The BBC has injected a small slice of redemption into the bleak ending of JK Rowling’s first adult novel, The Casual Vacancy, for its miniseries adaptation, produced with HBO. Screenwriter Sarah Phelps told the Radio Times: “It’s still heartbreaking, but I had to find some kind of redemptive moment at the end, that sense that after the tragedy, someone gets to stand with a slightly straighter back.”
Rowling’s story of the dark underbelly of an English town is not the first to be given a good shakedown by screenwriters. We won’t know how Phelps’s version matches up to the novel until 15 February, when its first episode airs, but here’s our selection of five screen versions that failed to stick to the original story.
The Little Mermaid by Hans Christian Andersen
Ah come on, Disney. Didn’t you even consider using Hans Christian Andersen’s wistfully sad original, in which the little mermaid sacrifices herself so her prince can be happy? “With eyes already glazing she looked once more at the Prince, hurled herself over the bulwarks into the sea, and felt her body dissolve in foam.” Instead, we have singing crabs and happy ever after.
I Am Legend by Richard Matheson
The Will Smith film version’s ending is much more straightforward and heroic than the book’s, in which hero Neville ends his story imprisoned. The great Richard Matheson’s conclusion is morally complicated, utterly haunting and makes far more sense of the story’s title. “I don’t know why Hollywood is fascinated by my book when they never care to film it as I wrote it,” the novelist is reported to have said.
The Shining by Stephen King
King is not complimentary about Stanley Kubrick’s adaptation. The novelist’s version ends with the Overlook in flames; Kubrick’s haunted hotel survives, but the director kills off a key character, alive in King’s version and featuring in recent sequel Doctor Sleep.
A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess
Kubrick again; Burgess hated the adaptation too, calling it “a film which seemed to glorify sex and violence” and which “made it easy for readers of the book to misunderstand what it was about”, so much so that he repudiated the novel entirely. He particularly objected to the ending, which leaves off his final chapter of redemption for an adult Alex.
From Russia With Love by Ian Fleming
Fleming’s conclusion left Bond on the floor, having been kicked in the shins by Rosa Klebb and her poisoned boots. “The inference was that Ian was keeping his options open,” writes Andrew Lycett in his biography. “He was again undecided whether to continue his hero’s exploits in the future.” Film-makers had no such qualms, and made sure 007 was saved by his Bond girl.
