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A Direct-to-Book Release
(April 17, 2006)
Over the course of Easter weekend, I finished reading House, a newly-released novel that was co-authored by Frank Peretti (one of my favorite authors) and Ted Decker. One thing that I noticed about the book when I had bought it was a quote that sat in the upper-left corner of the cover. The quote was from X-Men, X2, and Fantastic Four producer Ralph Winter, who said, "Only Peretti and Decker could have delivered this full-tilt supernatural thriller. They had me ripping through the pages... then blew me away with a final twist I never saw coming. Can’t wait to see the movie!"
Wait. Hold the phone for just a minute. A movie? Don’t you think we’re getting just a little bit ahead of ourselves?
The novel itself wasn’t too bad. House did turn out to be a thrilling page-turner, as I had come to expect from a Frank Peretti novel. But the book also felt much different from a typical Peretti novel. For instance, the book seemed to jump right into its story, without building up suspense as slowly as a Peretti novel typically does. The book also felt more fantastical than a typical Peretti novel. The book is also a tad shorter than the typical Peretti novel.
These noticeable changes could very well be the influence of Ted Decker, whose works I’m not very familiar with. Or this could just be a literary experiment on the part of the two authors. Or maybe this is the result of an apparent intention to adapt House as a feature film for Twentieth Century Fox. I’d be willing to guess that the last choice is the true choice.
Clearly, there is a difference between a novel and a movie. Books very rarely are adapted well into a visual format, and few book-based movies have the success of To Kill a Mockingbird or the Lord of the Rings trilogy. So how does a set of authors manage to create both a compelling novel and a corresponding film to match? Well, they simply write a novel with the full intention to later turn it into a movie, of course!
Is this a smart idea? Maybe. It certainly gives fans of both Peretti and Decker a new novel to read. I’m sure that the book will sell hundreds of thousands of copies, and House will likely have a better film adaptation than does the typical novel.
However, this could also be a very foolish move, as it puts inherent limitations on both the book and the movie version of House. The book will suffer from having a plot that would have been better adapted as a movie, and the movie will likely suffer from a plot that had to be adapted from a novel. If the authors would have simply stuck to one format or the other, the selected format for the story could have been a great winner. However, if they try to bend the story to fit two separate formats, both formats could very well turn out to be losers.
But maybe I’m just getting ahead of myself. After all, a full-length feature film version of House hasn’t yet been announced, and no page has yet been compiled on the Internet Movie Database to prove the contrary. Still, a satisfactory quote from a movie producer on the front cover of a novel upon its initial release isn’t exactly settling any concerns. Yes, the novel could very well be nothing more than an independent collaboration between two authors, but it looks to me like it could also be movie waiting to happen, or as I like to call it, a "direct-to-book" movie release.
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