Blockbusters make Book sales

[FabuVinny]

From The Telegraph:

If many a blockbuster is born of books, many a book-sale boom is borne by blockbusters. Harry Potter and The Goblet of Fire may have not set the city box-office on fire, but it sure has sparked a fresh sales spurt in the J.K. Rowling series. And sales of author Arthur Golden’s Memoirs of a Geisha have picked up “dramatically” in anticipation of director Rob Marshall’s December release, starring Michelle Yeoh and Zhang Ziyi.​

“The movie-book relationship is getting bigger and better. Every time a film releases, the original novel gets a fresh impetus,” says Sidharth Pansari of Crossword. “A Lord of the Rings and a Harry Potter invariably sell more when the movie hits the theatres.”

Sometimes the impact is not that direct. Mario Puzo’s Godfather sold big when Sarkar did well at the box-office. Helen Keller’s autobiography The Story of My Life was in “huge demand” when Sanjay Leela Bhansali’s Black hit multiplexes.

Comics, too, benefit from big-screen blitzkrieg. “Spiderman and Batman comics sell more when their movie versions are in town,” says Gautam Jatia of Landmark. “Pokemon Annual became a big draw when Pokemon was shown on TV.”

 

[Barb]

The movie-book relationship is important since there appears to be a dearth of original ideas in Hollywood at the present time. The problem is that many books simply do not translate well to the big screen and purists (like me) complain when some director butchers a favorite read. I'm still waiting for the big screen adaptation of J.D. Salinger's 'Catcher in the Rye.'