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Literary adaptation is the adapting of a literary source (e.g., a novel, short story, poem) to another genre or medium, such as a film, a stage play, or even a video game. It can also involve adapting the same literary work in the same genre or medium, just for different purposes, e.g., to work with a smaller cast, in a smaller venue (or on the road), or for a different demographic group (such as adapting a story for children).
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Adapting for Screen and Stage
Films are often adapted from other sources, such as plays, novels, poems, short stories, biographies, and quite often news stories. Many comic books have been successfully adapted to the screen, especially those involving superheros. Hollywood actually got its start in Los Angeles because of the need for adapted story material. Motion picture producers wanted to adapt stage plays for the screen, but needed to be as far from New York as possible to avoid having to pay for the rights. Stage plays and musicals are often adapted from other sources, as are operas.
Trends in Adaptation
A recent trend is to make a musical out of the songs or a musical act, such as Mamma Mia the broadway musical based on the recordings of the Swedish rock group ABBA. The musical theatrical revue Smokey Joe's Cafe, too, was based on a number of songs, including those of Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller. A trend begun with Little Shop of Horrors in 1995, continued with The Producers in 2005, and most recently tried with Hairspray in 2007, is to adapt the Broadway musical, that was originally adapted from a motion picture, back into film. Just as video games have been adapted from movies, motion pictures are now being adapted from video games.
Prevalence of Adaptation
An adapted work appeals to a writer, publisher, or producer initially because it gains his interest, both because it has become popular and for the reasons it has become popular. The encounter with the work, with its presumed success, simply sparks the imagination as to its possibly application in other genres or media. It also appeals because it obviously works as a story; it has interesting characters, who say and do interesting things. This is particularly important when adapting to a dramatic work, e.g., film, stage play, teleplay, as dramatic writing is some of the most difficult. To get an original story to function well on all the necessary dimensions, i.e., concept, character, story, dialogue, and action, is an extremely rare event performed by a rare talent. Perhaps most importantly, especially for producers of the screen and stage, an adapted work is more bankable; it represents considerably less risk to investors, and poses the possibilities of huge financial gains. This because: 1) it has already attracted a following; 2) it clearly works as a literary piece in appealing to a broad group of people; and, 3) its title, its author, its characters, etc. may be a franchise in and of themselves already.
Process of Adaptation
When a literary source has not passed into the public domain, rights must be arranged for the adaptation to be performed legally. Plagiarism occurs in every genre, and throughout history, but such rights violations can be challenged in court. In the case of Hollywood films, judgments for the plaintiff can run into the millions of dollars, but these have typically been for outright theft of a screenplay idea rather than for fraudulent adaptations. Because of the importance of telling a tight story with a limited number of characters, short stories often make better sources for adaptable material for the screen and stage than do novels. For the stage much the same applies except that theater audiences tend to accept and prefer works of a more conceptual, thought-based nature, meaning that they will need to be considered when selecting a work for adaptation, but also when determining how best to adapt it. The stage imposes physical limits of size and technology. Not every illusion that can be made to appear real on the movie screen can be made to appear so on stage.
