[Mr. Bird]

I don’t think characters originating in books should count; much more difficult to develop a character through a screenplay (i.e. made for the movies).

[ozark hilljilly]

I don’t think characters originating in books...

Did you ever read the book, "Forrest Gump"? It was absolutely nothing like the film. The movie was actually heads and tails far better than the book. The book stunk on ice.

On film, I liked Gump. In the book, I loathed him and was a bit disgusted by the character.

[righttackle44]

Where, pray tell, do you think most screenplays come from? They come from book and short story line rewrites and adaptions. Hollywood is and has been run by corrupt and diseased scum since it's inception. There are few among all of them with enough character and integrity to chance something new. Therefore, the powers there virtually always want to try something that already has a success. My screenwriting professor said that he's in meetings all the time when a television episode will be discussed in terms of a predecessor. "Okay, so we're playing "Starwars" in "Mike and Molly?" Or, in the case of movies, he says the discussion will be, "Lessee. So this is "High Noon" meets "Close Encounters of the Third Kind?"

Casting decisions are often made, for women, in terms of the casting couch, or whether this girl or women is more F**kable than that one.

As I said, most of the people in the industry are diseased scum.

[Mind-numbed Robot]

I don’t think characters originating in books should count; much more difficult to develop a character through a screenplay (i.e. made for the movies).

In my opinion the movie The Exorcist laid the ground work for the TV character Columbo. Having read the book first, I thought Lee J. Cobb was miscast as the bumbling detective in the movie. He didn't bumble at all but instead played it straight.

Later, the TV series Columbo came out and Peter Faulk perfectly played the character outlined as the detective in the book.