Tom Clancy: Sellout, or did he just lose creative control?

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[Liberty Tree Surgeon]

Has anyone caught the previews for the movie, "The Sum of All Fears"? In it, they specifically tell the audience that the evil terrorists are European neo-nazis. I refer you to Yahoo! Movies for a brief description to this effect.

The only problem with this is that in the book, the terrorists responsible for blowing up the Super Bowl are Islamic Fundamentalists working out of Lebanon.

So, did Clancy sell out, or sell the film rights without keeping a degree of creative control?

LTS

[oldvike]

He has said time and again that he sells the rights to his movies with no questions asked. He has absolutely NO CONTROL over the movie.

[FreeperinRATcage]

I've been wondering this myself. Always thought Clancy was of conservative bent...not so sure now.

[fuente]

Well that might change after this movie.

[oldvike]

I certainly hope so. This is a disgrace what Hollywood is doing to his book.

[Conan the Librarian]

If I remember the story right....I read it years ago....the islamic terrorist were working with East German Terrorist. Will have to see the movie to see how bad they trash it.

[SuziQ]

He sold the rights to the book, and when he does that he effectively loses control of what the authors want to do with it for the screen. It was egregious with 'Clear and Present Danger'. They left some of the best parts of the book out of that movie! I loved the characters of Portagee, and Buck, and Buck's family. The family would have been a great story line in a movie, but now they can't use them because no one would know who they are!

I may have to go see the movie anyway, but I'll re-read the book first!

[Liberty Tree Surgeon]

An East German communist terrorist. But we cannot have the good name of Marx besmirched. The director's Hollywood cronies wouldn't approve.

LTS

[JackRyanCIA]

It's like Chreighten book Rising Sun a few years back, when they had to make the bad guys white for the movie, not Japanese. Don't you guys get it yet. It's the evil white mans fault for everything.

[Revolting cat!]

"Tom Clancy is the most successful American bad writer since James Fenimore Cooper"

-- Christopher Buckley in the New York Times Book Review (quoted from memory.)

[Chemnitz]

I think at this stage he could have maintained some creative control. Maybe not for the first one, but surely later. They need content in Hollywood.

Maria von Trapp signed away all rights to her story, so people made millions and she was powerless. But she did that willingly, yet complained later. "The Sound of Mucous" was first a hit in German, then copied in English.

[brbethke]

It's the way Hollywood works. Unless you're Michael Crichton or Stephen King, once you sell film adaptation rights, you pretty much lose all control over what happens to the subsequent film. I know of writers who've sold their books to Hollywood and in the final reel, only the title of the book remained unchanged.

[JackRyanCIA]

Michael Crichton. Like I was saying they butchered all his books too. Especially Crichtons stuff.

[SamAdams76]

Clancy was interviewed on C-SPAN a couple months ago and this very question came up concerning "Sum Of All Fear." Clancy just smiled into the camera and said that he sells movie rights "for the money" and he couldn't care less what liberties the movies companies took with his book so long as he got his check. So if Clancy doesn't care that Hollywood is bastardizing his novels, why should we?

[PLK]

Don't you guys get it yet. It's the evil white mans fault for everything.

Time to send everyone to RockyD's movie reviews.

Click here for un-P.C. movie reviews

[michaelt]

I coulda swore that I saw Clancy's name on the credits as they flashed by during the commercial. I think he's an Executive Producer on this one.

It's too bad he gives up creative control - maybe he got a producer credit in exchange for that. It could mean more bucks for him.

Maybe even the leftist Hollywood types who are connected with this movie would have liked all the hype surrounding this movie had it stuck to the book and pissed off Arabs (and Native Americans, I might add.) Any publicity is good publicity, you know.

[SamAdams76]

I agree that Clancy is a pretty bad writer. A hack, even. His attempts to get Jack Ryan's wife and kids into the flow of the stories are downright embarrassing. Cathy Ryan is a joke. I mean, here is Jack Ryan putting in 100+ hour weeks with the CIA and his wife somehow manages to raise perfect children while working at John Hopkins as their top eye surgeon. Yeah, right!

But he comes up with some good plot lines and his technical research is top-notch, especially with respect to military tactics and gadgetry.

[brbethke]

Ah, I get it! Jack Ryan is actually ....

Buckaroo Banzai!

[JackRyanCIA]

Okay, so is his stuff bad or good? make up your mind. Hell, I like his stuff and Cathy Ryan fits in just fine. As for the kids...the secret service baby sits them now.

[brbethke]

Crichton is an unusual case. He's been known to sell the film rights before even writing the book. I've heard rumors that he considers the films to be the real deals, and the books are just throwaways he cranks out to milk a little more money out of the film deals.

[Revolting cat!]

That NYTBR review I referred to, which was right on target, was quite famous in literary circles because it sparked a feud between Clancy and Buckley that was conducted over fax machines. An interesting exchange of insults and opinions. (Parts of it were published somewhere.) For some reason I can't find any references to it on the web. It hasn't been more than 10 years.

Anyway, the single thing I remember now from Buckley's review, which is what triggered my memory here, was that he said the book, whatever its title, read less like a novel than like a movie treatment, ready to be turned into a shot by shot screenplay.

[JackRyanCIA]

Didn't know that. Read all his books though. Hate the movie versions.

[Corin Stormhands]

Always thought Clancy was of conservative bent...not so sure now.

Well, he's conservative on the 2nd Amendment. At his home on the Chesapeake Bay he has an indoor shooting range and when you drive up the road to the house there's a tank sitting at the top of the hill.

(I was a gopher for a while and drove someone out to his house.)

[SamAdams76]

Well Clancy is good when he sticks to what he does best: Military affairs, espionage and terrorism. He should leave the touchy-feely stuff to others. His attempts to make Cathy Ryan the "perfect woman with a perfect career" are pretty lame. It just isn't realistic to have two parents with highly demanding careers and somehow finding time to properly raise a kid in the process. Yeah, I know it's fiction but I find the Cathy Ryan character one-dimensional and a distraction to the story at hand.

[dwollmann]

Yes, that would explain the watermelon in the missle silo in that scene in HFRO.

[JackRyanCIA]

Yeah, I can agree with that. I read all his books and remember yelling at the book when I ran into parts where he did romance. Hell I hate that stuff it in all books, movies and TV anyway. His military stories are excellent.

[TD911]

Crichton's "books" are, for the most part, screenplays.

Timeline, while interesting, was nothing but a screenplay. I felt like I was "reading" a movie the whole time.

It's just gotten worse since Jurassic Park!

However, after saying all this I still like Crichton and my favorite was/is Rising Sun. The way the walls start to close in was disturbing.

Most author's sell(sell-out) when turning their book into a movie. They let the producers screw with the books however they please.

Clancy's are some of the worst regarding the original text. It's not just that they screw up some plot or subplot, but the overall tone as well. They turn Conservative>Liberal. Clear and Present Danger was pathetic in turning everyone into a bad guy. They even had Ryan testify before Congress. What P.C. B.S.!

Now they change Arabs into Neo-Nazis, granted this was before 9-11. But the plot is to try and get Russia and the US into a war which leaves the Neo-Nazis with what exactly? A Nuked E.U?

More PC B.S. which leaves the producers with huge egg on their face. Clancy cashed the check, sadly that's all that matters to him.

That's why Crichton even directed a few of his own books.

Bottom Line: It's just about the $$$.

[martin_fierro]

I believe Ben Affleck as Jack Ryan about as much as I did Alec Baldwin in that role.

Which is to say, NOT AT ALL</b. I won't waste a dime on seeing this flick.

[hchutch]

The story was changed after a bit of a fuss with CAIR (yes, that group). Most of the work was done pre-9/11 as well. I liked the first two movies (Hunt for Red October and Patriot Games), but Clear and Present Danger was hacked to bits.

Of course, I may end up liking the movie a lot better. I didn't much care for the novel Sum of All Fears.

In any case, to expect a true rendition of a novel to a screenplay is often expecting too much. Lord of the Rings is possible, but not too many others will avoid changes, IMHO.

[Fifth Business]

Timeline, while interesting, was nothing but a screenplay. I felt like I was "reading" a movie the whole time.

Precisely. Like it was designed to be a Spielberg (sp?) movie--complete with built-in commercials (references to drinking brand-name softdrinks, etc.) Truly awful literature.

[CaptIsaacDavis]

One detailed article on this mess has reported that the bad guys were nearly changed to American "right-wing militia" types!!!!(http://www.arabia.com/life/article/english/0,11827,39055,00.html )

[Revolting cat!]

Truly awful literature.

Truly awful literarure has traditionally made good material for cinema. Except that in the 1930s and 40s truly awful literature was still written as truly awful literature and not cynically as screen treatments which is what Crichton, Clancy and James Michener (now thankfully, not writing, or shall I say, typing anymore!) have been doing. Why, some great films have been made well into the 1970s from truly awful literature written in the 30s and 40s, but, interestingly enough, not more recently, when truly awful literature such as the Al and Tipper's Love Story was typed.

I suppose this may be because truly awful literature focuses on action and plot rather than on thought, motivation and other non-visual elements. Heck, porno literature would be just perfect (and some quasi porno has been turned into good cinema, as a matter of fact.)

But what's interesting to me is that in this we see literary trash turned into cinematic art. Go figure!

[Travis McGee]

I agree 100%. Grisham is almost in that category of hackdom as well today.

[Travis McGee]

I forget which writer from the 30s (Fitzgerald?) said to a younger author:

"when you sell a novel to Hollywood, get out at the California line, toss it over, turn around and don't look back."

(Paraphrased from memory.)

[RightWhale]

here is Jack Ryan putting in 100+ hour weeks with the CIA and his wife somehow manages to raise perfect children while working at John Hopkins as their top eye surgeon

For those of us raised on Robert A. Heinlein such characters are exactly who should populate novels.

As far as his writing skill is concerned, consider the huge volume of coherent sentences he produces [or used to produce] in a year. It's hard to argue with someone who can kill entire rainforests and cause printer's ink to be purchased by the trainload just by pushing a few keys on a typewriter or scribbling a little with a fountain-pen.

[Travis McGee]

Clancy has used platoons of gung ho wannab writer interns to crank out his pap for years, following in the profitable footsteps of Michener.

[Lucius Cornelius Sulla]

So, did Clancy sell out, or sell the film rights without keeping a degree of creative control?

Sherry Lansing, the head of the studio that made this thing, was quoted not too long after 9/11 proudly saying that this change had been made, because, as we all know, Islam is a religion of peace!

This change is nothing though, compared to what they do to a more serious work. Allen Drury wrote Advise and Consent, which won the Pulitzer Prize, and was a conservative book about the workings of the Senate. It was made into a play on Broadway, and kept the conservative outlook. When Otto Preminger made a movie out of it, all the good guys became bad guys, all the motivations were changed, and it became a typical liberal movie. Preminger laughed about the way he had changed the meaning of the story. Drury had to take his check, and write a series of sequels, but swore he would never again sell a book to the movies.

[RightWhale]

Aha! Another Michelangelo. Put the students to work.

[Birdwatcher]

The ending of Lost World was like reading Hollywood action scenes. I liked his premise about the parentless dinosaurs growing up. I was sad to see that never made the movie, but then most movies are made for teenagers and they don't want to hear about the importance of parents.

I have no interest in seeing Sum of All Fears because of the PC crap about changing the terrorists. Islamic terrorist nuking things makes sense, Euronazis don't. I hope this movie loses boatloads of money.

[MississippiMan]

By this point, Clancy could get some creative control if he wanted it. Maybe it doesn't matter to him. Grisham gets vast control over the movies of his books now, including the right to approve or disapprove of both directors and main actors.

MM

[brbethke]

That's still sage advice. Cash the check and don't look back. Above all, don't read the screenplay they send you. That's what put Barry Longyear (Enemy Mine) in the I.C.U. with a massive coronary.

[NittanyLion]

I've been wondering this myself. Always thought Clancy was of conservative bent...not so sure now.

Clancy transcript from O'Reilly Factor:

Clancy: I think so. The political left, they deal in symbols rather than reality. The general difference between conservatives and liberals is that liberals like pretty pictures and conservatives like to build bridges that people can drive across. And conservatives are indeed conservative because if the bridge falls down then people die, whereas the liberals figure, we can always build a nice memorial and make people forget it ever happened and was our fault. They're very good at making people forget it was their fault. Allright? The CIA was gutted by people on the political left who don't like Intelligence operations... and as a result of that, as an indirect result of that, we lost 5,000 citizens last week.

Safe to say, he's a conservative.

[estrogen]

Give me a Nelson DeMille novel any day.

[Lee'sGhost]

Yeah, that's it. Prick boy af-LACK is the guy. I couldn't remember his name. Thanks.

[Lee'sGhost]

I've written a novel, and if it ever gets published I'll "sell out" to Hollywood in minute. Here's the way I figure it: If the only people I can sell the movie rights to are liberals then so be it -- as long as I get the big bucks I don't care. The richer I am the more at liberty I'll be and the more ability I'll have to promote conservatism. (Of course, that would not apply to a novel specifically with a conservative message, but this is just standard historical fiction I'm talking about.) And if I ever do get published you can bet I'll be right here asking FReepers to buy it!

[Lee'sGhost]

Hmmm. Kind of supports my post #46.

[MarkWar]

>"Clear and Present Danger" was pathetic in turning everyone into a bad guy.

Rather than pathetic, I'd call the movie version of CaPD despicable. This movie -- shrill anti-American propaganda from a dozen different angles -- made me re-consider my whole opinion of Clancy.

I can understand selling out for money. I probably would if I ever had a skill anybody was interested in buying...

But I can't understand selling out to the enemy for money or for anything else. Clancy postures as a patriot. His books sell to people who think of themselves as conservatives. But Clancy didn't just sell out, he turned his popular novels over to radicals to exploit the works conservative standing buy mis-representing almost everything American as bad and in-human and everything third world as decent and human and good...

I like special effects, and I like to see them used in contemporary settings. But I won't being going to see The Sum of All Fears.

Heck, I'll probably go see Jason X again -- the very deep and well developed science fiction background in the movie, behind the silly slasher content, makes for a very interesting -- and to my mind, thought-provoking -- juxtaposition...

Mark W.

[Travis McGee]

If the movie credits only say "based on a novel by Joe Blow", you can't be held responsible for their butchery.

That's why, as you say, you should not read the screenplay.

What counts is the number of zeros on the check.

[brbethke]

So how's your novel coming along?