Death By Adaptation / Live-Action Films

Warning: As a Death Trope, all spoilers will be unmarked.

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Examples where the character did not die in the source:

• Joshua Speed is killed in the final train battle in Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter. His novel counterpart outlived Lincoln, just as he did in real life.
• Absolute Power (1997): In the book, Absolute Power 1996, Richmond is caught and convicted of murdering Christy later, getting the death penalty (while unlikely this will ever get carried out, because he's a former President). In the movie, he's confronted by Sullivan, Christy's husband, and is Killed Offscreen (whether Sullivan killed him or was Driven to Suicide is ambiguous).
• The Red King from Alice in Wonderland (2010). It's implied that his wife, the Red Queen (who is the film's Big Bad) killed him prior to the events of the film.
• In Anne of Green Gables: A New Beginning, it's revealed that Gilbert died while serving as a medical doctor overseas during World War II. In the books Anne and Gilbert's sons Jem, Walter, and Shirely serve in World War I so this is a major generational time shift.
• Unlike in the novels where she's alive throughout the whole series, Artemis's mother Angeline Fowl is dead before the events of Artemis Fowl have even started. The psychologist Dr. Po touches on it in the opening of the film, saying she was a lovely woman, but utterly incapable of controlling Artemis. Nothing else is said about it.
• In Attack on Titan (2015), Jean Kirstein gets killed by the Colossal Titan. In the original Attack on Titan, Jean got to see the Colossal Titan die.
• Bad Moon:
  • The salesman who tries to fake being attacked by Thor and sue the family leaves in humiliation after his scam is exposed and documented (with a photograph of his unhurt leg and a statement he's forced to sign) in the book. In the film, he comes back for revenge and is killed by the werewolf.
  • Ted kills the werewolf that bites him and kills Marjorie, while the book implies that the beast escaped its encounter with him.
• Thanks to The Hays Code, Rhonda in The Bad Seed is struck by lightning at the side of a pond. Her mother, on the other hand, survives.
• Barbarella: The movie has Professor Ping and the other prisoners of the labyrinth get hit by the Positronic Ray, disintegrating them. In the comics the ray didn't exist and all the prisoners managed to escape the labyrinth before the Mathmos flooded it.
• Batman Film Series: While Batman's rogues gallery consistently escape to fight another day, their film counterparts typically don't last their film:
  • The Joker gets his signature survivability revoked in Batman (1989) when Batman ties a gargoyle to his leg while he tries to make an escape by helicopter, which eventually drags him to his death.
  • The Penguin in Batman Returns is fatally wounded by his own penguins when Batman redirects them to fire their rockets on his base.
  • Two-Face in Batman Forever falls to his death while trying to reach for his coin after Batman tosses a bunch of coins his way.
  • Jason Woodrue doesn't live long to become the Fluoronic Man in Batman & Robin when Poison Ivy gives him a lethal kiss. Ivy and all the other heavies survive.
• Cee Cee Bloom's father is said to have died offscreen in the 1988 film of Beaches, while her mother lives. In the novel, Mr. Bloom outlives his wife but is estranged from his daughter. He would later feature more heavily in the unadapted sequel I'll Be There.
• In the monster film The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms, the title dinosaur is destroyed to end its rampage in New York City. However, in "The Fog Horn", the Ray Bradbury short story that the movie is partly inspired by, the dinosaur is more sympathetic, less destructive, and returns to the ocean in peace instead of being killed.
• Blithe Spirit: While Charles Condomine escapes the play and the ghosts of his wives, Elvira and Ruth, alive, neither of his film counterparts are lucky. He gets into a car crash in the 1945 film and is deliberately run-over by ghost Ruth in the 2020 film.
• Blue Beetle (2023): Alberto Reyes, the father of the titular hero, is still alive in the comic, but dies from cardiac arrest nearly halfway through the film.
• Both adaptations of The Bourne Identity kill off Alexander Conklin where he survived the book and appeared in the sequels. In the 1988 film, it's during the fight between Bourne and Gillette, while the 2002 film has him assassinated by a Treadstone agent under Abbot's orders.
• The Bravados:
  • In the book, Parral is deliberately taken alive due to preferring death to life behind bars. In the film, Douglas guns him down.
  • Deputy Pepe survives in the book (and utters the novel's last lines of dialogue) but is shot and then trampled by the escaping convicts in the film.
  • Josefa's father is alive in the book but is a Posthumous Character in the film.
• In the film Brest Fortress, the narrator in the end says that "Anya Kizhevatova was executed along with all families of the Fortress' defenders." Anya was indeed executed, but most of the families (including other girls Anya's age) actually survived.
• In the Bunny Drop manga Kouki's parents are divorced. In the film his mother tells him they're divorced but he believes his father is dead. After scaring his mom by running away with Rin to find his dads grave, his mother reveals she really did lie about the divorce and his father died.
• Carrie (1976): Norma gets this by virtue of Adaptational Villainy and Fire Hose-Guided Karma. The book implies there are a good few survivors of the prom who got out through the fire doors before Carrie closed them, but in the film all of the students at the prom appear to die in the fire. Also, in this film, Miss Desjardin (renamed Miss Collins) doesn't survive unlike in latter adaptations.
• In the 1939 version of The Cat and the Canary, Charlie Wilder kills his accomplice, Hendricks and is killed himself by Miss Lu. The original stage play ends with both characters arrested.
• Chitty Chitty Bang Bang: Caractacus Potts' wife Minsie is dead in the film whereas in the original book, she is still alive and goes on the fantastic adventure with the rest of her family.
• Cinderella (2015):
  • The prince's mother is flat-out said to be dead here and his father eventually dies too. While the original film implies that the King is a widower, it never directly specifies it either, and the King himself survives to the end.
  • As the animated film and most other modern adaptations, Cinderella's father is killed off, while in the original Perrault and Brothers Grimm versions he's alive but too governed by the stepmother to do anything.
• Cloud Atlas: Dr. Henry Goose gets bludgeoned over the head with the money he was trying to steal.
• In Congo, Kahega dies early on, despite being a much more important character in the book, and the survivor from the first expedition the heroes find in a tribal village.
• DC Extended Universe:
  • Man of Steel:
    • Possibly Jor-El's digital avatar as well. Zod seems to delete it when Jor-El tries to convince him not to go through with his plan.
    • This is another adaptation where Jonathan Kent dies (not always in Superman media).
    • Emil Hamilton dies helping stop the Kryptonians.
    • Superman kills Zod in the heat of battle and out of desperation, and he regrets it deeply.
    • Kara Zor-El. In the prequel comic, we learn that she's Kal-El's distant ancestor rather than his first cousin in this continuity, and that she was one of the Kryptonian explorers who came to Earth and landed in the Arctic. It's possible that she's the corpse in the Kryptonian spacecraft; though even if it isn't, she's definitely long-dead by the time Kal-El makes it to Earth. However, note that while one sleeper capsule had a corpse, another was open and empty...
  • Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice
    • Word of God is the undercover agent with Lois in her first scene is Jimmy Olsen. He doesn't make it past that scene.
    • Mercy Graves is shown dying in an explosion at the capital building.
    • Superman himself dies in the second movie in this canon. Probably the earliest any continuity had ever done a nod to the Death of Superman story.
  • Wonder Woman (2017):
    • It is stated by Hippolyta that Ares killed all of the Gods of Olympus except for Zeus. In the comics, the Gods still survived to the present day, playing significant roles in many of the modern runs (such as the New 52 Wonder Woman (2011) series).
    • During the final battle, Steve Trevor pulls a Heroic Sacrifice. This is a somewhat complex example, since while the Pre-Crisis version of Steve was killed off and revived at least twice, the Post-Crisis version of the character was not. Regardless, this is at the very least a Type 2 version of this trope, as even the versions of Steve that did die only did so after having many adventures with Wonder Woman.
  • Birds of Prey (2020):
    • Victor Zsasz is killed in the climax by the Huntress as retribution for his role in her family's death.
    • Roman Sionis, a.k.a. Black Mask is killed when Cassandra Cain blows him up with a grenade she planted on him on Founders Pier.
  • The Suicide Squad:
    • Captain Boomerang, notable for being one of the few members of the team to survive the entirety of the original series, gets shredded by an exploding helicopter in the first 12 minutes.
    • Javelin, a minor member of the team, also survived the original series. Like Boomerang, he gets killed in the opening battle scene.
    • T.D.K., based on Arm-Fall-Off-Boy from the Legion of Super-Heroes, is another casualty of the opening battle. Possibly subverted, as director James Gunn later hinted during an online watch party that T.D.K. may have survived.
    • Savant gets his head blown off by his Explosive Leash after he freaks out and tries to abort the mission.
    • Rick Flag, another mainstay of the series, is killed when Peacemaker stabs him in the heart.
• Greg Stillson in The Dead Zone. In both the novel and film, Johnny's last vision sees Stillson's political career go down in flames after he uses a child as a Human Shield to thwart Johnny from assassinating him. The film shows Stillson Driven to Suicide in the aforementioned vision.
• Death on the Nile (2022) has its third victim be Bouc, who survived the events of Murder on the Orient Express and wasn't even in the Death on the Nile book. This all due to giving him Salome Otterbourne‘s role as a witness to the second murder, resulting in Salome getting Spared by the Adaptation.
• In the original Death Wish, the three punks that lead Paul Kersey to vigilantism end up being Karma Houdinis as he never finds them or gets his revenge. In the 2018 remake, the three crooks are expanded into the Big Bad Knox, and his lackeys, Fish and Joe, all of whom are brutally taken down by Kersey. Specifically, Fish is shot in the mouth, Joe is crushed by a car, and Knox is gunned down with an AR-15.
• In Infernal Affairs, Lau Kin-ming survives the story without anyone realizing him to be the Triad mole. His counterpart in The Departed, Colin Sullivan almost gets away with it, but he's shot in the head by Dignam.
• Death Note: The Last Name sees Kanzo Mogi take the place of Hirokazu Ukita as the Task Force member Misa kills.
• In Dick Tracy, Lips Manlis gets the bath under orders of Big Boy Caprice. His comic strip counterpart made a Heel–Face Turn early on and lived, renaming himself Bob Honor. Two more reformed baddies, Littleface Finney and Influence, are also killed. The former dies in the opening massacre by Flattop, the latter by Tracy in the final shootout.
  • In the novelization, Frank Redrum is mentioned to have died in an escape attempt from prison. His comic strip counterpart was the villain The Blank, who was arrested at the end of his arc. The Blank identity, meanwhile, was used in the movie by Breathless Mahoney, who dies in the strip, who is shot and killed by Big Boy.
• Doctor Sleep has Dan's friend Billy afflicted with a Psychic-Assisted Suicide after he helps kill most of the True Knot, while Abra's dad David is killed by Crow Daddy. Dan himself dies when he blows up the Overlook Hotel, just as his father did in the first novel.
• In Donnie Brasco, Mobster and friend, Lefty, is killed for bringing Donnie Brasco, who turns out to be an undercover FBI agent, into the crime family. The movie is based on a true story, but in reality, Joe Pistone, who the movie based on, was able to get Lefty out before he was killed and put into police protection. It was Lefty's boss, who was always disrespectful to him, who ends up getting killed after the fallout of the arrest happens.
• In Dr. Strangelove Stanley Kubrick takes it to the extreme in his satirical adaptation of the Cold War novel Red Alert. In the novel, nuclear catastrophe is averted; in the film, it's The End of the World as We Know It for mankind.
• Dracula had a few, which is not surprising when the main story been done so many times and they want to spice it up.
  • In Horror of Dracula Harker stakes the vampire bride but the sun goes down before he can get to Dracula himself and is killed and turned, leaving it to Helsing to stake him.
  • In Dan Curtis's version of Dracula, Harker is caught while trying to escape the castle and thrown into the vampire brides' chambers where they make a meal of him. Not surprisingly near the end of the movie when Helsing and Holmwood are tracking Drac through the castle. They find an undead Harker in the same area. He nearly succeeds in trying to bite Helsing but is knocked into a spike pit by Holmwood and killed for real.
  • In the 1979 movie, Mina trades places with Lucy. Becoming Dracula's first victim, being turned into a vampire, and having to be staked by her father (albeit accidental). Helsing also dies during the final battle against Dracula, though he uses his final strength to kill him, however.
  • Harker again in the 2012 Italian adaption. He gets bitten not once, but three times. Once by Dracula's bride, Tania, and twice by Dracula himself. Helsing comes across his coffin while chasing after Dracula and there's a bit of a Hope Spot as he seems to climb out of it weakly...before he hisses, barring his fangs. Helsing promptly stakes him.
• James "Thunder" Early in Dreamgirls dies of a drug overdose in the film, while he just disappears in the stage show.
• Sir Lancelot dies in the final battle of Excalibur, reconciled with King Arthur. In the legends and specifically Le Morte D Arthur which the film claims it's based on, he retires to a monastery as The Atoner.
• Fatal Attraction: The original short film Diversion ends on a cliffhanger with the main character's other woman calling his wife. When it was adapted into the far-better known feature film, the other woman (Erica in the short, Alex in the film) gets a more conclusive ending, as she's either Spurned into Suicide in the original Downer Ending, or gets shot by her lover's^note Guy/Dan wife^note Annie/Beth in the Focus Group Ending.
• Maggio dies after being tortured in From Here to Eternity, even though he survives in the novel. This is because he was made into a Composite Character with a minor character named Blues Berry, who did die in the book.
• Anita Vanger in The Girl with The Dragon Tattoo becomes a Posthumous Character in both film versions. Her cousin, Harriet, lives under her name in both of them.
• In GoodFellas, Frankie Carbone is among the people who get "whacked" shortly after the Lufthansa Heist. In truth, his real life counterpart Angelo Sepe was spared Jimmy's wraith. He was eventually whacked by the mafia 5 years later, but for unrelated reasons. The low budget made-for-TV film "The Big Heist" also inaccurately portrays him as one of the people murdered in the aftermath of the heist.
• Green Lantern (2011) kills off Hector Hammond near the end by having Parallax consume him, when he never died in the comics.
• Berger in Hair, in a rare film example of death by military draft. He was impersonating The Hero Claude, who dies in the play. More interestingly, the big finale song in both versions is a Dark Reprise about the character's death.
• Offred kills Fred in the film version of The Handmaid's Tale. She doesn't in the book.
• Harry Potter: Most especially Deathly Hallows: Part 2, where multiple characters who live in the books are killed here.
  • Draco's friend/lackey Goyle is the one to use Fiendfyre and burn himself to death with it, while in the book it was Crabbe. This is because Crabbe's actor got in legal trouble and thus was unable to play in the movie.
  • Griphook is massacred along with the rest of the Gringotts staff by Voldemort.
  • Scabior falls to his doom when the bridge he is standing on blows up.
  • Pius Thicknesse is killed by Voldemort for being annoying.
  • Lavender Brown is killed by Fenrir Greyback, while Fenrir Greyback is defenestrated by Hermione in turn. Lavender is gravely injured in the books but her ultimate fate is left ambiguous, while Pottermore has her listed as "missing, presumed dead".
  • The way Amycus and Alecto Carrow lay on the ground after being defeated by Professor McGonagall suggests that they're also dead (McGonagall used the same spell Harry later tries to kill Nagini with) while in the book they are imprisoned in a net by McGonagall at Ravenclaw Tower.
  • The St. Mungo's segment from the middle of the fifth book was cut out so they wouldn't have to build a new set. Therefore, Harry and co. don't run into Neville and his grandmother visiting his parents. He later implies to Harry that they're dead, while in the books they were rendered permanently insane by excessive torture.
• Luke Sanderson is killed by Hugh Crain's ghost in the 1999 remake of The Haunting. In the source material and the original movie, he survives.
• The Hound of the Baskervilles (1983): Laura Lyons dies in the film, strangled by the murderer to protect his identity. She does not die in the novel.
• The Howling (1981): Despite the movie being softer than the book overall, it actually kills off the main heroine Karen, while in the book she survives. Unlike the book, Karen gets bitten by a werewolf as she and Chris are fleeing the town, infecting her with the curse, and she chooses to sacrifice herself to warn the public about werewolves and to avoid potentially becoming a monster like the others.
• The Hunt for Red October: Vasili Borodin takes the place of Gregoriy Kamarov as the officer Loginov guns down upon his discovery.
• The Hunter: In the original novel Lucy and Sass both survive the fire, although their lives don't go very smoothly afterward.
• Helen and Barry both die in I Know What You Did Last Summer, but they survive the book.
• The film adaptation of Inferno kills off Siena Brooks before she is able to release the biological weapon in the Basilica Cistern, thus thwarting her plans. In the book, The Bad Guy Wins as it's revealed that she has released it a week earlier, and she survives the whole ordeal.
• In This Our Life deals Adaptational Karma to Stanley Timberlake. In both the novel and film, Stanley runs over a little girl and frames her African American helper, Parry, for the deed. But while novel Stanley gets away with it, movie Stanley gets found out and, while fleeing the police, perishes in a fiery car crash.
• In the film version of Into the Woods, Cinderella's father is said to be dead. In the stage version he is still alive, but a drunken layabout.
• James Bond: The final film, No Time to Die, has Felix Leiter gunned down by double agent Logan Ash; the worst any of his prior counterparts experienced was being maimed. The film ends with Bond himself staying on Safin's exploding base to keep himself from inflecting his loved ones with the Heracles.
  • Casino Royale (1967) sees Sir James Bond bestow his name to several of his agents (long story), none of whom make it out the movie alive. Evelyn Tremble is killed by Vesper Lynd after she saves him from Le Chiffre, Jimmy Bond is tricked into swallowing an atomic pill, and his subsequent explosion wipes out Sir James, Lynd and all the other James Bonds.
  • Kronsteen in From Russia with Love is killed by Morzenzy's poison-tipped knife shoe after he fails Blofeld for the last time. It's quite possible his literary counterpart was also executed for his plan's failure.
• In The Jungle Book (2016), Akela gets killed by Shere Khan from being flung off a cliff. Akela does not die in the original movie, but he does die in the book...in the dhole battle after Shere Khan's death.
• Gennaro and Muldoon in Jurassic Park (1993). In the former's case, it may be because he was effectively a Composite Character with someone who did die in the book. Interestingly, Gennaro is mentioned as having died in The Lost World (1995), perhaps to get things more consistent between the novels and films. In Muldoon's case, it crosses over with Adaptational Dumbass, since the book version recognized and avoided the classical ambush strategy of the animal he's the world's only experienced expert at instead of blundering right into it.
• Just Like Heaven is adapted from the French novel Et si c'etait vrai... (If Only It Were True). In the novel, Arthur moves into Lauren's apartment after splitting from his wife. In the film, this seems to be the case with Arthur's equivalent David, but it's later revealed that his wife actually died and he moved out of their place because there were too many reminders of her.
• Kamen Rider: The Next kills off Hayato Ichimonji when his cybernetic implants take their toll on him. He's still alive in the mainstream universe.
• Captatin Dudley Smith is killed in a shootout with Ed Exley in the film version of L.A. Confidential. He survived the novel and its sequel, White Jazz, where the latter's Distant Finale reveals him to be in a nursing home.
• Saisyu Kusanagi starts off The King of Fighters (2010) on his deathbed and by the end of it, he has passed away. This is in stark contrast to the source material of video games, in which he's still alive as of XV.
• In the movie King Ralph, it is mentioned that Ralph's mother is deceased. In Emlyn Williams' novel Headlong, which the film was loosely based on, Jack Green's mother was still alive and around to witness her son becoming King of England and eventually abdicating the throne.
• Knock at the Cabin: Eric survives the events of The Cabin at the End of the World, but performs a Heroic Sacrifice to save the world here.
• In Lady Oscar, the Live-Action Adaptation of The Rose of Versailles, Oscar's mother Madame de Jarjayes dies giving birth to her. She's very much alive in the source material, and in fact, outlives Oscar herself.
• Pretty much everyone in The Land That Time Forgot, but particularly Bradley, Whiteley, Sinclair, and Plesser. Other characters such as von Schoenvorts, Dietz and Benson die differently and at different points than they do in the novel, and under entirely different circumstances.
  • This also holds true for the sequel, The People That Time Forgot, a very loose adaptation of the middle portion of the novel. Lisa dies off-screen between films, and Bowen suffers a fatal arrow wound in the final battle, whereas in the book both of them survive and get married.
• In The Last Airbender, Katara's narration explains that Yue has ruled the Northern Water Tribe since her father's death. In the show Chief Arnook was alive before and after the Fire Nation's attack. Zhao gets drowned in the movie as opposed to the show where he gets dragged off to the Spirit World and spends an eternity driven to madness.
• Probably the protagonist of Layer Cake. While surviving and leaving England in the book, he is implied to die in the movie.
• Les Diaboliques centers on an elaborate and successful plot by a man and his mistress ^note Michel and Nicoleto scare his wife^note Christina to death, after the wife and mistress kill him (or so the wife thinks). This is reversed from the original novel, She Who Was No More, in which the man and mistress ^note  Farnand and Lucienne.try to kill his wife ^note Marielle, only for the wife to be revealed Faking the Dead and the man being Driven to Suicide by the shock.
• In the 1948 film of Les Misérables, M. Thenardier falls to his death down a trapdoor. His novel counterpart lived Happily Ever After as a slave trader in America.
• The musical Little Shop of Horrors ends with the monster plant Audrey II surviving to conquer the world. When it came to the film version of the musical, test audiences took against the conquer-the-world ending, and it was replaced with one in which Audrey II was successfully killed off.
• Peter Jackson's The Lord of the Rings:
  • Haldir in The Two Towers dies at the battle of Helm's Deep (in the book, the elves don't even show up at Helm's Deep).
  • Also in The Return of the King, The Mouth of Sauron, whose fate in the book is unknown, is killed by an enraged Aragorn.
  • Sauron himself doesn't technically die in the book, as he is said to be "maimed forever" when the ring is destroyed. In the movie, he is destroyed along with it. And how. Though his spirit could still be present.
  • Harry Goatleaf, a gatekeeper in Bree and one of the collaborators reported by Barliman in the book Return of the King, is trampled by Nazgûl in the Fellowship movie.
  • In The Hobbit, Alfrid was the only evil character to escape justice. Not so in The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies, where, in the director's cut, he hides in the launching arm of a catapult, which gets activated by the gold he's carrying, and he gets launched right into the mouth of a troll, killing both him and the troll.
• Maleficent ends with both of Aurora's parents dead; Queen Leila is implied to have died of a broken heart, while King Stefan is killed in the final battle with Maleficent, who in return is Spared by the Adaptation. In Sleeping Beauty both parents are alive and well and happily reunite with their daughter.
• Master and Commander kills off Mr. Allen, Joseph Nagle, and Peter Calamey in the final battle; since there isn't a Final Battle in the Aubrey-Maturin books, they all seem to live.
• Marvel Cinematic Universe
  • In Avengers: Age of Ultron, Quicksilver pulls a Heroic Sacrifice in the final battle, using his own body to shield Hawkeye and a child from a barrage of bullets unleashed by Ultron. In the comics, he's one of the more notable Marvel heroes with the distinction of never having died, even being one of the few members of the team who survived the end of the Onslaught crossover (which saw most of the Avengers present perish in a Heroic Sacrifice).
  • Ronan the Accuser, Korath the Pursuer and Carina all die in Guardians of the Galaxy. Ronan is killed when the Guardians of the Galaxy destroy him using the Power Stone, Korath is killed by Drax, and Carina is destroyed by the Power Stone when she tries to use it in a Mistreatment-Induced Betrayal of Collector. Drax's daughter was stated to have died as a child, but in the original comics, they Never Found the Body, and she survived and growed up to become the superhero Moondragon. However, the film states that she was killed right in front of her father.
  • Ego the Living Planet and Yondu Udonta in Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2, the former blown up by a bomb planted by Groot, and the latter performing a Heroic Sacrifice to save Star-Lord, respectively.
  • Jack Taggert (Firepower in the comics) in Iron Man 3 when he is rejected by the Extremis and exploded.
  • Frigga and Kurse in Thor: The Dark World, killed in a Heroic Sacrifice protecting Jane from the forces of Malekith, and taken down in battle against Thor and Loki, respectively.
  • Odin and Hela in Thor: Ragnarok, the former of old age and being disconnected from Asgard for so long, the latter being destroyed when Thor and Loki are forced to invoke Ragnarok and bring Surtur to attack her.
  • Ulysses Klaue in Black Panther, struck down by Erik "Killmonger" Stevens to be entrusted into Wakanda.
  • Avengers: Infinity War: Nick Fury and Doctor Strange are two of the characters killed when Thanos purges half the universe. In the original The Infinity Gauntlet comic, they both survived this event and were some of the few characters to not die through the entire storyline.
  • Avengers: Endgame:
    • Thanos is killed, seemingly once and for all, at the end of the film. By contrast, the original The Infinity Gauntlet storyline from the comics famously ended with Thanos retiring to live out his life on a farm after being defeated. Ironically, Thanos did that at the end of Avengers: Infinity War as well after succeeding in snapping most of life in the universe out of existence, in this case, the surviving Avengers from the battle track him to his planet and kill him. The final battle is fought against an alternate Thanos who is destroyed in Iron Man's Heroic Sacrifice.
    • During the finale, Iron Man performs a Heroic Sacrifice to destroy Thanos and his army. While he did die in the Infinity Gauntlet comic, it was only a temporary demise, as he and Thanos' countless other victims were all revived by the end of the story. Here, the death is seemingly permanent, and the film actually shows his funeral.
    • Black Widow sacrifices herself to get the Avengers the Soul Stone. She survived the entire Infinity Gauntlet story, as unlike Iron Man she was one of the heroes who neither died in Thanos' snap nor the doomed assault on Thanos later on in the story, due to not participating in it.
  • WandaVision reveals that Maria Rambeau died of cancer during the five year Time Skip after Infinity War. Her comic counterpart is still alive.
  • Aunt May is killed by the Green Goblin of the Spider-Man Trilogy during the events of Spider-Man: No Way Home.
  • Thor: Love and Thunder loosely adapts Jason Aaron's Thor run, but with a major change to the fate of a key character. In the comic, Jane Foster's time as the new Thor ended with her succumbing to her cancer, only for her to be revived by Odin. In the MCU, however, Odin was already killed off in the previous installment, meaning that Jane dies for real at the end of the movie. The Stinger even shows her soul entering Valhalla.
• The Maze Runner Series:
  • Lawrence, the leader of a vigilante group outside the Last City, leads a suicide charge to break through the city walls in Maze Runner: The Death Cure. His book counterpart is last seen dropping off Thomas to the WICKED headquarters, and it can be presumed that he survives the events of the book.
  • Director Ava Paige is shot to death by Assistant Director Janson while she has a chat with Thomas. Not only she survives the books, she actually provides the closing narration of the series.
  • Downplayed with Janson. His final fate in the books is not known, barring the fact that he has been infected by the Flare. In the films, he is definitely killed when Thomas and Teresa lure two Cranks to maul him.
• The McKenzie Break:
  • In the film, Schluter kills dozens of fellow prisoners by collapsing a barracks. In the book, no such incident occurs.
  • In the film, a potential German informer is murdered, but in the book, he survives and provides information to his captors.
  • In the film, Schluter's predecessor as senior POW officer (an Africa Korps general) died mysteriously after cooperating with the guards in some minor ways. In the book, he's merely transferred to another camp.
• At the end of My Side of the Mountain, Frightful the hawk gets shot and dies. In the book, she not only lives, but ends up with three sequels focusing on her.
• The film of The Mist kills off Billy Drayton, Amanda Dunfrey and Mrs. Reppler in a Cruel Twist Ending that didn't happen in the book. The book ended with them and David safely driving off to an uncertain future.
  • Also, in the book Myron Lafleur, Ambrose Cornell and Sally the cashier were still alive back at the supermarket at stories end. In the film, Sally is killed during the store incursion on the first night, and Myron and Ambrose are killed by giant spiders while trying to run to David's car.
  • Stephanie Drayton's fate is left ambiguous in the book, but in the film they find her dead body.
• Murphy's War: In the book, Murphy and most of the U-boat crewmen besides XO Lauchs (who is solely responsible for the massacre in the book while his crewmates didn't know what he was doing until afterward and one or two dozen others survive the final battle, but here, this doesn't happen.
• The Mothman Prophecies: The character Gordon Smallwood dies of exposure in the forest while waiting for another meeting with Indrid Cold. The real life person he was based on, Woodrow Derenberger, did not die, but in fact went on to write his own book about the events.
• Nanny McPhee is the story of Mr. Brown, a widower trying to raise his seven children. It is loosely adapted from the Nurse Matilda books, where Mrs. Brown is alive and well. (This makes the opening lines, where Mr. Brown says that "there would be no story" if not for his wife's death, rather ironic.)
• The Night Flier: In the original short story, Richard Dees survives the encounter with the vampire at the airport after giving him his camera footage. In the film, Dees is placed in a nightmarish trance by the vampire and is then shot and killed when he attacks two police officers.
• Nosferatu and its remake have Mina's counterparts, Ellen Hutter and Lucy Harker, offer themselves to Orlok/Dracula to lure the latter into a death by sunlight. Mina, meanwhile, survives Dracula.
• At the end of The Notebook, Noah Calhoun dies in his sleep with his wife Allie. In the original book, Noah survives and is a prominent supporting character in the sequel The Wedding, where he takes up a mentorship role with his son-in-law Wilson as he tries to patch up his marriage.
• The Old Maid: In the play, Clem simply leaves town after knocking up Charlotte. In the 1939 movie, Clem is killed in combat at Vicksburg, making him a more sympathetic character.
• Uncle Pastuzo is killed in an earthquake in Paddington (2014). In the books he's very much alive (and very rich) and travelling the world.
• Dial M for Murder and its original play end with Tony Wendice arrested for conspiring to murder his wife. In A Perfect Murder, his counterpart, Steven Taylor, is killed by his wife when he tries to kill her. The same goes for the wife's lover, David Shaw, the counterpart to the play's Mark Halliday. Halliday helps investigate the attempt on the wife, while Shaw is hired to carry out the hit, outsources the crime to another man, and is ultimately killed by Taylor.
• The 2019 remake of Pet Sematary switches the fates of the Creed children, so Ellie dies and Came Back Wrong instead of Gage. Their father, Louis, is killed by a resurrected Rachel and also comes back wrong. The book and first movie ended just as Louis encounters the resurrected Rachel.
• Redd White is poisoned while in prison in the Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney movie, but is never seen again after his arrest in the game. This is due to him being an accomplice of von Karma in this version, necessitating his death so he doesn't testify in the 4th case.
• In Pokémon Detective Pikachu, one of the reasons Tim Goodman turned away from being a Pokémon Trainer as a child was due to his mother dying offscreen from an unspecified illness. In the video game the film is based on, Tim Goodman's mother isn't seen; but is stated to be alive and well by Tim's dialogues and provides moral support while he searches for his father Harry in Ryme City.
• In Power Rangers (2017), Billy, the Blue Ranger, is drowned by Rita Repulsa. Though a Disney Death and one he comes back from, neither his original counterpart nor his Kyōryū Sentai Zyuranger counterpart died.
• Angier in The Prestige is shot in a final confrontation with Borden, which nullifies his book counterpart becoming an immortal (long story).
• Mia's father, Philippe, in the film version of The Princess Diaries. In the books, he is very much alive and only reveals to Mia that she's a princess because he has testicular cancer and can no longer have any kids, making the illegitimate Mia his only heir. In an interview given about the adaptation, when author Meg Cabot was approached by execs with this idea, the conversation went like this:
  Studio: We have to kill off the father from your book.
  Meg: Why?
  Studio: We want to have a bigger role for the grandmother because we’ve got this great actress that wants to play her.
  Meg: Who’s the actress?
  Studio: It's Julie Andrews.
  Meg: Oh my god. Kill him. Kill the dad!
• In Queen of the Damned, Mael and Pandora were both killed, despite being rather important figures in the books (particularly Pandora, who was actually the protagonist of one of the sequels).
  • There wasn't much of a final battle in the book, with Maharet's twin sister (excluded from the film) Mekare pushing Akasha through a window, which gets Akasha beheaded.
• Ransom: Both the 1956 and 1996 films concern the father of a kidnapped boy who turns the ransom into a bounty on the kidnappers. In the 1956 film, this scares the unseen and unheard kidnappers to letting the boy go. In the 1996 film, they're expanded into Maris Conner, Clark & Cubby Barnes, Miles Roberts and Jimmy Shaker, all of whom don't make it to the end. Cubby is killed by the FBI in a Ransom Drop gone awry, Shaker kills the others when they outlive their usefulness, and Shaker himself is shot dead by the protagonist (here named Tom Mullen) and Agent Hawkins.
• In the novel Rebecca, Mrs. Danvers sets fire to Manderley and escapes. The film version has her stay in the house and perish in the fire.
• In Red Dawn (2012) Danny is killed, whereas in the 1984 original he is one of the few survivors.
• In Reefer Madness: The Musical, Ralph goes insane, then kills and eats Sally (Blanche in the original), forcing Jack to shoot him. Jack is later beaten to death by Mae. In the original Reefer Madness, Ralph goes insane and beats Jack to death, then Blanche jumps out of a window to avoid having to testify against him, and Ralph is put into an asylum for the criminally insane. None of them benefited from the adaptation, least of all Ralph.
• Dr. Frock in The Relic is killed by the Kathoga, which would have made adapting the sequel, Reliquary, very hard as he was the Big Bad.
• Resident Evil: Apocalypse:
  • "Capt. Leon Kennedy" is reported to have been killed in a newspaper. Not only was this a throwaway line from a promotional "newsletter" and wasn't even in the movie proper, but it's retconned away when Leon finally makes an appearance in Retribution.
  • In Resident Evil: Extinction, Carlos Oliveira is bitten and makes a Heroic Sacrifice. He survives in Resident Evil 3: Nemesis but is never mentioned again.
  • In Retribution, Barry Burton finally makes a appearance as well, but dies while trying to buy time for the other heroes to escape. In the games, he's still alive.
  • In the novelization for The Final Chapter, Jill, Leon and Ada are killed during the battle at Washington DC by Wesker betraying them during the battle. This is never revealed in the movie proper.
• The Nome King is accidentally destroyed by a chicken egg in Return to Oz, an Adaptation Amalgamation of The Marvelous Land of Oz and Ozma of Oz. In the books, he survived all his appearances only to get turned into a cactus in the later book, Handy Mandy in Oz.
• Rampage (2018): Ralph and Lizzie are both alive and well in the original games, but died here.
• In the comic version of Road to Perdition, John Looney is merely sent to prison. In the movie, John Rooney is gunned down by Michael Sullivan Sr.
• Ryan's Daughter, a Setting Update of Madame Bovary, does this to Major Doryan. While both of Emma Bovary's lovers, Rodolphe and Leon, outlive her in the novel, Major Doryan blows himself up with dynamite in the movie.
• While in the Scott Pilgrim comics, Crash and The Boys help out against third-ex Todd Ingram, they get flash-fried by first-ex Matthew Patel in Scott Pilgrim vs. The World.
• The Secret Garden 1987: Dickon is killed in World War I at the end, in a postscript invented for the movie. (The original novel was written before the War.)
• The Shawshank Redemption: Tommy is shot by Byron Hadley under Warden Norton's orders in a staged escape attempt. Norton later shoots himself when his corruption is exposed. The original novella, Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption has Tommy transferred to another prison in exchange for his silence, while Norton, who was one of three Wardens during Andy's stay, retires in disgrace after Andy's actual escape.
• She: In the book, Billali is a trusted friend who helps the heroes throughout and survives to farewell them at the end. In the 1965 film, he's the main antagonist, who tries to take the big prize for himself and gets stabbed for his trouble.
• Irene Adler in Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows. Although, there's some debate about her status in the canon. She's referred to, at the beginning of the one story she appears in, as "the late Irene Adler", but this could simply allude to the fact that she changes her name. At the very least, the way she dies was invented for the movie, being killed by Moriarty.
• Silent Hill sees Cybil Bennet burned at the stake by Silent Hill cultists. The original game has Cybil possessed by a parasite, with the player given the option to either kill her or spare her, but her survival is hinted to be canon.
• Sin City: A Dame to Kill For revokes Senator Roark's Karma Houdini status in the original graphic novels by having him gunned down by Nancy in the movie-exclusive story Nancy's Last Dance.
• Brom Bomes is killed by the Headless Horseman in Tim Burton's version of Sleepy Hollow (1999). The original novel implies that Brom was the Headless Horseman.
• Star Trek
  • Amanda Grayson, Spock's human mother as well as the entire planet of Vulcan in Star Trek (2009) when Nero destroys Vulcan with the red matter, with only a few Vulcans including Sarek being able to escape, and Amanda dying because the ground cracked under her while in the process of beaming her onto the Enterprise, which prevented her from being beamed up with the other Vulcans.
  • Admiral Christopher Pike and Admiral Marcus in Star Trek Into Darkness, the former killed in a terrorist attack performed by Khan, the latter destroyed by Khan when he usurps his ship.
• Spider-Man Trilogy:
  • At the end of Spider-Man 2, Doctor Octopus sacrifices himself to save the city.
  • Both Harry Osborn and Eddie Brock die in the final battle of Spider-Man 3: Harry is impaled by Venom and dies of his wounds, and Eddie dies when he and the Venom symbiote are caught in the explosion of one of Harry's pumpkin bombs.
• Stardust: In the original book, the witch who pursues fallen-star-turned-human Yvaine with the intent of killing her so that she and her sisters can eat her heart to restore their youth and magical power eventually concedes defeat and returns home alive. In the film, she doesn't give up on killing Yvaine and she and her sisters all get incinerated by Yvaine's light during the climax.
• Starship Troopers has Johnny's father, who is one of the few characters to survive to the end of the book, and actually becomes Johnny's second in command once he gets his own squadron. In the film, he dies alongside Johnny's mother (who, incidentally, does die the same way in both book and film) in the attack on Buenos Aires, relatively early on.
• Straw Dogs: David wipes out the besiegers in both films. In the original book, ''The Siege of Trencher's Farm," the besiegers are grievously injured in the attack, but survive to face prison. The only character who dies in the book is Bill Knapman, whom the 1971 and 2011 films rename Major John Scott and Sheriff John Burke, respectively.
• Witt, who gets a Heroic Sacrifice of sorts in The Thin Red Line.
• Tekken:
  • Jun Kazama was long thought to have met an Uncertain Doom when confronting Ogre until finally returning in Tekken 8. In the 2010 film, she's established to be definitely dead... by Kazuya Mishima's hand.
  • Sergei Dragunov ends up the first casualty once the rules are changed to make every fight be to the death. Again, Dragunov in the games is still alive and playable as of Tekken 8.
• Dr. Copper and Norris survive the events of Who Goes There?. In The Thing (1982), Norris is replaced by the titular monster and Cooper is killed by said duplicate.
• Captain Walker is killed by his wife's lover, Frank, in the 1975 adaptation of The Who's Tommy, the reverse of how their confrontation went down in the album. Also Nora Walker (Tommy's mother) is killed by a mob at the end of the film.
• Lisolette survives the novel The Glass Inferno, but falls to her death from a malfunctioning elevator in The Towering Inferno, an Adaptation Amalgamation of the aforementioned novel and The Tower.
• In The Treasure of the Sierra Madre, Cody dies fighting the banditos, leaving a widow and a farm behind. Curtin is implied to go there at the end of movie, in hopes of taking his place. In the book, Lacaud is last seen in perfect health, and never gives any indication that he's married or has any other trade than prospecting.
• Menelaus in Troy is killed by Hector to save Paris near the start of the siege, while in the original Paris is saved by Aphrodite, and Menelaus actually ends up going home with Helen. Ajax is also killed in battle rather than his ignominious end after the death of Achilles.
• Utøya: July 22, by Erik Poppe is a reenactment of the Breivik Massacre (which happened on the island Utøya on 22. July 2011) from the perspective of the victims. Out of respect for the victims, the film features fictional characters instead of people actually being there. Among other changes, some of the survivor's stories are attributed to those who die - understandable, since the dead couldn't tell their stories and would be just abstract corpses otherwise. This includes Kaja, the main heroine.
• Vampire Academy:
  • Oscar the cat. He appears briefly in the first novel, as the pet of a human housemate of Lissa and Rose. In the film, Oscar is Lissa's pet. The discovery of his corpse traumatizes her.
  • The character Ray (the film's rename of Ralf Sarcozy) is killed by Natalie Dashkov. The kill she needed to transform to a Strigoi. In the book nothing happens to him. He goes on to become one of the founding members of the Mână in Shadow Kiss.
• General Count Cambronne in Waterloo; the fact that he actually was taken prisoner after allegedly refusing to surrender (and lived on until 1842) did not make the kind of story the makers of the film wanted to tell. That the film shows all of the guardsmen in his square being killed also involves this trope.
• In West Side Story (2021), Doc, the drugstore owner from the original stage musical and 1961 film, is Adapted Out and mentioned as having died before the start of the action. His role in the plot is instead played by his widow, a Puerto Rican woman named Valentina. In the original musical and film, Maria and Bernardo also have living parents and Tony at least has a living mother (they're never seen onstage or onscreen, but are mentioned, and the voices of Maria and Bernardo's parents are heard at one point), but in this version, Tony, Maria and Bernardo are all portrayed as orphans.
• In What Dreams May Come, Chris and Annie's children die as kids in a car crash a few years before Chris dies himself. The novel has them live to adulthood and are still alive by the time of their parents' deaths.
• Where Eagles Dare: Weissner dies in a car crash whereas he survives in the novel. Colonel Kramer, General Rosemeyer, Anne-Marie Kernister and Major von Hapen are all gunned down by Smith and Schaffer in the dining room along with a guard, unlike in Alistair MacLean's book where they're injected with nembutal (including the guard), which puts them to sleep for several hours. The same holds true for other Nazi characters. Except for the three traitors Thomas, Christiansen and Berkeley, almost all of the Nazis who die in the film survived in MacLean's original novel.
• In the 2011 adaptation of The Whisperer in Darkness, Noyes and George Akeley are killed by the Mi-Go - Noyes when the ritual is disrupted, and George when he tries to deliver the Black Stone to Wilmarth on his father's request. Neither character dies in the original short story: George never leaves San Diego, and Noyes is a Karma Houdini. B-67 is unplugged and killed by Noyes in the film, which doesn't happen in the text. Although he doesn't strictly die, Albert Wilmarth is also captured and de-brained by the Mi-Go in the movie, while he escapes in the short story.
• Ben in the 2003 version of Willard, whereas in the 1971 movie and the original proposed ending, he kills Willard and survives, injured, but shrugging it off.
• In Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory, Charlie's father is dead, leaving Charlie and his mother to support the family, whereas in the book, he was alive and well but struggling to make ends meet working in a toothpaste factory. Also in the film the fate of Veruca Salt and her father is left uncertain, the incinerator having a 50% chance to kill them, whereas in the book it is explicitly shown that they survived.
• Winter Kills: Keifetz, who ends up helping Nick in the novel, double-crosses him near the end - maybe - and is killed in a shoot-out.
• Sir John in The Wolfman (2010) is killed by Lawrence during their final battle. It's a reverse from the original film, where Sir John kills Lawrence.
• In The Woman in Black Arthur Kipps, who had survived the novel, dies when he is run over by a train while trying to save his son.
• X-Men Film Series
  • Cyclops dies off screen unglamourously in X-Men: The Last Stand. The characters who die by adaptation in the X-Men films could probably fill a whole damn page. Lady Deathstrike, Callisto, Psylocke, Kestrel, Agent Zero, and (apparently) Toad are notable examples. Although, in Cyclops' case, you Never Found the Body.
  • Same with Sabretooth, who was fried by Cyclops in the original film.
    • The Wolverine prequel implies that you can't get rid of him that easily. He later turned up alive in the official prequel game to The Last Stand, but the game itself has since been rendered Canon Discontinuity by The Wolverine.
  • Henry Peter Gyrich, a longtime supporting character of The Avengers, falls victim to a Kill and Replace plot in the first X-Men movie.
  • Large swaths of characters (including Storm, Bishop, Blink, Warpath, and Sunspot) die in the Bad Future segment of X-Men: Days of Future Past, but are all revived thanks to a Cosmic Retcon. Cyclops and Jean Grey, who died in previous movies, are resurrected as well.
    • In the original comic story (Uncanny X-Men #141-142) most X-Men in the alternate future except Rachel (not in the film version) and Kitty Pryde are either reported dead or killed in the course of the story (including Professor X, Magneto, Storm, and Wolverine); here they are not resurrected through Cosmic Retcon. Most of the X-Men killed in the film were only created after Uncanny X-Men #142 and thus were no part of the original story.
    • The 70's segment does not get the benefit of a Cosmic Retcon, however. Emma Frost, Angel Salvadore, Riptide, and Azazel are all stated to have died in a Bus Crash, while Banshee is also stated to have died in a Type 2 scenario.
  • Psylocke was one of the many mutants killed in The Last Stand. That movie was later rendered Canon Discontinuity by Days of Future Past, allowing an alternate version of Psylocke to appear in X-Men: Apocalypse.
  • Speaking of X-Men: Apocalypse, Havok and Archangel both die during the course of the movie.

Examples where the character died a lot sooner in the adaptation than in the source:

• The Amazing Spider-Man Series:
  • In The Amazing Spider-Man, George Stacy is killed by the Lizard, rather than Doctor Octopus who has yet to appear (and won't given the plug on this series was pulled after the second movie).
  • In the sequel, Norman Osborn dies of a degenerative illness in the first half-hour of the movie, becoming a Posthumous Character rather than the main antagonist. Harry Osborn becomes the original Green Goblin instead.
• In the 1945, 1965 and 1974 film versions of And Then There Were None, Lombard is a Posthumous Character who committed suicide upon receiving U.N. Owen's invite. His identity is taken on by a friend, Charles Morley, who survives. In the novel, Lombard is the second-to-last character to die.
• In Avengers: Infinity War:
  • Spider-Man and Scarlet Witch are some of the heroes who perish when Thanos collects all six Infinity Stones and uses them to kill half of the sentient beings in the universe. In the original The Infinity Gauntlet mini-series, they actually survived Thanos' initial purge, and were only killed several issues later during the final battle with Thanos himself. The Vision is also destroyed by Thanos during the battle in the comics but is destroyed in the movie by Thanos in the act of acquiring the Mind Stone.
  • Gamora perished during the snap in the comics but is killed in the movie by Thanos in the act of acquiring the Soul Stone.
• In some versions of Batman (like Batman: Year Two), Joe Chill dies shortly after learning Batman's identity, usually at the hands of other criminals. In Batman Begins, Chill is gunned down by an assassin just as pre-Batman Bruce Wayne is about to do the same.
• In Beaches, Hillary Whitney experienced her mother dying in her childhood. Her unseen father is the living parent providing for her (up until his off-screen death). In the original novel, Roberta White's father is said to have died when she was a baby, while her mother features in the plot until she dies of a stroke in her old age.
• In the 1988 adaptation of The Bourne Identity, Carlos, the Big Bad, is shot and killed by Bourne at the end of their fight, while in the book he survives this fight, and his death occurs two books later.
• Captain Marvel (2019) has Mar-Vell killed by Yon-Rogg shortly after the explosion which empowered Carol Danvers. Her comic counterpart lived past that point before getting Killed Off for Real in The Death of Captain Marvel storyline.
• The film version of Christine turns Roland LeBay into a Posthumous Character. In the novel, he dies soon after selling Christine to Arnie Cunningham and later possess him. In the film, Roland's brother George is the one who sells Arnie Christine.
• In Death Note: The Last Name, Light and Takada die far earlier than the manga due to the movie resolving its story at L's supposed death.
• Mia Sutton the American Death Note (2017) remake. The ending of anime heavily implied Misa Amane's suicide, which was later confirmed in supplementary material. Meanwhile, in the Japanese movie series, Misa definitively killed herself in Death Note: Light Up the New World, which takes place many years after the events of the original story. In the American movie, Mia is killed by Light, despite outliving him in almost every other incarnation of the franchise.
• Dick Tracy has Pruneface killed by The Blank. While Pruneface was still alive in the comic strip when the film was released, he'd meet his end several years later when he fell out of an air gondola.
• In the book of A Dog's Purpose, Ellie's handler Jakob is shot, ends up with a Career-Ending Injury, and retires. Ellie herself lives a long life and dies of natural causes at an old age. In the film, Ellie is the one that's shot, and she dies. As a result, Ellie's second handler Maya is changed from being a cop to being a student. She adopts Ellie's completely original new incarnation.
• In David Lynch's Dune (1984), Duncan Idaho dies during the Battle of Arrakeen shortly after Paul and Jessica are captured. In the novel, he lives long enough to meet up with them during their trek in the desert. He dies saving them from a Sardaukar attack.
  • In the novel, Rabban dies sometime during the final battle. In the movie, he's executed by the Sardaukar before the final battle even begins.
• The Ra'zac in Eragon are killed by Eragon and Brom midway through the movie. This greatly contrasts with their book counterparts, as they wouldn't die until Brisingr, the third novel in the Inheritanc Cycle.
• The Gemini Killer's father in The Exorcist III. Oddly enough, his death in the novel causes the killer to lose his motivation to murder. In the movie, his death does the opposite; The Gemini kills his father and then becomes a serial killer so he can (figuratively) continue to kill his father forever.
• Both of the Llewelyn Davies parents in Finding Neverland. Arthur is Adapted Out, portrayed as having already died when Barrie meets the family, while Sylvia dies soon after the 1904 stage premiere of Peter Pan. The real Arthur died in 1907, well after the Peter Pan premiere, and Sylvia died in 1910.
• Corrine Dollanganger in Flowers in the Attic. Oddly, the producers had planned on adapting the rest of the novels as films, but as Corrine plays instrumental roles in the second and third novels - the entire plot of Petals on the Wind is driven by Cathy seeking revenge on her - adapting them proved impossible. Corrine does die in the climax of the third novel, in a fire.
• Mama and Jenny both die during Forrest Gump. While they both survived the original novel, they both die by the start of its sequel, Gump & Co.
• In Fullmetal Alchemist (2017), Maes Hughes leaves behind his pregnant wife, Gracia, when he's killed by Envy. In the manga, his daughter, Elicia, is three years old by the time of her father's death.
• Because Scott Glenn refused to reprise the role of Jack Crawford for Hannibal ^note Glenn consulted with John Douglas, whom Crawford was based on, as part of research. Douglas, in a very dick move, played him tapes of a young teenager being tortured by serial killers Lawrence Bittaker and Roy Norris, which traumatized Glenn, a deleted scene revealed the character's death, which happened near the end of the the book, as having happened before the events of the adaptation.
• Ruby dies in a Heroic Sacrifice to take down Lizard in The Hills Have Eyes (2006). Her counterpart in the original film was a main character in the sequel, where she dies.
• In The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies, the Master of Lake-town is crushed to death by Smaug's corpse. In the book, he survives the Battle of the Five Armies, but years later, Balin tells Bilbo that he fled off into the wilderness, was abandoned by his followers, and starved to death.
• In The Hunger Games film, the female tribute from District 4 dies in the Cornucopia bloodbath at the beginning of the games along with her male counterpart, while the book has her die alongside Glimmer when Katniss drops the tracker jacker nest on the Career Tributes. There is no mention of District 4 being a Career District in the films. The film also shows Cato killing the District 10 male during the bloodbath, but this is just a continuity error as it's later shown that he died on the morning of the eighth day as in the books.
• Maya Hansen is killed in Iron Man 3, despite surviving the story the film was inspired by. At the time of filming, Hansen hadn't even been killed off during the Marvel NOW! relaunch yet.
• It (2017):
  • In the movie, Patrick Hockstetter is introduced in the beginning, where he joins the Bowers Gang in pursuing Ben into the sewers, where he gets caught and killed by It. In the novel, Patrick's introduction, and fatal encounter with It, occurs after the rock-fight midway through.
  • A deleted scene shows that Henry killed Vic and Belch just before he pursued the Losers into Its lair. The novel has Vic and Belch join Henry in the pursuit and get caught and killed by It.
  • Beverly's mother Elfrida as confirmed by It: Chapter Two died after giving birth to her daughter, in the novel she died years later due to cancer and she was actually alive and well during Beverly's childhood granting some degree comfort to Bev in face of her father's abuse. The films likely killed her off well in advance to enhance Bev's isolation as a girl as well as to make her Pervert Dad father more unhinged (not helped by the fact Bev has a strong resemblance to her mom).
• James Bond:
  • In the film of From Russia with Love, Rosa Klebb is shot dead during her final confrontation with Bond. In the book, she is merely taken into custody by the western intelligence services. The next book, Dr. No, casually mentions that "she died" (implicitly under interrogation).
  • In Goldfinger, Tilly Masterson is killed by Oddjob only minutes after encountering James Bond during his infiltration of the titular villain's factory, while in the original novel she was held prisoner with Bond for a good while and dies during the climax at Fort Knox. Oddjob himself also dies in the movie at Fort Knox. In the novel, he survives to help Goldfinger trap Bond aboard the airplane. He's eventually sucked out of the airplane, which happens to Goldfinger in the movie. (Goldfinger himself is strangled by the furious Bond.)
• Judge Dredd: Judge Griffin dies at the hands of Rico. In the comics he lived past the story arc that the movie is mainly based on and didn't die until the Apocalypse War arc years later.
• Gennaro from the Jurassic Park is arguably an example of Type II as well, as although he has the name of a character who survived in the book, his characterization and role are much closer to Jerkass PR guy Ed Regis, a character "removed" from the film. Said character died in the book as well, but a bit later — after the dinosaurs get out, he's caught off-guard and killed by the juvenile T-Rex, which was entirely removed from the film version.
• In King Arthur: Legend of the Sword, Mordred is the Starter Villain killed by Uther Pendragon in the film's prologue. His original counterpart is Pendragon's grandson, born long after his death, and died a mutual death with Arthur himself.
• The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King: In the novel, Gríma Wormtongue and Saruman are killed in the climactic chapter, The Scouring of the Shire, shortly after Sauron is Killed Off for Real. In the extended cut, the two are killed at Isengard while Sauron is still active. In the theatrical cut, they don't die at all...although they remain locked in a tower and their fate is ambiguous.
• John Barton in Looking for Alibrandi, though not by much. The book death occurs in the second half, while the movie death occurs halfway through.
• In Man of Steel, Jor-El is killed by Zod before Krypton's destruction instead of perishing along with the planet per all other versions.
• Mortal Kombat (2021):
  • Kung Lao wasn't killed until Mortal Kombat: Deception in the original timeline, and during Mortal Kombat 9's retelling of the events of the third game in the reboot timeline. Here, he dies after Shang Tsung consumes his soul during the heroes' first clash with the forces of Outworld.
  • In the games, Kano, Kabal and Nitara all managed to survive the events of the original series, only perishing alongside the rest of the cast in MK9's prologue ahead of a complete Continuity Reboot that brought them all back to life. In the movie, Kano is stabbed through the eye by Sonya, Kabal is incinerated by Liu Kang and Nitara is bisected by Kung Lao.
• The infamous Cruel Twist Ending of Night of the Living Dead sees The Hero and Sole Survivor Ben mistaken for a zombie and gunned down by a posse the morning after the final siege. In both the 1990 and 2006 remakes, he actually becomes a zombie during the final zombie siege.
• The Relic: As with Dr. Frock, Dr. Kawakita (whom the film names Greg Lee) becomes another victim of the Kathoga. Kawakita dies in between the events of The Relic and Reliquary, but his actions are actually what kick the sequel off and lead to Frock becoming a villain, as he begins recreating the plant the created the monster with the intention of selling it as a drug.
• Rurouni Kenshin: Kyoto Inferno turns Aoshi's Oniwabanshu comrades into Posthumous Characters who were executed at the dawn of the Meiji Era. Their anime counterparts were killed by Kanryuu's Gatling Gun in the Rescue Megumi Arc, which was adapted into the previous movie which saw them Adapted Out.
• Dick Halloran in The Shining is killed by Jack with an ax to the chest. His novel counterpart is beaten with a roque club, which he survives, and passes away by the time of the sequel, Doctor Sleep.
• The burglar in Spider-Man Trilogy. In the film, after Peter discovers that the burglar is the same man that Peter lets him escape, the crook then winds up almost immediately falling to his death. In the comics, he was apprehended by the police and then he returned in a storyline over a decade later that culminates with Peter revealing his identity to him, which in turn leads to the burglar suffering a fatal heart attack from the fear that Spider-Man would kill him, even though the hero was intending to do otherwise.
• Star Wars:
  • If one considers The Force Awakens to be an adaptation of the Star Wars Legends continuity, then Han Solo is most likely dead. The reason it isn't type one is because while we don't actually see it, the Legacy comics set in the Legends continuity take place well after Han's natural lifespan would have come to an end anyways.
  • As of The Last Jedi, we can add Luke Skywalker to the list. Like Han above, we don't see him die in the Legends continuity, but his Force Ghost appears at points in the Legacy comics, confirming he did indeed die at some point. Again, the Legacy comics are set long after his natural lifespan would have ended.
  • As of The Rise of Skywalker, Leia Organa. The comics are yet again set well after Leia would have died of natural causes. In the movie, Leia is outright shown dying and her body becoming one with the Force, largely due to the death of Carrie Fisher.
• Suicide Squad (2016) had Slipknot die from the detonation of the nano bombs when he tried to escape the moment they were deployed on the field after being convinced by Captain Boomerang that the bombs were a bluff. It was a throwback to the comics, where Slipknot also tried to escape and was also convinced by Captain Boomerang, but survived the detonation because the device was on his wrist, as opposed to being in his neck. However, it's an example of a Type 2, as Slipknot would ultimately be killed by the Tattooed Man in 2011.
• The Three Musketeers has the Comte de Rochefort die in a duel with D'Artagnan at the end, though he survived the book and died in its sequel Twenty Years After.
• Boris in Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy is knocked off in Istanbul instead of after being recalled to Russia. Conversely, Irina survives much longer just so Karla can shoot her in front of Jim Prideaux.
  • Jim Prideaux himself has - well, possibly the opposite of this version of the trope. It's implied at the beginning, and right up to the somewhere around the middle of the film that the shooting during the botched operation in Budapest left him dead. We then find out that he survived, to be tortured and interrogated by the Russians, and eventually returned to England. This is played more as a plot-point than in the book where it's more generally known, not least by the reader that he survived. Smiley discovering the truth of his fate in the film is the first big confirmation of his suspicions of who the mole is.
• In the film of To Kill a Mockingbird, Tom Robinson is shot and killed by police on the night of his conviction, allegedly while trying to escape custody. In the novel, he is shot by guards while trying to escape from prison several months later.
• Agamemnon in the Troy is killed by Briseis during the final battle in the Trojan War, whereas in the original mythology he survives. He returns home, and is murdered by his wife...thus setting off the events of The Oresteia.
• Terminator Genisys sees both the original Terminator and the T-1000 die much earlier than they did in their respective movies. While only Sarah's mother was only ever heard in the original movie, with no hint as to whether or not her father was also killed by the original Terminator or already dead before then, they also died while Sarah was nine in the Alternate Timeline.
• Warcraft:
  • Durotan is killed in a duel with Gul'dan in the midst of the first war while Draka is killed by another orc. In the games' canon, they were exiled before the war even began and were killed by Gul'dan's assassins shortly after the war ended.
  • King Llane dies in a Heroic Sacrifice near the Dark Portal, as opposed to being killed by a mind-controlled Garona during the siege of Stormwind.
• The Water Margin, due to being a Compressed Adaptation of a far thicker epic novel into two movies, kills off everyone somewhere in the halfway point of the novel. Notably, the second film eliminates every major named character (except the Big Good, Song Jiang) in a major battle which is around three quarters into the books.
• Wonder Woman (2017): Steve Trevor goes out by way of Heroic Sacrifice after essentially one mission. He has died multiple times in the comics, but only after multiple adventures with Diana generally spanning decades.
• X-Men Film Series:
  • X-Men: Senator Robert Kelly dies in the first film due to the unstable mutation Magneto inflicts on him. Initially a Type 1 example as he was still alive in the comics at the time the movie was released, it ended up turning into this months later when he was murdered by anti-mutant supremacists for changing his view on mutants.
  • In Logan, the title character dies by the end of the film. The version of Logan that appeared in Old Man Logan, which the film was based on, survived the original story, and did not die in the comics until Dead Man Logan, released two years after the film came out.
  • Dark Phoenix sees Jean Grey's mother Elaine killed accidentally by Jean when her powers were first emerging and John is implied to have by killed by the D'Bari as part of their interrogation of him. In the comics, both lived to see Jean become an X-Man and the Phoenix, as sometime after Jean's death in New X-Men, the Shi'ar Death Commandos, fearing a repeat of Jean's time as the Dark Phoenix, decided to massacre her family, her parents being among the fatalities.

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