Film The writer of a novelization is supposed to multiply the 20,000–25,000 words of a
screenplay into at least 60,000 words. Publishers aim to have novelizations in shops before a film is released, which means it is usually necessary to base the novelization on a screenplay instead of the completed film. It might take an insider to tell whether a novelization diverges unintentionally from the final film because it is based on an earlier version which included deleted scenes. In some cases, separate novelizations of the same film are written for publication in different countries, and these may be based on different drafts of the screenplay, as was very clearly the case with the American and British novelizations of
Capricorn One. If a film company also wishes to have a separate novelization published, the company is supposed to approach the author who has "Separated Rights". A writer has these rights if he contributed the source material (or added a great deal of creative input to it) and if he was moreover properly credited. Novelizations also exist where the film itself is based on an original novel: novelist and screenwriter
Christopher Wood wrote a novelization of the James Bond film
The Spy Who Loved Me. Although the
1962 Ian Fleming novel was still available in bookstores, its story had nothing to do with the 1977 film. To avoid confusion, Wood's novelization was titled
James Bond, the Spy Who Loved Me. This novel is also an example of a screenwriter novelizing his own screenplay.
Star Wars: From the Adventures of Luke Skywalker was published under the name of
George Lucas but his script had been novelized by the prolific
tie-in writer
Alan Dean Foster. Acquiring editors looking for a novelizer have different issues. The author may not have all of the information needed; Foster wrote the
Alien novelization without knowing what the
Xenomorph looked like. The contract may be very restrictive;
Max Allan Collins had to write the novelization for
Road to Perdition only based on the film, without the detail he had created for the
graphic novel of the same name that the film is based on. Rewrites of scripts may force last-minute novelization rewrites. The script for the 1966 film
Modesty Blaise was rewritten by five different authors. The writer or
script doctor responsible for the so-called "final" version is not necessarily the artist who has contributed the original idea or most of the scenes. The patchwork character of a film script might even exacerbate because the
film director, a principal actor or a consulting script doctor does rewrites during the shooting. An acquiring editor who intends to hire one of the credited screenwriters has to reckon that the early writers are no longer familiar with the current draft or work already on another film script. Not every screenwriter is available, willing to work for less money than what can be earned with film scripts and able to deliver the required amount of prose on time. Even if so, there is still the matter of novelizations having a questionable reputation. The International Association of Media Tie-In Writers concedes that by saying their craft is "largely unrecognized".
Writers Guild of America rules require that screenwriters have
right of first refusal to write novelizations of their own films, but they rarely do so because of the lack of prestige and money. Some novels blur the line between a novelization and an original novel that is the basis of a
film adaptation.
Arthur C. Clarke provided the ideas for
Stanley Kubrick's
2001: A Space Odyssey. Based on his own
short stories and his cooperation with Kubrick during the preparation and making of this film adaptation he wrote the
film novelization of the same name which is appreciated by fans because the film provides little
exposition, and the novelization fills in some blanks.
David Morrell wrote the novel
First Blood about
John Rambo, which led to the
film adaptation of the same name. Although Rambo dies at the end of his original story, Morrell had a
paragraph in his
contract stipulating he remained "the only person who could write books about Rambo". This paid off for him when the
film producers changed the ending and decided for a
sequel. David Morrell accepted to carry out the novelization and negotiated unprecedented liberties which resulted in a likewise unprecedented success when his book entered
The New York Times Best Seller list and stayed there for six weeks. in
1989 and also the novelization of
GoldenEye in
1995. John Gardner found his successor in
Raymond Benson who wrote besides several original Bond novels three novelizations including
The World Is Not Enough.
Comics While comic books such as the series
Classics Illustrated have often provided adaptations of novels, novelizations of comics are relatively rare.
The Adventures of Superman, written by
George Lowther and published in 1942, is the first novelization of a comic book character.
Video games Video games are novelized in the same manner as films. While gamers might enjoy playing a certain action scene for hours, the buyers of a novelization might be bored soon if they merely read about such a scene. Consequently, the writer will have to cut down on the action. ==Authors==