On Apr 18, 2012, at 10:08 AM, Paavo Kakko wrote: > On 18.4.2012 14:30, John Buttimer wrote: >> One thing they should look at is sales of books after an adaptation. >> How many people went out and bought the HP books (multiples, since many may >> have bought the first and not liked it after that) and the LOTR ones versus >> say goodkinds series after his tv adaptation. Then figure out if a complete >> rewrite is better or if they should stay closer to the source material. >> > > Trying to view this from the production company's point of view. Why should > the production company doing the feature/show care how much books people buy > afterwards? It doesn't make money for them. They don't make the feature/show > so the author can profit. That doesn't mean that they don't want to make it > entertaining and popular. If they think that is best served by straying from > the source material, so be it. > > One thing that's been sort of neglected so far in this discussion is that the > people in production companies who hold the purse strings, while certainly > savvy in the business sense and have to have some aptitude for storytelling > and seeing the story visually in a way it can be made, are rarely as talented > as the people they employ to create the feature/show. And they have to make > decisions that make sense for the studio. I know I would be more than a bit > cautious about okaying a budget worth a few hundred million dollars and > possibly getting no more work in the industry, if I didn't have good reasons > for how I thought the finished work would turn out good and make money, in > the case it didn't. So they tend to bet towards the things that have been > proven sound.
It's hard (and probably wrong) to generalize. It's not like every money guy is bereft of artistic sensibilities, or that every production guy has a clue. There are a lot of smart people in film/TV. And as I said, no one ever intentionally sets out to make a bad show/film. Best, R.E.F. ---- www.crydee.com Never attribute to malice what can satisfactorily be explained away by stupidity.
