Intellectual Property and Adaptation

Intellectual property (I.P.) is source material that is often (typically) not created by the screenwriter. In today's TV landscape, the majority of shows are based on I.P. The most successful TV adaptation of all time is Game of Thrones. The truth is most aspiring writers don't have the clout or financial means to secure rights on a hot property. The 1994 classic film The Shawshank Redemption, adapted by Frank Darabont from Stephen King's novella Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption, is often referred to as how to make more from less. Epic or sprawling novels generally do not lend themselves to satisfying feature films. In recent years, bestselling novels have been so successfully adapted into limited series that the networks have ordered additional seasons created from whole cloth. Countless novels describe incendiary situations in words, but when depicted visually on screen, they can be alienating to the point of being unwatchable and/or lost in translation.