Due to factors such as audience enthusiasm and financial opportunities, there is growing controversy over splitting book to movie adaptations into two shorter movies instead of one long movie.
Technology education teacher Alicia Simpson said that she thinks it depends on how well they stay true to the original content.
“For example, splitting the seventh Harry Potter movie was a good decision because there was so much content in that book and it was almost two books in itself,” Simpson said. For Simpson, splitting the last Twilight book, however, “didn’t really need to happen.”
According to Simpson, the more faithful you can be to the story, the better.
“If you split it, you can put more elements that existed in the book in there. […] You can put more in when you’re splitting into two movies, so the adaptation can be more faithful,” band director Adam Tucker said.
Many people feel the experience with book-to-movie adaptations is also changed.
Gaming Club advisor Patrick Murphy is one of these people.
“I’m not a huge fan of sort of an artificial cliffhanger. I’d rather see the complete story,” Murphy said.
Tucker said that he was very frustrated with the Harry Potter movie series because he had to wait one year before a new movie was released.
Money and efficiency really matter because movie makers have to make the financial decision of whether or not to cut scenes out of the movie, or split it into two parts.
According to Murphy, the recently released “Dune” came out as part one of part two because the movie makers weren’t sure how it was going to do.
In an interview with Variety Magazine, Dune director Denis Villeneuve said. “I wanted at the beginning to do the two parts simultaneously. For several reasons, it didn’t happen, and I agreed to the challenge of making part one and then wait to see if the movie rings enough enthusiasm.”
The public could sit and watch a three and a half hour movie, they just don’t want to, according to Tucker. “[The Avengers: Endgame] is a perfect example. The highest-grossing movie of all time is three hours long,” Tucker said.
Murphy said filming the movies separately feels very inefficient. “You now have to redo the getting everybody back together and now film the second half if they’re going to continue. In something that is a little bit bigger or more epic, I think it’s appropriate, but in general I prefer to see an entire story,” Murphy said.