History Main / Novelization

* 1935's ''Film/WerewolfOfLondon'' got a novelization long, long after its release (sometime in the 70s) by someone under the house pseudonym Carl Dreadstone. While it told the same basic story as the film, about a botanist who becomes a werewolf, it had some differences (not the least of which is Glendon's first name is inexplicably spelled "[[SpellMyNameWithAnS Wilfrid]]"). This included a radically different ending: Glendon and his fellow werewolf, [[spoiler:Dr. Yogami]], attempt to stave off their transformation by seeing a hypnotist. It fails, and the two transform and fight. Glendon kills [[spoiler:Yogami]] and then the hypnotist. The novelization then concludes with Glendon turning back into a human and [[spoiler:contemplating killing himself with the hypnotist's gun]].

** ''Film/StarTrekVTheFinalFrontier'''s novelization by J.M. Dillard does a lot to redeem the movie's IdiotPlot, adding considerable backstory to Sybok and his mother, and explaining that "God" had telepathically sent Sybok a formula for configuring a starship's deflector shields to penetrate the Barrier. After Sybok gets Scotty to set up the Enterprise's shields in this way, Klaa's Bird-of-Prey copies the same shield configuration in order to follow the Enterprise. It also gives background information on St. John Talbot, General Korrd, Cathlinn Dar, and J'Onn, and tells what led them all to their current circumstances on the godforsaken world of Nimbus III.

* The first season of the dramedy ''WebVideo/PrettyDudes'' was adapted into novel form by its creator and showrunner Chance Calloway. A few minor characters change roles and names, but the most substantial changes include Eagle's race (from Asian American in the series to Latinx in the book), leaving out the subplot of Sunji's possible immortality, and detailing the lead characters escapades in far more detail than the show ever did (or could). This creates a far different motivation for the final actions of two of the lead characters, since the HomoeroticSubtext between two of the characters became quite literal text.

* ''Series/BuffyTheVampireSlayer'' (and its spin-off, ''Series/{{Angel}}''), like many Creator/TheWB[=/=]Creator/TheCW productions, has a large number of both original novels and novelizations. The occasional good novelization (for example, ''The Diary of Rupert Giles, Vol. 1'', ironically by Nancy Holder, author of the infamously atrocious original post-season seven novel, ''Queen of the Slayers'') seeps in. But [[SturgeonsLaw most appear to be nothing more than]] copies of the script with the stage directions edited into prose format, such as the T.V. series's novelization first episode, ''The Harvest.''

* A.C. Crispin novelized the entirety of TheEighties TV miniseries ''Series/{{V 1983}}'', together with its sequel ''V: The Final Battle'' in one {{Doorstopper}} of a book. It works well, mostly because Crispin doesn't just stick to the scripts. However, the transition between miniseries and finale is awkward. ("Four months later", anyone?) The book contains a couple of shoutouts - a helicopter pilot is named "Joe Harnell" (Harnell was creator Kenneth Johnson's AssociatedComposer and scored the first miniseries); two of Mike Donovan's colleagues are named after T.V. writers, Sam Egan and Jeri Taylor ([[Series/StarTrekVoyager (Yes, that one]]). Who at the time were working at Creator/{{Universal}} (Egan wrote "Next Stop, Nowhere" the TropeNamer for TheQuincyPunk), as Kenneth Johnson had done.

* A.C. Crispin novelized the entirety of TheEighties TV miniseries ''Series/{{V 1983}}'', together with its sequel ''V: The Final Battle'' in one {{Doorstopper}} of a book. It works well, mostly because Crispin doesn't just stick to the scripts. However, the transition between miniseries and finale is awkward. ("Four months later", anyone?) The book contains a couple of shoutouts - a helicopter pilot is named "Joe Harnell" (Harnell scored the first miniseries); two of Mike Donovan's colleagues are named after T.V. writers, Sam Egan and Jeri Taylor [[Series/StarTrekVoyager Yes, that one]]. (who at the time were working at Universal (Egan wrote "Next Stop, Nowhere" the TropeNamer for TheQuincyPunk), as creator Kenneth Johnson had done.

* ''Series/MightyMorphinPowerRangers'': During the show's run, 12 novelizations were released, covering 15 episodes (including two multi-parters) from the first two seasons: ''It's Morphin Time!'' (adapting "Food Fight"), ''Rita's Revenge!'' (adapting "Big Sisters"), ''The Terror Toad'' (adapting "Power Ranger Punks"), ''Megazord to the Rescue!'' (adapting "Clean-Up Club"), ''Putty Attack!'' (adapting "Something Fishy"), ''The Bad Dream Machine'' (adapting "Crystal of Nightmares"), ''The Bumble Beast'' (adapting "Grumble Bee"), ''The Super Zords!'' (adapting "Enter... The Lizzinator"), ''Lord Zedd Strikes Back!'' (adapting "The Mutiny", parts 1-3), ''Bloom of Doom'' (adapting "Bloom of Doom"), ''Tigerzord Power'' (adapting "White Light", parts 1 and 2), and ''Alpha, the Hero'' (adapting "Blue Ranger Gone Bad").

* VideoGame/MetalGear
** The original ''VideoGame/MetalGearSolid'' had a novelization by Raymond Benson published in 2008. Since it was written a decade after the game's release as a tie-in to ''VideoGame/MetalGearSolid4'', it incorporates some of the plot elements and retcons introduced to the series since then. It also turned Solid Snake from a stoic assassin to a one-liner spouting action movie star to inject some humor with some mixed results. The later ''VideoGame/MetalGearSolid2'' also written by Benson, was a more straightforward adaptation of the game.

** Project Itoh, who was already a fan of Hideo Kojima's work before becoming a published author, wrote the novelization of ''VideoGame/MetalGearSolid4'' published in Japan in 2008 and later adapted into English in 2012. It retells the game's story from Otacon's perspective and covers almost everything except the battles with the B.B. Corps (who are absent in the book). Itoh was set to write the novelizations for ''VideoGame/MetalGearSolid3'' and ''VideoGame/MetalGearSolidPeaceWalker'', but his deteriorating health and eventual death resulted in these projects being assigned to ''Beatless'' author Satoshi Hase and newcomer Hitori Nojima (a penname used by Kadowaka author Kenji Yano, who was already an acquaintance of Hideo Kojima) respectively.

* British-published novelizations of American T.V. shows were everywhere in the 1980s; some only had one book because of the parent show's short run- basically these would be novelizations of the pilot episode (''Series/{{Automan}}'', ''Shannon''[[note]]a series with a post-''Series/{{Kojak}}'' and pre-''Series/KnotsLanding'' Kevin Dobson as a New York cop widowed New York cop/single father who moves to San Francisco so his late wife's parents can take care of his son while Shannon's fighting crime in the City By The Bay[[/note]]), others got into plural figures (like ''Series/KnightRider'' and ''Series/StreetHawk'' - the latter only lasted for 12 episodes after the pilot, but there were four books published covering said pilot and six regular episodes), with the champion being ''Series/TheATeam'' (which clocked up ten books, all but one of which were based on episodes - only the first six of which were published in the U.S.).

* The novelization of ''WesternAnimation/{{Coco}}'' went into a lot more detail than the film did, particularly involving the title character's backstory.

* The novelization of ''WesternAnimation/CloudyWithAChanceOfMeatballs'' (a RecursiveAdaptation) is mostly faithful to the movie but includes a few extended scenes, such as Brent badgering Flint at the tackle shop, and Flint's food fight with the Mayor.

* The novelization of ''WesternAnimation/KungFuPanda2'' actually portrayed its villain, Shen, as a more sympathetic character than in the movie, while the film's prologue had Shen develop his cannons for evil for no reason, the novelization stated that the real reason he was evil was that his parents [[WhyCouldntYouBeDifferent hated him]] because of his [[AlbinosAreFreaks pale coloration]] and poor health.

** Many of the US ''Pokémon'' books were written by Tracey West who wrote ''many'' of these types of books for Scholastic for ''Pokémon'' and other series like ''WesternAnimation/ThePowerpuffGirls'', ''WesternAnimation/DextersLaboratory'', ''WesternAnimation/SpongeBobSquarePants'', ''WesternAnimation/ScoobyDoo'' and...

* The StoryArc of the Franchise/{{Superman}} comics where he [[BackFromTheDead died and returned]] was made into a novelization by Creator/RogerStern. It's generally considered [[AdaptationDistillation better than the original]], partially due to cutting out the various running subplots, crossovers, and [[UsefulNotes/TheDarkAgeOfComicBooks Dark Age]] tropes.
* Likewise, the novelization for the ''Comicbook/BatmanNoMansLand'' story arc is also better. (Except for completely removing ComicBook/{{Catwoman}}, Superman, and ComicBook/{{Azrael}} from the plot.) With a plot that spread out over a year and, like Superman's death, was covered in at least four different titles with different writers, the novel brilliantly smoothed the rough edges.
* For every good adaptation, however, there are crappy ones. ''[[ComicBook/FiftyTwo 52]]'' omitted large portions of the storyline. While ''ComicBook/CrisisOnInfiniteEarths'' and ''ComicBook/InfiniteCrisis'' are written under the assumption that the person reading it is familiar with the story, meaning casual readers will have no clue what's going on...
* There are many instances of novelizations in comic book form, outside of [[RecursiveAdaptation Recursive Adaptations]] of comic book-based films. Many of [[Creator/MarvelComics Marvel]]'s ''Super Special'' books were novelizations of late 70s/early-mid 80s films, and adaptations of ''[[Film/ANewHope Star Wars]]'' (back when it was just ''Star Wars'' and not ''Episode IV'') and ''Film/TheEmpireStrikesBack'' appeared in serialized form as issues of their ongoing ''[[ComicBook/StarWarsMarvel1977 Star Wars]]'' comic, though ''Film/ReturnOfTheJedi'' was published as a separate mini-series (and both ''Empire'' and ''Jedi'' were published as ''Super Special''s as well. [[Creator/DCComics DC]] released novelizations of some of the ''Franchise/StarTrek'' films as one-shots while they held the rights to publish ''[[ComicBook/StarTrekDCComics Trek]]'' comics.

* ''Franchise/{{Batman}}'':
** ''[[Film/Batman1989 Batman]]'' and ''Film/BatmanReturns'' both had novelizations by Creator/CraigShawGardner.
** The ''Film/BatmanForever'' novelization by Creator/PeterDavid is generally praised as an improvement over the film. He throws in some deleted scenes from the film (like Two-Face's escape from Arkham) and rearranges some scenes that the film showed out of sequence to help the story make more sense. He added more character development for characters like Dr. Chase Meridian, [[ComicBook/{{Robin}} Robin]], ComicBook/TheRiddler, and [[ComicBook/TwoFace Two-Face]]. For example, Chase meets Dick Grayson and his father John early in the story after Dick comes to her aid when a thug takes her purse. Chase also figures out Bruce Wayne's secret identity after seeing him fight Two-Face's goons at the circus, explaining her seduction scene on the police headquarters rooftop and her spending time with Bruce to study him and see what makes him tick. Peter David gives additional insight into Riddler's obsession with Bruce, stemming from Nygma's childhood; when he finds a newspaper article on Thomas and Martha Wayne's murder, Nymga sees a photo of a young Bruce and immediately identifies with him. Peter David explains Two-Face's motivation for hating Batman is Dent believing that Batman failed to protect him as promised. Not only does he explore the film's duality theme in more detail, but Peter David also adds details that fill in plot holes from ''Batman Returns'', such as how Batman clears his name. Unlike the film, the book has a stronger connection to the previous films with mentions of ComicBook/TheJoker and ComicBook/ThePenguin, and some classic Batman characters like Lucius Fox and Harvey Bullock have cameo appearances. There's even a mention of ComicBook/PoisonIvy. Bizarrely, The Riddler briefly wears a robotic muscle suit for a few pages during the climax, like in the licensed game version.

* ''Franchise/{{Superman}}'':

** The 1984 ''Film/{{Supergirl}}'' movie also had a [[https://dc.fandom.com/wiki/Supergirl:_The_Official_Movie_Novelization novelization]] by Norma Fox Mazer which delved more deeply into characters, mainly [[ComicBook/{{Supergirl}} Linda Lee]] and the witch Selene.

* ''Series/DonkeyHodie'' has picture book adaptations of "Pickle Penguin Problem", "Planet Purple Party" and "Flying Flapjacks" (the latter of which uses a lift-the-flap format) and Ready to Read titles based on "A Big Favor For Grampy" and "Good Dog School".

** The novelization of ''Film/ReturnOfTheJedi'', written by James Kahn, features a handful of changes. It expands on some characters (Wicket has more characterization, Moff Jerjerrod is depicted as a sadist, etc.). It also makes the Rebel fleet larger, drawing out the battle more, and dramatically enhances the confrontation between Luke, Vader, and the Emperor. For some reason, it has the dialogue of many of the non-human characters written out in excruciating detail, down to emphasizing the pitch changes in Artoo's beeps and boops.

* ''[[Film/Scarface1983 Scarface]]'', itself a remake of [[Film/Scarface1932 an adaptation]] of a novel, received a novelization by Creator/PaulMonette.

** In Japan, [[Manga/DragonBall all]] [[Anime/DragonBallZ three]] [[Anime/DragonBallGT animes]] were adapted into an "animanga" using screenshots of the show, [[RecursiveAdaptation despite the show being based on a manga]]. The main appeal was that it was in color, but then the Full Color edition of the original manga was released using Toriyama's stronger artwork. As Kanzenshuu's Julian says, it's redundantly redundant.

* The 1927 lost film ''London After Midnight'' with Creator/LonChaney got a novelization, which still exists, and is a crucial reason we even know the film's plot.

** 'Film/SupermanII'' had an unusual book, made up to look like Daily Planet news stories discussing the events of the film. Fitting into the newspaper motif, it also had fake ads, advice columns, a gossip column, and a classified ads page, all done tongue-in-cheek.

* After previously writing the comic book series of both characters, Creator/PeterDavid handled the novelizations of the ''Film/SpiderManTrilogy'' and ''Film/TheIncredibleHulk'' movies. Notably, the novelization of ''Film/SpiderMan3'' included many scenes cut from the movie, most notably several scenes in the final battle that make it play out much differently than it did in the film. David also added the touch of giving names to background characters that went unnamed in the ''The Incredible Hulk'' film, which corresponded to similar characters from the source comics.

* The novelization of ''WesternAnimation/KungFuPanda2'' actually portrayed its villain, Shen, as a more sympathetic character than in the movie, while the film's prologue had Shen develop his cannons for evil for no reason, the novelization stated that the real reason he was evil was that his parents [[WhyCouldntYouBeDifferent hated him]] because of his [[AlbinosAreFreaks pale coloration]] and [[IllChild poor health]].

* The novelization of independent thriller/horror film ''Ten'' was written by script co-writer and cast member Jade Sylvan (who portrayed The Renegade). It was written while the movie was being filmed and based on an early version of the screenplay and therefore included scenes that were cut from the film; most notably, a major clue towards the main PlotTwist shows up halfway through the novel, but not the movie. On the other hand, the fact that it was written by someone on set at the time means that a few moments from the film that were purely ThrowItIn were added to the book. The novelization also has an unusual structure where each of the ten main characters narrates one of the novel's ten chapters, which means the characters get more fleshed out than in the film - since the movie was a NamelessNarrative,each character makes up nicknames or short descriptions to refer to everyone else when it's their turn to do narration.

The novelization isn't exclusive to film; episodes of popular television shows may also be novelized: i.e., almost all of the original series ''Series/DoctorWho'' serials were novelized, as can ComicBook {{Story Arc}}s, and even video games (usually the ones with strong narrative elements, like [=RPGs=]). These vary from ExpandedUniverse material to complete bastardizations that [[InNameOnly only bear the name of the original.]]

* ''Series/TheTenthKingdom'' was co-written, under the pseudonym Kathryn Wesley, by the husband and wife team of Kristine Kathryn Rusch and Dean Wesley Smith. It was based on an earlier version of the screenplay that suffered from invalidated script syndrome. The final result contains some things which would have made for intriguing scenes in the movie: the Queen telling the Dog Prince a "bedtime story" about how she ended up in prison, the literal burying of the magic ax, Virginia's RecurringDreams about Wolf, or an interesting variation on the Swamp Witch's cottage scene with Clay Face rather than Acorn). Other sections have some surprisingly deep explorations of character and motivation: the longer conversations between Virginia and the Huntsman, Virginia and the Queen, Virginia and Snow White, or Virginia and Tony about her mother; or where they hear in Little Lamb Village about the Trolls ravaging the kingdom and Tony, who accidentally golded Wendell, feels responsible. And some [[AllThereInTheManual explanations]] for otherwise head-scratching moments are included, such as the old woman in the forest and the Cupid girl in Kissing Town, both being Snow White in disguise. There's also lots of fun [[DeadpanSnarker snarking]] in the characters' thoughts, especially Wolf's and Tony's.

** After Target's demise, BBC Books filled in some of their gaps[[note]]Currently, the only stories from the original series not yet officially novelized are Eric Saward's Dalek stories, "Resurrection of the Daleks" and "Revelation of the Daleks".[[/note]]; in 1996, they novelized the T.V. movie; in the 2010s, they novelized Creator/DouglasAdams' ''Who'' stories, including ''Shada'', which were abandoned during production. In 2018, they released four novelizations from the revival series.
** Further, the movie script written by Creator/TomBaker as a proposed Doctor Who feature film, ''Doctor Who Meets Scratchman'', was also [[Literature/DoctorWhoMeetsScratchman novelized]]. James Goss, who collaborated with Baker on the novel, took full license to go timey-wimey by adding in doctors who hadn't yet been even created when the script was originally written, including the Fifth, Tenth and Thirteenth Doctors.

* The ''Series/BattlestarGalactica1978'' pilot and a few episodes were novelized. A photo-novel included a picture of the cylons attacking Caprica with an expletive spelled out in the city's lights. Rumor has it this was from the effects team to Universal.

** ''Film/SupermanReturns'''s novelization includes a sizeable portion on Krypton - both the relationship between Lara and Jor-El and the DeletedScene of Kal-El's return to Krypton. It has a good deal of internal monologue from Superman, particularly during the plane save scene and the island scene. It also notably lacks the controversial [[spoiler:Superman's son]] element.

** The Jr. novelization for ''{{WesternAnimation/Up}}'' condenses the movie heavily, eliminating some scenes, having important scenes take place off-page, making the pacing worse than the movie. This is most obvious in the climax, where a 15-minute climax takes ten pages to tell.

* ''Film/{{Halloween 1978}}'''s novelization by Richard Curtis (under the pen name Curtis Richards) is quite renowned by the film's fans for exploring more of the characters and depth that the movie wasn't able to cover. The novel has become a collector's item among modern fans since copies are harder to find. The book was so renowned that lines from it ("You don't know what death is!") appear in the sequel. Michael Myers' added backstory was incorporated into the [[Film/HalloweenTheCurseOfMichaelMyers sixth film]]. [[Film/HalloweenII1981 The second]] and [[Film/HalloweenIIISeasonOfTheWitch third]] films were also novelized by Dennis Etchison (under the pen name Jack Martin), who was asked to write the script for ''[[Film/Halloween4TheReturnOfMichaelMyers Halloween 4]]'' (however, while his treatment was used, his script wasn't). Nicholas Grabowsky novelized the fourth film. ''Film/{{Halloween2018}}'' was novelized by John Passarella (best known for writing novels from the Franchise/{{Buffyverse}}).

* The films ''{{Film/Reptilicus}}'', ''{{Film/Gorgo}}'' and ''{{Film/Konga}}'' all had tie-in novels published by Monarch Books in the 60s. All three are notorious for the fact that their author wrote in softcore sex scenes to spice things up. In the case of ''Gorgo'', a film without any major female characters, author Carson Bingham had to invent an [[CanonForeigner original female character]] for Joe to sleep with (the alternative was [[HoYay him and Sam]]).

* ''Film/CreatureFromTheBlackLagoon'' had two novelizations, one by Vargo Statten which was faithful to the movie (other than a bit of AdaptationExpansion involving a man-eating underwater tree), and another by Walter Hariss writing under the pseudonym "Carl Dreadstone" which... wasn't.In fact,

* The novelization of ''{{WesternAnimation/Coco}}'' went into a lot more detail than the film did, particularly involving the title character's backstory.

* This happens to a good number of Australian kids' shows. Both series of ''Series/TheGirlFromTomorrow'' got one, both series of ''{{Series/Spellbinder}}'' had ''two each'', and ''Series/BlueWaterHigh'' has had a novelization of the first season written from the viewpoint of one of the characters. These commonly are word-for-word transcriptions, with each episode taking up a chapter. The ''Blue Water High'' series is notable for breaking away from that--the series itself rotates the protagonists' viewpoints.