[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.

[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!

[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.)

[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.

[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?

[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.

[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.

[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 )

[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.

[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