Here’s a fun fact about me: I hate James Patterson.
I hate him with the sort of irrational ire that he probably doesn’t deserve, especially as I’ve never read his books. Instead, I’ve judged all of them by the cover. (I also watch pots until they boil and keep all my birds in a bush rather than in my hand, but that’s irrelevant.)
Every time I’ve ever looked at a Patterson book, one thing strikes me: The insultingly small lettering listing a co-author.
This isn’t a once-in-a-while thing, either. Pretty much every Patterson novel you see in supermarkets or airports or classic literature sections - but realistically just in supermarkets and airports - has a co-author listed in small letters.
That, for me, marks Patterson out as a lazy, unimaginative hack. The sort of man who, judging by his legion of collaborators, couldn’t write a check without calling for backup.
I don’t have much love for his co-authors, either. If - as I suspect - they’re doing most of the heavy lifting and allowing some limited input from a big name to boost their sales, they’re a bunch of cowards at best, so unsure of their own abilities that they need propping up by one of the bigger boys. At worst, they’re greedy prostitutes who will sell out their own work for a bigger slice.
So yeah, I don’t like Patterson, because of what he does, and a lot of what I read about his books online doesn’t make me want to give him a second chance. Words like “predictable”, “lazy” and “recycled” are thrown around quite often.
There is one series of books that Patterson apparently wrote without help from a grownup: His flagship “Alex Cross” series.
Thinking about it, I tried to read an Alex Cross novel once, because the trailers for those Morgan Freeman movies based on them looked pretty good. As it was, the book was dull and featured laughably cartoonish characters, so I gave up after the first few pages. That says a lot, too, ‘cause I’ve read some utter shite over the years.
As mentioned, the “Cross” novels were filmed a few years back with Morgan Freeman as the lead, and now they’re at it again.
Predictably, I wasn’t that interested in the whole thing, but fans were aghast. The casting was wrong, the plot was nothing to do with the source material, etc etc.
I took a look, and the plot of the new, imaginatively titled movie (“Alex Cross”) is that Cross, a police profiler who’s defining characteristic is “being black,” has to stop a serial killer played by the boring doctor from “Lost.”
Well, yeah, that doesn’t seem like a great idea. Who the hell is going to be scared of the- HOLY SHIT LOOK AT THE DOCTOR FROM LOST!!!
Seriously, Matthew Fox has got into the sort of shape for this movie that sports writers long since ran out of superlatives to describe. Back in the day, someone with low body fat was described as “ripped,” until that was decided to be insufficient, so the word “shredded” came about.
Based on those pictures, Matthew Fox has skipped those steps and gone straight to… shit, I don’t know, “rillette” ?! Either way, he makes for a pretty scary adversary. We’d better have someone playing Alex Cross who can stand up to Fox’s terrifying physicality.
Oh.
Shit.
So yeah, with Tyler Perry, best described as “cuddly,” this is looking like a bit of a mis-match. Based on those images, the only way Matthew Fox is going to lose that fight is if the cops show up and arrest him for beating up another bus driver.
The recent trailer didn’t do anyone any favours, as it showed Fox looking believably like a soulless, lightning fast killing machine and Tyler Perry looking like a fat bloke.
I shouldn’t care, but frustratingly, I do.
It’s not that someone’s making a bad job of filming a book I don’t like; much like the whole “co-author” thing, what makes me so angry is the principle involved.
A quick scan on IMDb informs me that this movie uses very little except character names and some sparse details from the actual “Cross” novels.
Brad Pitt is in the middle of doing the same thing. Plot synopses for his upcoming “World War Z”, based on the excellent book of the same name, show that the plot of the movie basically ignores the source material.
This could be why “World War Z” is looking at an eye-watering seven weeks of re-shoots. I have a bet with some friends of mine that I could make an accurate, full length “World War Z” adaptation with a cam-corder faster than Brad Pitt can do it with an entire film crew.
Meanwhile, Lee Child’s books are coming to the screen. I’m a big Child fan, and I’d share my views on the casting, except that me shrieking and punching the keyboard for fifteen minutes doesn’t make for interesting reading.
The obvious question, in the face of Hollywood’s constant pillaging of source material, is “why bother?” Why are movie studios bothering to pay for the “Alex Cross/World War Z/Jack Reacher” brand if they’re just going to make it into an unrelated and generic cop/zombie/arsehole movie?
Well, the key word there is “brand.” Not everyone is following the movie business as closely as geeks like me. (Some people, it’s rumoured, even have lives.)
They’ll see a poster for “World War Z” and, with any luck, remember it as a good book and pay to see it on screen. It doesn’t matter that what’s on screen bears little resemblance to the book, because again, the operative word is “pay.” Once you’ve got your ticket, the movie studios don’t give a shit.
That’s why, weirdly, I’m on the side of James Patterson fans. Hollywood needs to respect source material, even if that material sucks.
Otherwise, they’ll end up with fan boycotts that will screw the movie’s chances even harder than their meddling.
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