Monday, February 08, 2010

Fiction to Film: Oscar Noms & 2010

I have come to realize that the most anticipated film adaptation can often fall flat, especially when it comes to Academy Award expectations. 2009's film scene is no exception. Two highly adaptation The Road by Cormac McCarthy and Alice Sebold's The Lovely Bones both were released with underwhelming responses.

Yet, even though by early 2007 I had determined fiction adaptations weren't going to cut it with the Academy, 2008 & 2009's award ceremonies proved me wrong with 3 of their five Oscar nominated films, including the eventual Oscar winner's going on to fictional adaptations.

So as I re-crunched the numbers this evening, including the 2010 Oscar ceremony nominees (only two of the ten come from novels, Up In The Air by Walter Kirn and Precious based on the novel Push by Sapphire.

So counting this year's nominees over the past 10 years, 20 of the 55 Best Picture nominated films have come from fiction (36.4%).

So I'm not ready to write off fiction and it's relation to the Oscars yet, I'm just learning that you never know what books are going to make the cross over.

So with that being said here are some of the 2010 fiction adaptations in the works...

Happy reading! We'll see if any of these adaptations show up in a big way come next year's award season.

6 comments:

Amy said...

Thank you so much for this list!! I didn't realize The Help was already set for film though I should have known.

Ugh, too much to read.

Andrew K. said...

The Road was actually quite well written and I did like The Lovely Bones, despite its imperfections.

Loren Eaton said...

Never Let Me Go is on my reading list, and Peace Like a River is so many kinds of awesome, but I'm skeptical as to whether or not Hollywood can keep a screen adaptation from getting sentimental.

Anonymous said...

Woah! There are a lot of books being adapted for the screen!

Luke said...

I don't know... I'm pretty partial to original work when it pops up. I can appreciate a great book adaptation any day, but something fresh and original always has a little bit extra going for it.

RC said...

@ Amy - they certainly haven't started filming The Help yet, but I think it's supposed to be on the fast track. So we'll see if it makes the cut for 2010.

@ Loren - I love Never Let Me Go. And am actually pretty excited about that adaptation.

@ Luke - I think "original" products that cut the mustard are becoming more rare. If they're not adapted from books they're adapted from something else...a news story, a biography, a history, or even another film. This year's original story palate was thin.