There’s always a lot of excitement whenever Hollywood embarks on a venture to turn a book into a movie. Much of that excitement stems from anticipating how closely the movie stays true to the book it’s adapted from. But sometimes a larger part of the viewing public is more interested in what the book’s author thinks about the movie. That’s why it doesn’t come as a huge shock to see the wide range of reactions when Tomi Adeyemi went public with her frustration over the Children of Blood and Bone movie. But she’s definitely not the first author to publicly reject an adaptation of her book.
Since probably the first adaptation, lots of writers have watched Hollywood (with varying degrees of horror) completely mangle their books and said so, loud and clear. If it’s not about the casting choices, it’s about how much the film creators completely changed the entire book’s vibe. Here are five authors, Adeyemi included, who publicly disavowed the movie adaptations of their own books.
1. The Shining (1980)
One very important fact stands out whenever Stephen King talks about Stanley Kubrick‘s The Shining: he absolutely hates the movie, and that hard stance hasn’t softened with Kubrick’s death. In King’s book, Jack Torrance is a mess: a struggling writer, a recovering alcoholic, a dad who wants to do good but keeps failing. King wrote him as someone readers root for even though he’s losing his mind. Kubrick skipped all that build-up and jumped straight to the unhinged version of the character, and King didn’t take kindly to that “gaffe.”
King also thought Shelley Duvall’s Wendy got a raw deal, turned into a screaming mess instead of the real hero who actually saves her kid in the book. In fact, he was so pissed off about Kubrick’s version that he made his own version in 1997, a miniseries that, well… looked more like what he wrote. It didn’t steal Kubrick’s thunder; nothing really has, but King probably got to sleep better at night knowing it was out there.
2. Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory (1971)
This one hurt more because Roald Dahl wrote the first draft of the screenplay himself. But then the studio got their hands on it and rewrote pretty much everything. They made Wonka the star when the book was clearly about Charlie, the poor kid who earned the golden ticket through luck and heart. Dahl also wasn’t sold on Gene Wilder, the guy half of America pictures whenever anyone says chocolate river.
He wanted someone weirder, edgier, with less “lovable grandpa” energy and more “unpredictable weirdo” energy. He’d pushed for Spike Milligan instead, who was reportedly so eager for the part he shaved his beard off for a screen test. Dahl never came around in the film either, staying openly critical of it the rest of his life and refusing to let a sequel happen. This intense dislike of the project also led him to block Hollywood from touching any of his other books for years.
3. Percy Jackson & the Olympians: The Lightning Thief (2010)
Rick Riordan said watching his books turn into that 2010 movie was like being put through a “meat grinder,” and he didn’t say it to be dramatic. His books were about twelve-year-olds discovering they’re demigods. The movie cast teenagers (good-looking ones obviously), and that changed the whole vibe. Suddenly it’s a teen drama, and not a coming-of-age story about kids.
Riordan admitted he never saw the final cut. He just read the scripts and figured that told him enough. He stayed away from Hollywood for years after that, and only came back once Disney swooped in, gave him creative control, and let him cast actual kids for the TV show. If only someone had thought of that the first time around.
4. Queen of the Damned (2002)
Anne Rice is famous for hating Tom Cruise as Lestat before doing a total 180 after seeing Interview with the Vampire. There was no 180 from her with Queen of the Damned. She flat-out said that the film “mutilated” her novel beyond recognition. The movie mashed together plot points from different books in her Vampire Chronicles series, threw in a nu-metal soundtrack that seemed totally out of place, and called it a day. Fans were confused, and critics tore the movie to shreds when it hit theaters. Rice herself gave the movie a wide berth, which clearly said, “I had nothing to do with this.”
5. Children of Blood and Bone (2027)
This one’s both weird and different at once, and it made serious waves online. Tomi Adeyemi dropped a video months before the movie came out, calling it “…the worst thing I have ever had to live through.” That statement carries extra weight since she co-wrote the screenplay and served as an executive producer on the film. In that video, she also says she won’t be watching the movie when it drops. Adeyemi didn’t spell out exactly what went wrong on set, but said she left it in tears, then came home to panic attacks and physical pain that stuck around for a while.
The video, which clearly hinted at some tension with the cast, features a message she sent to Amandla Stenberg, who plays Princess Amari in the film. The message read, “Do not ever use my name in an interview or video again. Do not text me. Do not call me.” Whatever actually happened, it wasn’t some tiny disagreement over casting or tone like most of the entries on this list. The whole thing sounds personal, and it feels like we haven’t heard the last of it. Directed by Gina Prince-Bythewood, Children of Blood and Bone is expected to hit theaters on January 15, 2027.
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