If a book is being adapted into a movie, do you read the book before watching the movie?
For me there are a few different scenarios here with different answers.
This is a book that I know well
Examples of this would have been when the Harry Potter movies or the Hunger Games movies came out. I knew those stories. I went into those movies knowing that I would recognize when changes were made to the plot and I would be probably be snippy about it. I’m still salty that no one ever explained that James and Sirius, et al made the Marauder’s Map in the movie version. You know we’ve all got a list of things the screenwriters got wrong when we come out of movies like this.
I’ve read the book but I don’t remember the fine details
Here I’m thinking, “I liked that book” but I don’t remember the particulars because I read it years ago. I generally won’t reread it before I see the movie. If some plot point of the movie confuses me, I might go back later and see if that was really different in the book or I might just let it go.
I’ve never read the book
I absolutely 100% will not read the book before I see the movie. In fact, unless the movie absolutely blew my mind and I needed to know what happened in the sequel right away, I wouldn’t ever read the book. The movie version will be the one and only version of that story for me forever and ever. I don’t need to add the aggravation of seeing how much they messed up the adaptation of the book.
