The “20 Heures” program suggests for the opening of the Book Fair to study the transition of bookstores to the big screen. Did you know that one in five films is inspired by a novel? From “The Three Musketeers” to “The Count of Monte Cristo”, passing through the works of Pierre Lemaitre or the Asterix comics: the market for adaptations is experiencing phenomenal success, often with intense battles to negotiate the rights.
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In cinema, some of the greatest stories actually start in books, from classic to contemporary successes. They are increasingly on the bill. According to a recent study, one in five films is based on a book. The winning equation of the moment is as follows: take a popular classic, add a star face, multiply by a huge budget. The result? For example, “The Count of Monte Cristo” drew over 12 million viewers worldwide, with the audience also rediscovering the original work.
“There are differences between the book and the film adaptation. It intrigued me, I wanted to see what the differences were in the book,” said a young viewer. “In movies, not all the details written in the books are included, so it allows me to enjoy the story a bit more,” said another.
But sometimes the biggest successes in theaters overshadow the book. In 1993, Spielberg resurrects dinosaurs and revolutionizes cinema. “Jurassic Park” breaks all records, with one billion dollars in revenue. “If you want to do something very convincing, you have to animate every limb. If I hadn’t been able to make these dinosaurs as real as filming an elephant today, I would never have made this film,” the filmmaker said at the time. But before Spielberg’s masterpiece, there is a book and a fierce battle to obtain the rights. Author Michael Crichton is already a known value. Hollywood snatches his novel even before its release.
“We have many studios starting to fight, we have James Cameron wanting the rights for himself, to make it a kind of horror film, an ‘Alien’ in ‘Jurassic Park’. He said, ‘I was just hours away from getting it, but Spielberg got it before me.’ Spielberg, he really almost went down on his knees,” explained Melanie Toubeau, a cinema journalist and content creator. A dinosaur story bought for almost one and a half million dollars.
Today, the race for adaptations is not only happening in Hollywood. Frederique Massart, director of audiovisual adaptation rights at Gallimard, is the publisher who has sold the rights to three successful books. Today, she will try to convince producers with “investigations, a bit of comedy, thrillers, detective novels, etc. These are books that will sell more easily,” she pointed out.
Sarah Reese Geffroy, director of literary adaptations at Studio Canal, buys the rights for the studio that produced these films and will have to outdo her producer competitors: “Today, audiovisual rights sell very quickly, often even before a book is published,” she noted. A crucial and meticulous meeting. Publishers have 30 minutes to impress nearly 300 producers. “Once the novel is released and it does well, that’s when everyone positions themselves. It’s often a war,” said Julie Billy, a producer.
A battle, but in the end, a win-win market. In terms of box office, there is a 33% increase in admissions for adaptations. And in bookstores, sales also rise. For “Consent,” Vanessa Springora’s book, for example, sales jumped by 500% after the film’s release. Some writers are particularly favored by filmmakers. On the podium, Agatha Christie, with about thirty films. Then comes Stephen King, the king of thrillers. And the top spot goes to a monument: Shakespeare, with a thousand audiovisual adaptations.
And then there are others, those that cinema has long neglected. Written in 1954, it was considered an unadaptable book by all of Hollywood. The rights were sold in the 1950s, yet the manuscript of “The Lord of the Rings” changed hands. A 1,000-page novel, too long, too complex. Several projects were abandoned: “The most famous, the one that made the most noise, would have involved the Beatles. Paul would have played the Hobbit Frodo, George would have played Gandalf, and John would have played maybe Gollum. But the project fell through due to rivalries between Paul and John in assigning roles,” said Vincent Ferré, a literature professor and Tolkien specialist.
However, things turned out well. In 2001, Peter Jackson turned “The Lord of the Rings” into a global success. At the time, he admitted: “I knew from the beginning that I wasn’t making this film for the thousands of book fans, because in reality no one expected to see this film one day. So I made it for one fan only: myself.”
Successful novels fueling cinema. 2026 will be no exception: classics and contemporary stories will have a new life on the big screen.
