Page to Screen and Back

Before Oprah launched her now legendary book club five years ago, hitting pay dirt in publishing came when a book made it to movie theaters. But Hollywood still moves thousands, sometimes millions of books each year with its relentless appetite for new star vehicles, whether or not every film is considered a success by that industry's standards.

While movie attendance is down, coming off a weak summer film season, a strong lineup of book-related fall films—including Harry Potter and the Sorceror's Stone, The Lord of the Rings and Hearts in Atlantis—should draw audiences back to the theaters and give a boost to book sales. Of the films that have been pushed back to spring 2002 in the wake of the September 11 attacks on New York City and Washington, D.C., only one had a book attached: Big Trouble, based on the Dave Barry novel, in which a nuclear bomb is sneaked on a plane However, some release dates may be affected by scheduling changes for other films (see sidebar. p. 18, for most current dates).

It's no secret that movie studios have more substantial marketing budgets than publishers. Even cable and network movies can have a powerful effect on a related title, though books that tie in with a theatrical release usually outsell those made for the small screen. "Network movies tend to air just once, with the possibility of a repeat," said Vintage Books' publicity director, Russell Perreault. Cable stations, which often run their programs several times a month, give movies stronger exposure than networks, hence relatively bigger book sales.

The HBO special Band of Brothers, which debuted September 9, is a rare exception with the effect of a feature film. Under the DreamWorks umbrella, Steven Spielberg and Tom Hanks invested an unprecedented $120 million to produce the 10-part series for the small screen. Since June, the advance publicity alone has helped make the 11-year-old book one of Stephen E. Ambrose's top-selling paperbacks. With 750,000 copies now in print, the book reached #1 on the New York Times paperback list on September 23. Though Chris Lloreda, the associate publisher of Touchstone/Fireside/Scribner paperbacks, marveled at HBO's extraordinary publicity budget, she said it isn't the only factor in selling books. "Ambrose has a huge following, which always helps. Sales also depend on the original book sales, reviews of the book and, of course, the producers and directors and the cast."

Judging by those terms, Simon & Schuster is poised for similar success, tying in with two December 25 theatrical releases that feature recent Oscar winners. Universal Pictures' A Beautiful Mind (based on the biography of economist John Forbes Nash by Sylvia Nasar) is directed by Ron Howard and stars Russell Crowe and Ed Harris. Miramax's The Shipping News (based on the bestselling novel by Annie Proulx) features Kevin Spacey and Julianne Moore. "Our accounts are really going to support it with in-store merchandising and very significant buys," reported Lloreda. Meanwhile, Vintage harbors great expectations for Charlotte Gray, also coming to the big screen in December. Based on the sleeper hit by Sebastian Faulks, the film is directed by Gillian Armstrong and stars two actors favored by critics, Cate Blanchett and Billy Crudup. Having shipped 50,000 copies of the original paperback, Vintage has advanced 150,000 copies of the movie tie-in edition and expects to net around 200,000, its typical number for movie tie-ins, according to Perreault.

Publishers agree that movie tie-in art can be a powerful sales tool. "When Vintage published Dead Man Walking by Sister Helen Prejean in 1994, we had sold 20,000 copies in two years," Perreault told PW. "But the movie tie-in edition sold 200,000 copies in two months. We still keep the movie art-work on the cover because it works so well." John Karle, St. Martin's Press publicity manager, witnessed movie tie-in art's impact with the film adaptation of Bruce Porter's memoir, Blow, directed by Ted Demme and starring Johnny Depp. "We didn't have to buy into front-of-the-store programs because the film was big in the news, the cover art was particularly striking and we thought we'd sell a lot of copies anyway. It hit #14 on the New York Times bestseller list this summer."

St. Martin's is hoping this approach will work for the October release of Kevin Spacey's K-Pax, advancing 80,000 copies for the movie tie-in edition of the Gene Brewer novel.

Sometimes the original artwork is more effective, Lloreda noted, in which case "booksellers will continue to order the editions with the original art and merchandise it as it is. Or, if their inventory systems can handle it, they order the movie tie-in edition as well, merchandise both books together and weigh their re-orders according to the respective editions' performance." Some publishers report that getting the movie art isn't always possible. In the case of K-Pax, Karle said, St. Martin's will reissue the novel with a banner that reads "Now a Major Motion Picture from Universal," because the studio doesn't yet have the final promotion image.

One thing is certain: the movie does not have to be a blockbuster or a critical favorite to have a positive impact on book sales. For better or worse, Louis De Bernieres's celebrated novel Corelli's Mandolin is a testament to this, landing on the New York Times bestseller list even though the film Captain Corelli's Mandolin, starring Nicolas Cage and Penelope Cruz, was universally panned when it was released on August 17. As Perreault said, "All of the movie reviewers noted how beloved the novel is, and that has moved books."