History Main / AdaptationDisplacement

* ''WesternAnimation/ThePagemaster'' was originally based on a well-illustrated children's book.

* ''Franchise/JurassicPark'' is an impressive example. [[Franchise/JurassicPark The book]] is the most popular novel of one of the most popular modern novelists, yet the film is one of the highest grossing films of all time, and ushered in the reign of the CG-driven blockbuster. The film was so popular that Crichton used its plot rather than the one from his own novel when writing the novel's sequel.

** ''VideoGame/InsanelyTwistedShadowPlanet'' was based of a series of network bumps for Creator/{{Nickelodeon}} that were aired during the Halloween season.

* Unless you're French, you probably know ''LupinIII'' better than the ''Literature/ArseneLupin'' stories it was very loosely based upon.

** ''Film/MenInBlack'' is loosely based off [[Comicbook/MenInBlack a relatively obscure comic book.]] The characters names and relative roles are there (Zed, K, and J, though J wasn't black and Zed was a ''computer''), and they're MIBs; that's about it.

* Then there's ''LittleBill'', which was heavily advertised as being created by BillCosby, but many people didn't know it was for the fact that he created the original series of picture books, not the actual show.

* Although Barry Sonnenfeld claimed his film of ''Series/TheAddamsFamily'' was directly based on the original comics; every significant detail was taken from the TV series (for example, the original comic strip never named the characters).

* ''Film/MeetTheParents'', the 2000 film starring RobertDeNiro and BenStiller, is a remake of a little-known 1992 independent film of the same name, which featured Creator/EmoPhillips in a OneSceneWonder role but otherwise didn't have anyone well-known in the cast. The names of main characters and the general premise of a man having a disastrous first meeting with his girlfriend's parents are all that remained from the original film.

* Ace the Bat-Hound was a {{Batman}} supporting character in the [[TheGoldenAgeOfComicBooks Golden]] and [[TheSilverAgeOfComicBooks Silver ages]]. However, many more people remember Ace as Ol' Bruce Wayne's dog from ''WesternAnimation/BatmanBeyond''.

* While (one hopes) most people realize that {{Batman}}'s sidekick Robin originates in comic books, many fans of the animated ''WesternAnimation/TeenTitans'' don't realize that the rest of the show's main characters, the team and its headquarters, most of the villains, and many of the plotlines on the show, as well as its title, originated in comic books as well.

* Most people outside Germany, where it remains a literary classic, have ''no idea'' that ''Literature/TheNeverendingStory'' was in fact a bestselling book first - and that the original movie only adapts the first half of it. The author, Creator/MichaelEnde, was not pleased with the changes made for the movie adaptation and wanted his name to be removed from the credits. (The second movie uses bits and pieces of the book's second half, and the third film even less.)

* Unless you're French, you probably know ''LupinIII'' better than the ''ArseneLupin'' stories it was very loosely based upon.

* The DisneyChannel itself has been in existence since 1983, and its tween-centric original series have been in existence ''at least'' since the late 1990's, but because the channel rarely shows very much programming dated before 2005, certain gnerations may be unaware of LizzieMcGuire, PhilOfTheFuture, EvenStevens, SoWeird or TheFamousJettJackson setting the stage for HannahMontana, ThatsSoRaven, TheSuiteLifeOfZackAndCody and WizardsOfWaverlyPlace. Far fewer have even seen a younger BritneySpears, ChristinaAguilera, JustinTimberlake, etc. make their debuts in [[MickeyMouseClub MMC]] in TheNineties.

** The 2012 cartoon does go back to his 1987 cartoon origins.

* WesternAnimation/''ThePagemaster'' was originally based on a well-illustrated children's book.

* ''ThePagemaster'' was originally based on a well-illustrated children's book.

* "Herbert West: Reanimator" was a series of short stories by Creator/HPLovecraft. Its 1985 [[ReAnimator film adaptation]] is better known by far. While the title character of Lovecraft's stories was explicitly [[BlondGuysAreEvil blond]] and blue-eyed, all adaptations after the movie came out more closely resemble the film's lead JeffreyCombs.

* For a long time, it was not too well known in English-speaking countries that DragonBallZ was a sequel series to DragonBall, or that it was based on a Japanese manga (without the Z in the title). Even when the original Dragon Ball did make it's US premiere in 2001, many believed it was merely a prequel to DBZ, a [[SpinoffBabies Babyfication]] of DBZ's characters, a spinoff of DBZ for a younger audience, or something OTHER than a proceeding show. While the manga was met with some success in North America, there are those who think it's an adaptation of the anime, and those who doesn't know it exists at all. There are also folks who don't even know DragonBallZ is Japanese.

* Similar to Marth, Morrigan Aensland is starting to be far better known for appearing in ''MarvelVsCapcom'' than ''VideoGame/{{Darkstalkers}}''. The fact that there hasn't been a ''Darkstalkers'' since ''Vampire Savior'' probably contributes to this.

* Subverted by the original ''VideoGame/MetalGear''. The NES version was the only one available in America for many years and the fact that it was a port of an [=MSX2=] game wasn't even common knowledge prior to the release of ''MetalGearSolid''. Since then, Kojima has saw fit to release the original [=MSX2=] games in various formats (most notably as {{embedded precursor}}s in certain editions of ''MetalGearSolid3''), whereas the NES ''Metal Gear'' (and its sequel ''SnakesRevenge'') had never been properly reissued since their original releases[[hottip:*:except for a limited edition of ''Metal Gear Solid: The Twin Snakes'' for the [=GameCube=] released only in Japan, which included a bonus disc featuring the Famicom ''Metal Gear'']], not even on the Virtual Console.

[[folder:Displaced by Web Comics]]

* ''IKnowWhatYouDidLastSummer'' was originally a book written by prolific YA horror/suspense novelist Lois Duncan.

[[quoteright:203:[[Literature/{{Jaws}} http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/Jaws_first_edition_7083.jpg]]]]

* Subverted by the original ''VideoGame/MetalGear''. The NES version was the only one available in America for many years and the fact that it was a port of an [=MSX2=] game wasn't even common knowledge prior to the release of ''MetalGearSolid''. Since then, Kojima has saw fit to release the original MSX2 games in various formats (most notably as {{embedded precursor}}s in certain editions of ''MetalGearSolid3''), whereas the NES ''Metal Gear'' (and its sequel ''SnakesRevenge'') had never been properly reissued since their original releases[[hottip:*:except for a limited edition of ''Metal Gear Solid: The Twin Snakes'' for the [=GameCube=] released only in Japan, which included a bonus disc featuring the Famicom ''Metal Gear'']], not even on the Virtual Console.

* Subverted by the original ''VideoGame/MetalGear''. The NES version was the only one available in America for many years and the fact that it was a port of an [=MSX2=] game wasn't even common knowledge prior to the release of ''MetalGearSolid''. Since then, Kojima has saw fit to release the original MSX2 games in various formats (most notably as {{embedded precursor}}s in certain editions of ''MetalGearSolid3''), whereas the NES ''Metal Gear'' (nor its sequel ''SnakesRevenge'') had ever been properly reissued since their original releases[[hottip:*:except for a limited edition of ''Metal Gear Solid: The Twin Snakes'' for the [=GameCube=] released only in Japan, which included a bonus disc featuring the Famicom ''Metal Gear'']], not even on the Virtual Console.

* Subverted by the original ''VideoGame/MetalGear''. The NES version was the only one available in America for many years and the fact that it was a port of an [=MSX2=] game wasn't even common knowledge prior to the release of ''MetalGearSolid''. Since then, Kojima has saw fit to release the original MSX2 games in various formats (most notably as {{embedded precursor}}s in certain editions of ''MetalGearSolid3''), whereas the NES ''Metal Gear'' (nor its sequel ''SnakesRevenge'') have ever been properly reissued since their original releases[[hottip:*:except for a limited edition of ''Metal Gear Solid: The Twin Snakes'' for the [=GameCube=] released only in Japan, which included a bonus disc featuring the Famicom ''Metal Gear'']], not even on the Virtual Console.

* {{Konami}} released ''VideoGame/MetalGear'' for the {{NES}} in America without players realizing it was based on an [[{{MSX}} MSX2]] game of the same name. Nowadays, most people are [[SequelDisplacement better aware of its sequel]] ''VideoGame/MetalGearSolid'' than the early MSX and NES games in the series.

* ''{{Area 88}}'' is a Displacement Food Chain; it started off as a manga, which got adapted into a somewhat more well-known anime, which got adapted into the kinda-more-well-known arcade game (the U.S. title, ''U.N. Squadron'', only made the connection between the games and the anime/manga even more obscure), which got adapted into a well-known SNES port.