative hit on its initial release, grossing $370 million at the worldwide box office with a production budget of $180 million. However, the film received a low 42% critical approval on the reviews rating website Rotten Tomatoes and was met with a mixed reaction from Pullman fans.

Smith’s Legend still the UK’s top film

The Will Smith sci-fi epic I Am Legend held the top spot at the UK box office at the weekend with an impressive £3.7m haul in its second week of release

Based on Richard Matheson’s classic 1954 novel about a post-apocalyptic world in which surviving humans have been transformed into mindless killers by a virus, Legend has also been a hit in the US and around the world.

There was little change elsewhere on the chart, with the top five films all having been previously released. The romantic comedy P.S. I Love You, starring Hilary Swank as a recent widow whose husband prepared a series of letters to be sent to her after his death, was in second spot with £1.79m in its third week. In third place was the Disney fantasy Enchanted, with £1.49m its fourth week, and the top five was rounded out by the new St Trinian’s movie, with £1.37m in its third week, and Phillip Pullman fantasy The Golden Compass, with £1.32m in its fifth week of release. Read the rest of this entry