The Screen Scribe

There’s a particularly modern type of Hollywood executive who says things like, “We’re updating the themes for a modern audience” and somewhere, at that exact moment, a bookshop owner quietly weeps into a dog-eared paperback. Adaptations are Hollywood’s bread and butter and have been since before Technicolour. Novels, comics, video games, stage plays, toy lines, if it exists, someone’s optioned it. But here’s the rub: despite how many of these projects get greenlit, most of them are rubbish. Not just bland rubbish, but often active betrayals of their source material, the fanbase, and the very reason they were adapted in the first place.

Why does this keep happening? Why does a story that already works, already has fans, already has structure, tone, and theme, end up mangled beyond recognition the moment a screenwriter gets their ‘Final Draft’ mitts on it?

Let’s talk about the real villain of the piece: creative hubris.

“I Can Fix It”: The Writer-as-Saviour Complex

There’s a difference between adapting and reimagining. The former respects the bones of the source material; the latter tends to smash them and glue the fragments into a Frankensteinian moodboard of ideas. The problem is that most modern writers in Hollywood aren’t adapting, they’re rewriting from the top down.

Why? Because they think they’re better.

It’s that quiet, corrosive arrogance. The belief that a beloved fantasy novel from 1996 can’t possibly compete with their MFA from NYU. That the subtext of a cult comic series needs to be clarified, reframed, deepened. That what fans really want is a gritty reinvention starring someone who looks like they’re one TikTok away from launching a skincare brand.

And look, it’s not about “faithfulness” for its own sake. No one’s saying a page-for-page remake is required. But there’s a crucial difference between adaptation and condescension. Too often, writers walk into the process not asking, “How do I honour this?”, but “How do I make this mine?”

If you’re adapting something beloved, newsflash: it’s not yours.

The Intellectualisation of the Obvious

Another plague upon modern adaptations is the pseudo-intellectual deconstruction of straightforward genre material.

“This silly 80s cartoon is actually a complex allegory for late-stage capitalism and generational trauma.”

Is it though? Or are you just embarrassed by the source and trying to sand it down into something safe to pitch on Zoom? Take something like Halo, a franchise with world-building baked into every frame of gameplay, mythos layered like a galactic onion, and a lead character whose stoic silence is part of the point. What did the writers do? Removed the helmet in episode one. Gave him feelings. Gave him a girlfriend. Gave him… a childhood?

They looked at a militaristic sci-fi epic and decided the core appeal was therapy.

It’s this inability to accept that maybe, just maybe, a thing was popular because it already worked. Not because it was waiting to be rewritten by a room of people who’ve never held a controller in their lives.

The Witcher: A Textbook Case of Creative Drift

Nowhere is this self-defeating cycle more apparent than in The Witcher. What started as one of the more promising adaptations in recent memory quickly devolved into a showcase of everything wrong with how modern Hollywood handles source material.

Henry Cavill, God bless the man, was Geralt. He didn’t just play the role; he fought for it. Fought for the lore, the tone, the canon. Fought, reportedly, against a writers’ room that often viewed the original books with outright disdain. The result? A series that initially walked the line between fan service and fantasy ambition… only to tumble headfirst into narrative incoherence once Cavill stepped away.

By the third season, it was like watching an entirely different show—one stitched together with exposition, tonal whiplash, and side characters elbowing their way into center frame while the actual story fumbled along behind them.

Cavill’s departure wasn’t just a casting change; it was a death knell. Because when the one person in the room who gets it finally walks, what does that say about the people still running it?

The Fandom Factor (a.k.a. Your Audience is Not the Enemy)

A word, if I may, on fans.

Writers: they’re not your obstacle. They’re your baseline. They’re the ones who already love the thing you’re adapting. If you lose them, what’s left? A general audience that thinks the IP is a theme park ride?

Too often, modern writers go in defensive. They see fandom as a threat, not an asset. Any backlash gets painted as “toxic” without ever asking whether maybe, just maybe, the fans are right. That they’ve been around long enough to know when something’s off. That “criticism” and “bigotry” aren’t synonyms. Fans aren’t asking for mindless loyalty. They’re asking for understanding. The good adaptations? They get it. Think The Last of Us season one. Think Dune. Think Andor. These didn’t pander, they respected the emotional architecture of their source.

If you’re adapting something with a fanbase, step one: understand what they love and why. Step two: build from that foundation, not in spite of it.

The Algorithm-Driven Rewrite Machine

Let’s not forget that many modern adaptations are less about story and more about IP leverage. A studio sees a brand and assumes it comes with built-in value, like cinematic sourdough starter. They’re not greenlighting The Dark Tower because they love Stephen King, they’re greenlighting it because someone at a boardroom table said, “This could be our next Game of Thrones.” Which means the project isn’t written. It’s assembled. One-part social messaging, one-part mandated diversity, one-part tone-matching the latest Netflix hit, all smoothed into a uniform grey paste of studio notes and anxiety.

Art by committee rarely sings. And adaptations born from spreadsheets die in test screenings.

So What Works?

It’s not all doom. When adaptations land, they really land. But notice the trend: the ones that work tend to come from creatives who love the source, not those who merely license it.

• Peter Jackson loved Tolkien.
• The Duffer Brothers practically worshipped 80s genre cinema.
• Denis Villeneuve didn’t just understand Dune, he felt it.

Adaptation is a skill. It requires humility, reverence, and the confidence to know when to change and when to leave it the hell alone. Also, keep an eye on Henry Cavill’s upcoming Warhammer 40k adaptation. That could be something special from a man who understands honouring the source material.

Final Draft (Of This Rant)

So why do so many adaptations fail? It’s not because of the source. Or the fans. Or even the budget.

It’s because of ego.

Too many writers walk into the process with something to prove, instead of something to preserve. They think their job is to correct the story, when really, it’s to translate it. And until Hollywood learns the difference, we’ll keep getting hollow replicas where living stories should be. Rewrites without heart. Characters without soul. IP without identity.

Or, as fans of the source would call it: Tuesday.