Adapted Out / Live-Action Films

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• The 1939, 1960 and 1993 versions of the Adventures of Huckleberry Finn cut out Tom Sawyer, who plays a small, but important part in his pal's story. The 1955 telemovie kept Tom, but wrote out Jim, the novel's other major character.
• Alice's Adventures in Wonderland:
  • Jan Svankmajer's Alice omits the Gryphon, the Mock Turtle, the Cheshire Cat and replaces the roles of the Duchess and her cook with the White Rabbit.
  • In Through The Looking Glass, after ringing the bells for the castle, Alice is greeted by a frog. He is omitted in the 1985 TV movie. The food whom Alice is introduced to are both absent, perhaps because the writers needed more time for the sequence with the Jabberwocky. Dinah's kittens are also absent due to the story being adapted to take place directly after Alice's trip to Wonderland (as opposed to 6 months later).
  • Dinah and the kittens are absent in the 1998 Through the Looking Glass film. The story is instead bookended with Alice reading the Through the Looking-Glass book to her daughter.
• The film version of Animal Crackers entirely eliminated the part of Wally Winston, a society gossip columnist (who, like many other such characters from contemporary plays and movies, was a No Celebrities Were Harmed version of Walter Winchell). His love interest, Arabella, was made a Composite Character.
• Annie (2014):
  • Rooster and Lily, Hannigan's brother and his significant other, are two major antagonists who are cut from the 2014 film version. Considering their role in the source musical as the ones who act as Annie's fake parents, that wouldn't necessarily work out here. Their part in "Easy Street" is given to Guy.
  • Also, Mr. Bundles the laundry guy doesn't appear in this adaptation, though that's mainly due to the Setting Update.
• The live action Assassination Classroom duology omits several characters.
  • Due to Class 3-E's academic struggle against the Absurdly Divided School being downplayed in the films, Asano Junior and the Student Council do not make an appearance. Similarly, because Principal Asano is Demoted to Extra, his Start of Darkness is not shown and thus his original students do not appear.
  • Lovro, Irina's mentor, does not show up at all.
  • Zig-Zagging Trope with the (Second) Shinigami. While Koro-sensei's rogue apprentice is omitted, his tentacle-infused form is what Yanagisawa turns into during his One-Winged Angel moment in the climax instead of the form he assumed in the manga.
• The live-action Attack on Titan movie omits Levi and Erwin. Oddly, this was not due to the large number of characters, but the fact that their names were too difficult to pronounce for most of the Japanese actors. Also omitted are Annie, Bertolt, and Reiner (the Warrior Trio), though the Colossal and Armored Titans remain albeit with different shifters.
• A number of supporting characters are cut from the Live-Action Adaptation of Bakuman。, the most notable omission being Kaya Miyoshi, who is a member of the main cast in the original series.
• Tim Burton's Batman (1989) had The Joker as the killer of Bruce Wayne's parents, rather than Joe Chill, the man who shot them in the original comic books. The other crook may be Joe Chill himself, but isn't named within the film.
• Batman Forever has Dick Grayson's family murdered by Two-Face, rather than Tony Zucco. In the comics Jason Todd was the Robin to have had a parent murdered by Two-Face.
• Mitch's son Hobie is not present in Baywatch (2017).
• At least one film adaptation of the first book of Beau Geste left out a particular character who in subsequent books was revealed to be plot-critical in the original book.
• Bicentennial Man: The original story had a number of characters from the US Robots corporation, as well as several generations of the Feingold and Chaney law firm. In the film, however, the corporation members are replaced by employees (and ex-employees) from NorthAm while only Bill Feingold and Lloyd Charney appear from the firm. The robot surgeon from chapter one (and reprise) is also removed entirely, his role being replaced by Rupert Burns, the son of an ex-employee of NorthAm Robotics.
• Blade: Trinity introduces the Nightstalkers including Hannibal King, but Frank Drake is omitted, his place taken by Canon Foreigner Abigail Whistler who is the daughter of the movie-only character Abraham Whistler. The name "Drake", however, is used as an alias for the Big Bad in the film. Although Blade, Frank Drake, and King were all introduced in Marvel's Tomb of Dracula, Dracula appears to have been adapted out as well. King explains that there are a lot of myths and misconceptions that may or may not be true and it is implied that, unlike in the Marvel comic, the historical "Vlad Dracul" (aka Vlad the Impaler) did not become a vampire and that the events of Bram Stoker's novel (which also never suggested that Vlad and Count Dracula are the same person) did not happen In-Universe. King, also shows Blade a Marvel Tomb of Dracula comic to drive home the point. Drake, does, suggest, however, that he has been around long enough to borrow a few famous aliases.
• Arthur Lestrange does not appear in The Blue Lagoon (1949).
• The Bourne Series cuts out the Big Bad and Historical Domain Character, Carlos the Jackal, as the real man was arrested between the original book trilogy and the first film's release.
• Boys Don't Cry ends with Brandon and Candace/Lisa's murder, but omits Philip Devine, the third victim of the crime, and the film also omits his girlfriend, Leslie, who was also Lana's sister.
• The film version of Camelot eliminated Nimue and Morgan le Fey, both of whom appeared in one scene each in the original play.
• Neither version of Cape Fear features Sam Bowden's son from the original novel, The Executioners.
• Captain Clegg: The lead character’s “Scarecrow” Secret Identity, one of the best-known features of the source novels, largely disappears in the film. He and his followers ride around dressed as scary “marsh goblins”, and one of the gangs stands around disguised as a scarecrow and so hidden in plain sight as their lookout, but the idea of the Scarecrow as the formidable leader of the smugglers is never even mentioned.
• Mike Nichols' film adaptation of Catch-22 drops several of the characters, including Major _____ de Coverley, Chief White Halfoat, and Ex-PFC Wintergreen.
• Charlie and the Chocolate Factory: The 1971 film adaptation dropped Mr. Bucket (Charlie's dad), with him suffering Death by Adaptation before the main action starts.
• The Cider House Rules, whose adapted screenplay was written by the novel's author, leaves out Melony entirely. More importantly, Angel is left out, completely altering the second half of the story.
• Clifford the Big Red Dog: Emily Elizabeth's father is left out of the film, overlapping with Disappeared Dad.
• In Clueless, a modern adaptation of Emma, Frank Churchill's analogue Christian is made gay instead of having a secret engagement, so the character of Jane Fairfax was rendered obsolete.
• Color Out of Space (2020): The researchers from the nearby university are nowhere to be seen in this movie, while in the short story they lead important research on the meteor's origin. As all of the extraneous but still plot-relevant characters are adapted out or suffer Death by Adaptation, it's not clear who else Ward is referring to when he remarks at the film's end that "few of us remember the strange times," given he's the Sole Survivor.
• Neither the 1985 nor 2023 films of The Color Purple feature the Mayor's daughter, Eleanor Jane.
• Private Bracewell is absent from the parts of Dad's Army (1971) adapted from the Dad's Army Pilot, "The Man and the Hour". Justified Trope seeing as the character was Dropped After the Pilot in the series.
• Tim Burton's film adaptation of Dark Shadows opens with Barnabas's backstory, which is extremely condensed (the about-100-episode 1795 arc into 7 minutes) and eliminates nearly every character other than Barnabas, Josette, and Angelique.^note This includes Barnabas's little sister Sarah Collins, his uncle (and Josette's husband), Jeremiah Collins, his aunt, Abigail Collins, cousins Millicent and Daniel Collins (with Daniel being the direct ancestor of the present-day family), Josette's father and aunt, and several important non-relatives like Ben Stokes and the Reverend Trask. This leads to an Adaptation-Induced Plot Hole: if Barnabas and his parents Joshua and Naomi were the only Collins family members, and Angelique killed the latter two, then how are the present-day Collinses still kicking around in the 1970s? As far as the present-day, even more characters are left out, and that's not even counting any other characters in different time periods...
• DC Extended Universe:
  • Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, despite featuring a veteran, middle-aged Batman, dispenses with most of the Bat-Family. A single, unidentified Robin (Zack Snyder claims it was Dick Grayson, while supplementary material from the studio instead indicates it was Jason Todd) is established to have existed in the past before being murdered by The Joker, but after his death, Bruce never took on any of the later Robins like Tim Drake or Damian Wayne, nor any of the Batgirls. A Batgirl movie was planned to be included as part of the tweaked post-The Flash (2023) slate, but was ultimately shelved.
  • Birds of Prey (2020):
    • Oracle is not present in the movie, with the team instead coming together because of events surrounding Harley Quinn.
    • Also, in the comics, Harley has a pair of pet hyenas named Bud and Lou. Due to budget restrictions, she only has one hyena, now called "Bruce," in the movie.
  • The Hal Jordan Green Lantern doesn't appear in the live-action Justice League (2017) movie, making him the only member of the team from the New 52 origin not to show up. This is particularly notable since nearly every other adaptation of the Justice League has included at least some iteration of the Green Lantern, whether it be Hal Jordan, John Stewart or Guy Gardner. It turns out that John Stewart actually was going to appear in Zack Snyder's Justice League, but the studio forced Snyder to cut the cameo.
  • SHAZAM! (2019) is based on the comic book origin story as it was post-Flashpoint. However, Black Adam is only alluded to, since he would get his own movie. As a tradeoff, the movie gets more focus on Dr. Sivana, who was a secondary villain in the original story. Also removed from the movie are Mr. Bryer (whom the Seven Deadly Sins posses during the comic origin's finale, while they serve as the source of Sivana's powers in the movie), Francesca (the woman who appears in reflective surfaces to give out exposition), and Tawny the tiger from the Philadelphia Zoo (possibly because the Magiclands story arc, an adaptation of which was heavily being hinted at in the movie, introduces a more classic style Tawny who lives in the Wildlands).
  • Wonder Woman (2017):
    • The contest to send an ambassador to Man's World is written out, with Diana doing what she did in Justice League instead, going "Screw my mother's edict, people need my help," taking up the armor and weapons, and going off into Man's World's on her own.
    • Wonder Woman's friend Mala, who discovered Steve Trevor washed ashore together with her in the comics, is not in the film.
    • The Holliday Girls, a sort of unofficial commando unit of young women run by Etta Candy, does not appear. Their position is filled by Steve Trevor's group of men instead.
  • Zack Snyder's Justice League: The four replacements to the real Superman in Superboy, the Cyborg Superman, Steel and Eradicator never show up in this movie despite being a core part of one of the source materials, Reign of the Supermen (which followed The Death of Superman).
• Quite a few characters from the Netflix film, Death Note (2017) - unsurprisingly, given the film's runtime of less than two hours, as compared to the much longer Japanese adaptations. Other than L, Watari and James Turner/Sochiro Yagami, none of the other Kira task force members - Matsuda, Mogi, Aiwaza etc. - have counterparts in the film. Also absent is Rem, and given Mia's death at the end of the film, she's unlikely to appear in possible sequels. Near and Mello also do not appear, though it is mentioned that there were other children trained to be master detectives by the same project that trained L, making it possible that they might appear in sequels. Light's sister Sayu also doesn't have a counterpart.
• Discworld:
  • Hrun the Barbarian from Discworld doesn't appear in Sky One's The Colour of Magic.
  • Professor Pelc, Prehumous Professor of Bibliomancy, doesn't appear in their adaptation of Going Postal.
  • Other people omitted from the Going Postal adaptation are Anghammarad the ancient golem, Anoia the Goddess of Things That Stick in Drawers, most of the Grand Trunk's board, and (by implication) the Guild of Assassins.
• Divergent:
  • Many of Tris' friends and fellow initiates from the books do not make it in to the films so that more focus could be put on her romance with Four. This includes Uriah, Lynn, Marlene, Lynn's sister Shauna, Uriah's brother Zeke, and Will's sister Cara. The Divergent Series: Insurgent features them in a much more reduced role, with Lynn only coming up just once to remind the others that the recently deceased Marlene did have a name.
    
    The exclusion of Cara is particularly significant, since in Allegiant, she is one of the leaders of the eponymous Allegiant, participates with Tris' group to get to the fringes of Chicago, and also gets the task of informing Four at the end about Tris' death.
  • Tori's brother, George, and Four's mentor, Amar, do not appear in The Divergent Series: Allegiant. However, since they figure little if at all in the book (other than serving some Tear Jerker moments as Tori was killed just moments before, rendering her entire goal to take revenge a "Shaggy Dog" Story), it does not greatly impact the plot.
• A Dog's Purpose edited down the first 54 pages of the book to less than 4 minutes. It very briefly showed Toby with his siblings but didn't name any of them, resulting in Toby and his family being Demoted to Extra. It also outright removed Senora, Senora's peers, Coco, Top Dog, Spike, and Rottie. The film removes several human characters like Todd's siblings.
• A Dog's Way Home: Axel's cop friend Tom and some young men who beat him up for kicks are all omitted.
• The Universal version of Dracula dispenses with Quincey Morris and Arthur Holmwood altogether.
  • Horror of Dracula omits not only Morris, but Renfield and two of Dracula's brides.
• Krillin isn't in the live-action Dragon Ball adaptation, Dragonball Evolution, even though his death is what caused Goku to go after King Piccolo (who is in the movie) in the first place.
• Dragon Ball Evolution:
  • Oolong and Puar despite being core members of the original Dragon Ball are missing here. Given they are respectively a talking pig and talking floating cat who can shapeshift they were likely removed for budgetary reasons. The same likely goes for Turtle, Roshi’s talking pet champion.
  • Pilaf and Shu make no appearance here unlike their constant companion Mai who is The Dragon to King Piccolo instead of serving Pilaf here.
  • Chi-Chi’s father Ox-King, despite his importance as one of Roshi’s students alongside Grandpa Gohan and soon being Goku’s father-in-law unlike his daughter is not to be seen here.
  • Krillin, Tien and Chiaotzu even though they were already introduced by the time King Piccolo saga unfolded, are all missing here.
  • King Piccolo’s mutant spawn Piano, Tambourine, Cymbal and Drum are omitted and replaced with more generic monsters created from Piccolo’s blood.
  • The Saiyans are not mentioned in the film and Goku is just a monster called Oozaru who took human shape. While it’s true the film is adapting the era before the Saiyans were introduced, the film still mentions the Nameks where Piccolo comes from, making the absence of the Saiyans more noticeable. The tie-in game did reveal Goku’s true parentage though.
• Paul and Chani's first son, Leto, who was murdered by the Harkonnen forces, was omitted from the David Lynch film adaptation of Dune.
• Minor characters like Kaitlyn, Lydia and Gus' sisters are not present in The Fault in Our Stars. Van Houten gives Augustus' eulogy to Hazel personally, while Isaac fills the slightly comedic relief role. Some other scenes are also cut to improve the flow (and shorten the length) of the film. John Green's cameo as the parent of Jackie, the little girl who wanted to try on Hazel's cannula, was also cut.
• Friday Night Lights focuses on the 1988 football season of Permian High School, depicted in the film as the only high school in the one-horse town of Odessa, Texas. Completely missing from the film is Odessa High School, the other big public school in a city that had around 90,000 residents in 1988. Though the original book focused on Permian, one chapter was devoted to the Odessa–Permian rivalry.
• The Generation X TV movie from the 90s had to omit Chamber and Husk due to budgetary reasons, replacing them with two similar characters named Refrax and Buff. Synch was also left out, but no reason was given.
• The Great Gatsby (1974): Dan Cody and the section of Gatsby's backstory that included him has been excluded from the film completely.
• The film of Go Ask Alice leaves out many minor/oneshot characters, Alex, and Carla's grandparents.
• Scarlett O'Hara's children from her first two marriages, Wade Hampton Hamilton and Ella Lorena Kennedy, appear not to exist in the film adaptation of Gone with the Wind.
• Gor, the film version of Tarnsman of Gor, adapts out Tarl's father Matthew, the Older Tarl (Tarl's instructor at arms), Torm the Scribe, Tarl's sword brother Kazrak of Port Kar, the slave girl Sana, Nor the (sentient) spider, Pa-Kur the Master Assassin, Mintar the Merchant, and Tarl's tarn Ubar of the Skies.
• Hannibal Lecter:
  • Alan Bloom is given only a minor part in Manhunter and completely left out of the Hopkins / Norton take of Red Dragon.
  • Hannibal:
    • Margot Verger is entirely absent from the film adaptation of Hannibal, and as a result the manner of death for her brother, Mason changes considerably between the two, since she killed him in the original book.
    • Because Scott Glenn refused to return for the film adaptation of Hannibal (and given what he went through, who can blame him?^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), the character of Jack Crawford was written out. A deleted scene reveals a combination of type 2 of Death by Adaptation and Killed Offscreen and that he died between movies.
• Numerous characters in the film versions of Harry Potter, which can mostly be split into three categories: not being introduced until they are absolutely necessary to the plot, being in the earlier ones and then not showing up again, and completely being left out. Some examples:
  • Not appearing until they're necessary to the plot: Bill Weasley, ^note  First appears in the fourth book and remains a prominent side character for the rest of the series. Doesn't appear until the seventh movie. Mrs. Figg, ^note  Introduced in the second chapter of the first book, but only appears in the fifth movie. Dumbledore's brother Aberforth, ^note  Mentioned in passing first in the fourth book and several times throughout the rest of the series. Harry meets him in the fifth without knowing who he is and then finally officially towards the end of the seventh book. However, Harry knew he existed in the books but straight-up says he didn't know about him in the seventh movie. Narcissa Malfoy, ^note  Mentioned as early as the first book, first appears in the fourth, but doesn't appear until the sixth movie and Mundungus Fletcher. ^note  Mentioned as early as the second book, shows up in the fifth, but not in the movies until the seventh.
  • Appearing in earlier installments and then disappearing: Phineas Nigellus Black, Firenze, Nearly Headless Nick, Moaning Myrtle, Colin Creevey, ^note  Due to his actor going through a growth spurt and Crabbe. ^note  Due to legal issues on the actor’s part
  • Don't appear at all: Ludo Bagman, Winky, Peeves the Poltergeist,^note  who was cut out of the first movie after negative reaction to his character design from test audiences Professor Binns, both sides of Voldemort's family, Neville's parents and grandmother, and the Muggle Prime Minister.
  • Mixed examples: Sir Cadogan, ^note only appears in the background of the scene where the Fat Lady disappears, but featured in Deleted Scenes on the DVD and in the video game adaptation Andromeda Tonks, ^note  Her name is on the Black family tree and her daughter exists but is never mentioned by name and got cut out of the seventh film Dobby ^note  who was in the second movie and then didn't show back up until the seventh , Charlie Weasley, ^note Is in the family photo and is mentioned but never appears like he does in the books and Teddy Lupin. ^note Is mentioned but not by name and Harry doesn't seem to be his godfather.
  • This was almost the case with the house elf Kreacher in the film adaptation of Order of the Phoenix, but J.K. Rowling herself intervened and convinced the filmmakers to add him in because of his later importance to the plot.
• Haunted Mansion (2023): Though many ghosts from the original ride appear, the Singing Busts are not among them.
• Abe Sapien and Liz Sherman from the Hellboy comics don't appear in Hellboy (2019) as a means to differentiate it from the previous adaptations. Subverted with Abe who appears in his tank at the end of the movie as a Sequel Hook.
• The Hound of the Baskervilles (1983) omits the character of Frankland: Sir Charles' neighbour and filer of nuisance lawsuits. He is largely replaced by the Canon Foreigner Lyons, with Frankland's daughter Laura noe being Lyons' wife.
• The Hunger Games:
  • Madge Undersee and her family do not appear in the film version of The Hunger Games, probably due to casting logistics and length constraints. Katniss instead gets the mockingjay pin (now lacking its Back Story involving Maysilee Donner) from a vendor at the Hob. Said vendor may or may not be Greasy Sae, making her an example of either this trope or Demoted to Extra.
  • Katniss only mentions Gale's brothers in the first movie, implying his sister Posey doesn't exist in the film universe. Her brief appearance in Mockingay also doesn't happen.
  • Lavinia, Katniss' Avox servant, is not present, though unnamed female Avoxes are present in background scenes, suggesting that Demoted to Extra is at play here.
  • Twill and Bonnie, a pair of District 8 refugees whom Katniss encounters during their journey to District 13 in Catching Fire, don't appear in the films.
  • Enobaria is not mentioned as having been saved by the rebels in the third film, although she does appear during the Victors' meeting at the end of the fourth film.
  • Fulvia Cardew and Katniss' prep team aren't present in the adaptations of Mockginjay due to their roles being taken by Effie (who became an Ascended Extra; Effie only has a small cameo at the end of Mockingjay, but Suzanne Collins loved Elizabeth Banks' portrayal of her so much that she personally intervened to get her screen time expanded).
  • Delly Cartwright, a teenage girl from District 12 is absent from The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 2. Her most significant part (first visit at Peeta after he attacked Katniss) is taken by Prim.
  • In Mockingjay, Katniss befriends Dalton, a District 10 refugee who suggests that she looks best without her makeup in the propos. In the films, his role is cut, and it's Boggs who provides the suggestion.
  • Katniss' District 13 psychiatrist, Dr. Aurelius, is absent in the third and fourth films.
• The live-action film adaptation of Inspector Gadget by Disney, aside from other notable changes made to the source material, completely omits Dr. Claw's international crime organization M.A.D., instead having him assisted by a goon named Sykes and a Mad Scientist named Kramer. The sequel also avoids using M.A.D., instead having Claw assisted by a pair of crooks named Brick and McKibble and later hiring three criminals known as Squint, Jungle Bob, and the Ninja, though ironically, all three were M.A.D. agents in the original cartoon.
• Into the Woods:
  • The Narrator. The majority of his lines are now said by the Baker through a voice over. (This works in favor of the film's ending.)
  • Cinderella's drunkard father is also said to have passed away shortly after marrying her stepmother.
  • Snow White and Sleeping Beauty don't get their cameos like in the musical, for obvious reasons: Cinderella's Prince is still a cad, but Disney probably didn't want to make two of their leading ladies into The Mistress.
  • Rapunzel's twins were cut. They wouldn't make sense in the compressed time-frame, contributed little to the plot, and disappeared during Act Two.
• The Iron Claw: The movie omits a sixth brother of the Von Erich family named Chris, because his life story (his wrestling aspirations were a Tragic Dream due to chronic lifelong health issues, which led to his ultimately suicidal depression) would've made the already unrelentingly bleak film basically unwatchable (in the words of the director, "it was one more tragedy that the film couldn't really withstand").
• It:
  • Neither film version of the novel includes Mike's dog Mr. Chips (who gets murdered by Henry), Gard Jagermeyer, Beverly's mother Elfrida and Maturin the Turtle, among others. Peter Gordon and Moose Sadler, two of Henry's fellow bullies, are Demoted to Extra in the miniseries and are absent entirely in the 2017 movie. Maturin is at least alluded to with Georgie’s Lego turtle which Bill has a touching moment with.
  • The 1990 miniseries cuts out Adrian Mellon, Eddie's wife Myra, Patrick Hockstetter and Butch Bowers (who is mentioned).
  • The 2017 movie and its 2019 sequel omit quite a few characters from the book, including The Losers' homeroom teacher Mrs. Douglas, Ben's parents Arlene and Captain Hanscom and Beverly's friend Kay.
• James Bond:
  • The films have yet to include either Bond's secretary Loelia Ponsonby or his Scottish housekeeper Mrs. May from the books (the former was combined with Miss Moneypenny).
  • From Russia with Love changes the main villain from General Nicholai Sergenovich Grubozaboyschikov (G) of SMERSH to Ernst Stavro Blofeld of SPECTRE. Also, moving the climax from Paris to Venice means that Rene Mathis' from Casino Royale's re-appearance is omitted.
  • Diamonds Are Forever also had Blofeld replace the main villain of the original novel - Jack and Seraffimo Spang.
  • Felix Leiter is omitted entirely from The Man with the Golden Gun. This is the opposite of Dr. No, where he made his first appearance despite not featuring in the novel.
• The live-action JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: Diamond is Unbreakable adaptation decided to have an Adaptational Early Appearance of Yoshikage Kira's Sheer Heart Attack kill Keicho Nijimura instead of Akira Atoishi, who murdered him in the original manga (and its anime adaptation). Since the film was originally conceived as a trilogy (which may or may not end up being released, since the film was a financial flop), this was probably meant to cut out many of the minor antagonists of that arc and beeline immediately to the Big Bad.
• In the 2016 remake of The Jungle Book (1967), Shanti, the girl at the end of the original, is clearly cut, with Mowgli remaining in the jungle at the end of the movie instead of following her and living with the humans.
• Jurassic Park leaves out the character of publicist Ed Regis. The character of Gennaro in the movie is a Composite Character of him and the book's Gennaro.
• King Kong: The 1976 remake and the MonsterVerse iteration of Skull Island both adapt out the dinosaurs of the original film (the former possibly due to the non-functional Kong animatronic eating too much of the effects budget, while the latter is explicitly to distinguish it from King Kong (2005) and the then recent Jurassic World), although the latter replaces the dinosaurs with other monstrous creatures.
• The live-action film version of The King of Fighters omitted the vast majority of the cast, in favor of mostly focusing on Kyo, Iori, Mai, Terry, and Rugal.
• Lady and the Tramp:
  • Since Lady and Tramp don’t visit a zoo, they don’t meet with a real beaver. However, they use the statue of a beaver to remove Lady's muzzle.
  • The original animated film has Lady chased by three alley dogs after she gets muzzled. In this live-action adaptation, the amount of alley dogs that attack Lady is reduced to one.
  • Lady and Tramp's puppies, which they have at the end of the original animated film, although two Canon Foreigner puppies do end up becoming their neighbors after Jock's owner adopts them having been inspired by Jim Dear and Darling adopting the Tramp.
  • The pound dogs mentioning that Tramp had several girlfriends before Lady.
• Land of Oz:
  • The 1925 In Name Only movie version, in addition to changing almost the entire plot, takes this Up to Eleven and removes everyone except for Dorothy, the Tin Woodman, the Cowardly Lion, the Scarecrow, Auntie Em, Uncle Henry, and the Wizard. Characters loosely based on those from later books appear in place of the omitted characters.
  • In the original novels, Glinda was the Good Witch of the South, and the Good Witch of the North Dorothy met when she first arrived in Oz was a different character. The film version combined the two into a single character named Glinda. (This led to the infamous Plot Hole of Glinda giving the ruby slippers to Dorothy in the beginning of the movie but not telling her that she could use them to get home until the end of the movie.) Due to Adaptation Displacement, most subsequent adaptations have also had Glinda as the only Good Witch.
• The Last Airbender, the film adaptation of Avatar: The Last Airbender was trying to condense a whole season into one 100 minute film so quite a few characters got the ax. Avatar Roku is the most important character to have gotten the axe and his role as Aang’s Spirit Advisor is given to a stand-in for his dragon, Fang. Jet and Bumi were also left out. Suki and the Kyoshi warriors were in the original cut of the film but their twenty minutes were cut out of the theatrical release when the studio mandated a short runtime but this also seems pretty justified since Sokka already had a Love Interest in Yue anyway.
• Chaim Rosenzweig, the Israeli scientist whom Buck Williams reminisces about regarding Russia's all-out attack on Israel in the first few chapters of the first Left Behind book, doesn't even get a mention by Buck in the 2014 film adaptation, since its story is so tightly focused on the airplane trip that the Rapture takes place during.
• The Little Mermaid (2023): Louis, Eric's chef who sings "Les Poissons" and gets into slapstick comic relief with Sebastian, is absent in this live-action remake. He was cut in favor of romantic development between Ariel and Eric.
• The Lord of the Rings:
  • Tom Bombadil and his wife Goldberry, together with the Hobbits' entire "Old Forest" adventure, are absent.
  • Glorfindel is absent, his role of rescuing Frodo from the Nazgûl and bringing him to Rivendell is given to Arwen.
  • Prince Imrahil who plays a major role in The Return of the King is omitted entirely. In the books his role supporting Gandalf's defense of Minas Tirith and his support of Aragorn as King of Gondor are fairly important plot points, as he's the one that figures Aragorn can cure victims of the Nazgûl.
  • Beregond. His (and his son's) role as Pippin's friend is given to Faramir. His role in defending Faramir from premature cremation is simply cut, so Pippin's dash for Gandalf is even more desperate and they only get there just as the pyre is about to be lit. Purportedly, Ian Hughes' character was meant to be Beregond, but the name was changed in post-production because the role had been so reduced. (Not that you hear either name said onscreen.)
  • Erkenbrand, the leader of the reinforcements that won the Battle of the Hornburg, is gone entirely, with his role being given to Éomer. In the books, Éomer was taken prisoner rather than exiled, freed when Théoden regained his senses, and fought as one of the defenders at the Hornburg. Elfhelm, a more minor commander, is also removed.
  • Ghan-buri-Ghan and Elrond's sons Elladan and Elrohir are also absent (one cut would have apparently merged their role with that of Arwen). Quickbeam the Ent appears in the crowd shots, Demoted to Extra.
  • The Scouring of the Shire is shown in the film as a possible Bad Future rather than an actual event.
• Marvel Cinematic Universe:
  • Avengers: Infinity War was based on the comic book The Infinity Gauntlet. However, Adam Warlock, a protagonist of the comic, did not take part in that film. Adam does appear in the MCU though later on in Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3
  • Likewise, Avengers: Age of Ultron is based on the origins of the titular Killer Robot- but his creator Hank Pym a.k.a. Ant-Man is nowhere to be found, with Ultron instead originating as a project by Tony Stark. Though the official line is that Hank Pym as a character just comes with too much baggage- which was also the reason given for his absence in The Avengers (2012) despite being a founding member in the books- the fact that he appeared as a major character (albeit after receiving a major Age Lift) in Ant-Man the very same year may indicate that the producers just wanted to keep him in their pocket for a more meaningful debut.
  • Many characters from Marvel Comics that have been licensed to other studios such the X-Men and Fantastic Four don't appear. As a result, adaptions of storylines that include a character that is off-limits are rewritten to avoid it. For example, Jean Grey does not appear in the conflict between Jessica Jones Kilgrave, Rogue and Mystique are not involved with Carol Danvers and Ultron is made of Vibranium instead of Adamantium which is mostly associated with Wolverine's claws (granted some of his bodies in the comics were made of an alloy of the two metals), Quicksilver and the Scarlet Witch had a father who is not Magneto (which was the case in the early comics), and so on. The Fantastic Four are also tied closely to many of Spider-Man storylines, while the MCU gives this relationship to Spidey and Stark Industries instead. This limitation largely applied to the Infinity Saga, prior to Marvel's partnership with Sony and Disney's acquisition of the Fox licenses with the company as a whole. Later films are able to avert this with the X-Men and Fantastic Four characters appearing in Phase 4 and Phase 5.
  • Aside from rights issues relating to certain properties, there is one missing character who in the comics is deeply connected to the Avengers and even played a direct role in the origins of at least two of their roster- Rick Jones. Despite being the reason Bruce Banner became The Incredible Hulk, the original partner and first human Captain Marvel, the first and fastest friend of the resurrected Captain America, the second Bucky, and literally placing the call to each founding member that brought Earth's Mightiest Heroes together on that day unlike any other, Rick has never made so much as a name-only cameo in any MCU movie. Instead, the role of Hulk's Morality Pet is bounced around between Betty Ross, Black Widow, and Valkyrie, the role of Captain Marvel's sidekick is eliminated along with most of that character's history pre-Carol Danvers, and his spot as Captain America's pal and sidekick Bucky was given to, erm, Captain America's pal and sidekick Bucky. Granted, nowadays it probably makes more sense for the Avengers to assemble at the behest of S.H.I.E.L.D. rather than a teenager with a HAM radio club, but for those in the know the omission of a man who is frequently and accurately described as The Heart of the Marvel Universe is glaring.
  • Death like Rick Jones is another big omission as she plays a huge role in the Jim Shooter’s Thanos and Mar-Vell storylines with The Infinity Gauntlet saga happening entirely because Thanos wants to win her love and snaps away half the life in the universe in a bid to gain her affections. Since anthropomorphising the Grim Reaper is too out there, even for the MCU and would require hefty explanation, her role from is cut completely in Avengers: Infinity War and Thanos wants to remove half of all life in the universe to avoid a Overpopulation Crisis. She does actually have a cameo as a carved figure and statue in Guardians of the Galaxy (2014) and Thor: Love and Thunder though.
  • Uncle Ben, despite being a pivotal character to Spider-Man is completely absent from Captain America: Civil War and Spider-Man: Homecoming Trilogy . It is vaguely inferred in the films that his death from the comics did happen but it wasn’t until What If? (which isn’t particularly canon) that Uncle Ben was mentioned by name. Word of God affirmed they didn’t want to retread what the previous Spider-Man films had already gone over twice. Ben’s role of imparting Peter With Great Power Comes Great Responsibility, is instead given to Iron Man and later Aunt May, before she dies. Furthermore, while most of Spidey’s supporting cast appear in the MCU, there’s the two big omissions of Gwen Stacy and Harry Osborn. Gwen’s appearance and earlier characterisation is given to Betty Brant while Ned Leeds takes Harry’s place as Peter’s best friend and as a Mythology Gag alluding to Harry Ned swears that he’ll never go evil and try kill Peter. Though while Harry is absent, the Arch-Enemy antagonism with Norman still plays out in No Way Home, albeit with a different universe Green Goblin.
  • For the Thor films, a good deal of his supporting cast and villains are removed. Donald Blake, Thor’s human form is changed into being Jane’s ex-boyfriend who never appears. Gaia, Thor’s biological mother is removed and Frigga is his birth mother here instead, strengthening their already close bond. Baldur, Thor and Loki’s brother is nowhere to be seen (though they were scrapped plans to have him appear in Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness) and neither does their sister Angela appear with Hela taking her place in Thor: Ragnarok. Amora the Enchantress is also missing from the films and it’s not until Loki (2021) that an expy of her character Sylvie appears. There’s also a few missing figures from Norse Mythology who appear in the comics, most prominently Jörmungandr the Worid Serpent, who is absent in the films. Though strangely enough Thor’s goats Tanngrisnir and Tanngnjóstr managed to make a belated appearance in Thor: Love and Thunder.
• Masters of the Universe dumped Orko for a stand-in character who filled the same role in the franchise. This is handwaved when one of the eponymous Masters claims that Skeletor has captured a number of their allies.
• In The Magnificent Seven (1960), Petra's father, the counterpart of Manzo from Seven Samurai, is mentioned but never appears.
• The "Bulb Monsters" that appeared during the climax of The Scorch Trials, don't appear in Maze Runner: The Scorch Trials.
• Monster Mash (1995) was loosely based on the stage musical I'm Sorry the Bridge Is Out, You'll Have to Spend the Night, with the discrepancies including the omission of Renfield as well as the grave robbers Montclair and Clairmont.
• MonsterVerse: In addition to the King Kong Adapted Out (see above); on the Godzilla side, this continuity substitutes many Kaiju from the original Toho movies for noticable Expies. This is because Toho has to give Legendary explicit approval to use specific Kaiju for the series, meaning that the only monsters that are licensed out to the company so far are Godzilla, Mothra, Rodan, Ghidorah, and Mechagodzilla. That being said, Toho is very supportive of the series.
• Mortal Engines:
  • Katherine Valentine's pet wolf Dog does not appear in the movie.
  • Due to Tunbridge Wheels and everything related to it being left out of the movie, the town's mayor Chrysler Peavy and his group of pirates are also absent.
  • As a side effect of Shrike never being brought to London in this adaptation, the other Stalkers created by Dr Trix from studying Shrike don't exist in the film's universe.
• Kung Lao was one of the few significant Mortal Kombat characters at the time to never appear in either of the live-action movies. On the villain side, Kintaro and Sektor were also absent. The 2021 reboot leaves out Johnny Cage, a major character who's been around since the very first game. Producer Todd Garner elaborated that Johnny Cage was cut because the team thought that Cage and Kano are too similar in personality, and would overshadow each other if they were both included.
• Neither "Rear Window" Witness Elspeth McGillicuddy or Amateur Sleuth Lucy Eyelesbarrow appear in Murder, She Said (the film version of 4:50 from Paddington), with Miss Marple assuming both of their roles.
• Julia and her sister are entirely absent from the movie version of My Sister's Keeper. Julia's absence leads to an entire romantic subplot between her and Campbell being cut, substantially reducing Campbell's screen time.
• In the live-action adaption of Nodame Cantabile, Yunlong is entirely absent, presumably due to content constraints. This is even though he does play a role that, while not big, is just as important as fellow friends Tanya and Frank. Any of his parts left in are given to other characters instead.
• As The Northman is not a direct retelling of the Amleth legend, the key element of Amleth faking insanity to deter suspicion about his plotting - which survived all the way to Shakespeare's Hamlet - is not present since Amleth flees the scene as a boy. Elements in the legend that were later echoed by Shakespeare's Polonius, Ophelia, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are also absent.
• Once Upon a Time (2017) leaves out a lot of the original novel. Bai Qian's time at Kunlun Mountain is never mentioned. Mo Yuan only appears in flashbacks (except for the final scene... maybe). Bai Zhen, Bai Feng Jiu, Dong Hua, and Li Jing are nowhere to be seen. Qing Cang's fight with Mo Yuan isn't shown.
• In the film version of On the Town, Claire's fiancé Pitkin is absent, which serves to remove the adulterous implications of her affair with Ozzie.
• Sister Fagan and Father Ardlui from The Sopranos (Warner) don't appear in the film adaptation, Our Ladies (2019).
• Paint Your Wagon removed Ben's daughter Jennifer and her Latin Lover Julio, who were the primary couple in the original show.
• Karin is never mentioned or seen in the film adaptation of Paper Towns.
• The film adaptations of Percy Jackson and the Olympians have a few. The Lightning Thief left out several characters, and this notably includes Ares and Kronos, two major antagonists of the book and in the latter's case, the Big Bad of the entire series. Other characters like Clarisse and Dionysus were also left out. The sequel makes Clarisse, Dionysus and Kronos appear, but Circe, Tantalus and the Party Ponies got the shaft this time.
• The Personal History of David Copperfield: Many minor characters from the novel David Copperfield are excised, like the stagecoach Mr. Barkis, David's teacher Dr. Strong, Agnes's friend Martha, and David's friend Tommy Traddles (who is mentioned by Mr. Dick).
• Pet Sematary (2019): Jud is a widower from the beginning in this version, so Norma doesn't appear except when the undead Ellie briefly takes her form to torment Jud. Also, a flashback with Jud's dog Biffer was cut from the finished movie.
• The Phantom of the Opera adaptations like Dracula have a long tradition of taking out much of the cast of the book. The most glaring omission is the Persian who is a vital character in the book with a close connection to the Phantom, pretty much every adaptation (with the few exceptions of the 1925 film, Ken Hill musical, 1988 animated film and 2021 visual novel) remove his character entirely. Christine’s adoptive mother Mamma Valérius and Raoul’s older brother Philippe are likewise nowhere to be seen in the live action adaptations nor is La Sorelli who was Little Meg’s friend in the book rather than Christine.
• The live-action film adaptation of Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney had to drop nearly all of the third case and a good chunk of the second, so quite a few characters were cut. Most notable were April May (whose role was taken over by Redd White), Cody Hackins, Wendy Oldbag, Jack Hammer, and Will Powers. Every character introduced in the fifth case, "Rise from the Ashes", is also missing. However, given that that case wasn't in the original GBA game, instead being added to the Updated Re-release for the DS as an epilogue of sorts, that's kind of understandable.
• Pokémon Detective Pikachu cuts out several characters and elements from the original game:
  • Emilia Christie, Tim's female partner, was scrapped and replaced by Lucy Stevens.
  • Heck, pretty much any human character aside from Tim, Harry, and Roger gets cut out of the film.
  • Most of the Pokémon included in the game, such as Burmy, Tepig, and Mimikyu, were also cut.
• In The Princess Bride Buttercup’s comical mother and father are not to be seen with Buttercup and Westley just running the farm by themselves in the film. Additionally Rugen’s wife the Countess and the killer animals of Humperdink’s Zoo of Death are omitted.
• Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers experiences this in Power Rangers (2017), as Bulk and Skull are written out, as are most of Rita's forces outside of Goldar and the Putties.
• Red, White & Royal Blue cut out several characters and plots from the book:
  • Alex's older sister June doesn't exist in the movie. This means that the plot about her briefly pretending to date Henry when people are getting suspicious is also cut.
  • In the movie, Alex's parents are still together. In the book, they are divorced and Ellen is now married to Leo, who doesn't exist here.
  • They also cut out Rafael Luna, a gay Latino politician Alex looks up to. In the books, he betrays the Claremont family by siding with Richards, which turns out to be a ploy to expose his sex crimes.
  • Henry's mother is mentioned, but never actually shows up during the film. In the books, she actually shows up at the end to stand up for her son after the emails are leaked.
  • Bea's former cocaine addiction is not mentioned in the movie. Henry also doesn't talk about it in the leaked emails here.
  • Liam, Alex's best friend from high school, also didn't appear. Alex does mention fooling around with a high school friend, but does not name him.
• The Relic:
  • When the book was adapted to film, Agent Pendergast was written out and Lieutenant D'Agosta was promoted into his role. Pendergast became the Breakout Character of the novel and is featured as the main character of all the novels that follow. The series is informally titled "The Agent Pendergast Series."
  • William Smithback, a reporter and recurring character in the Pendergast novels, was also cut from the film, though unlike Pendergast his character traits weren't given to anyone.
• The Resident Evil Film Series omits S.T.A.R.S entirely with their role of infiltrating a death trap monster filled-mansion being given to the Umbrella Commando team. Leon and Claire are missing from the Raccoon City incident (though they show up in later films) and Rebecca Chambers absent completely despite the rest of the main characters from the games showing up. Though granted, these films have never once cared particularly hard for the characters other than Creator's Pet Alice.
• Resident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon City loosely adapts RE1 and RE2 but leaves out multiple characters and enemies. Most notably both Barry Burton and Rebecca Chambers are omitted despite being among the surviving S.T.A.R.S members in the games. On the monsters side, the Tyrant aka Mr. X despite being a big part of RE2 is completely absent. Ada Wong seems like a case of this at first but she actually appears in The Stinger (though her pivotal role in Leon’s story is still missing).
• Aoshi, the Oniwabanshuu, and the Hiruma brothers are all omitted from the first live-action Rurouni Kenshin film due to pacing issues. Aoshi's role as Kanryu's bodyguard and Gohei Hiruma's role as the impostor Battousai are both given to Jin-e. The second film featured Aoshi and the Oniwabanshuu alongside the Juppongatana.
• The School for Good and Evil (2022):
  • August Sader, and his History class for that matter.
  • The Beast of the Doom Room (the role is filled by Lady Lesso instead).
  • Castor and Pollux, the talking two-headed dog and the Schoolmaster's main mouthpiece, is cut as the Schoolmaster is less of a recluse.
  • Professor Dovey teaches the animal communication class instead of Princess Uma.
• The character of Lisa Miller is absent from the film adaptation of Scott Pilgrim, although she does appear in the animated short. Also, Wallace's boyfriend Mobile never appears in the film. While he doesn't affect the plot much directly, he does spark a fairly important subplot where Wallace decides to move in with him, leaving Scott without a place to live until he takes the plunge and moves in with Ramona. The closest the film comes to this is Wallace telling Scott to move out for no particular reason, and then never bringing it up again.
• The Secret Garden: The character of Mrs. Susan Sowerby, who has a small but influential role in the novel, is absent from the 1993 film.
• The Sicilian was written as an interquel to The Godfather and features Michael Corleone and Peter Clemenza in major roles. All references to The Godfather were written out of the film due to copyright reasons (namely The Sicilian being produced by Fox, while The Godfather was produced by Paramount).
• Seven Days in May: The film doesn't include a former mistress of Scott (Eleanor is only her friend rather than Scott's ex-lover herself in the book), Casey's wife, several lower-ranking generals and admirals working with Scott, Lyman's loyal vice-president (who Scott tricks into leaving the country before the planned coup), and Scott's replacement as the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs (a admiral who disagrees with Lyman but respects him and was never approached by the conspiracy) from the novel.
• The character of Mort (one of Basin City's few honest cops) was written out of the cinema version of Sin City. In the comics, Mort is the ome who picks Hartigan up outside the prison. In the movie, this was done by Bob. (The extended version still includes a scene where Mort visits Hartigan in hospital.) He does appear in the sequel, though.
• In the original Spawn comics, Al Simmons was killed by Chapel, a character from Rob Liefeld's Youngblood (Image Comics) series. Rights issues made it impossible for Chapel to appear in the movie, so the character Jessica Priest was created as a replacement.
• Spider-Man: With Peter Parker's high-school years compressed into the first third of Spider-Man, you could argue that most of the villains Spider-Man fought in his early years were adapted out of Sam Raimi's trilogy, for instance Electro, Mysterio, the Vulture, Kraven, and the Kingpin. Also a number of supporting characters, e.g. Mary Jane takes over Liz Allan's role at Midtown High, while her Aunt Anna is replaced by her parents. Joe Robertson's son Randy (who went to college with Peter) and Bugle staffers Frederick Foswell and Ned Leeds also drop by the wayside, and Flash Thompson, who eventually became Peter's friend in the comics, drops from sight after Peter's high-school graduation in the films.
• Rita Blakemoor from The Stand, who was merged into a Composite Character with Nadine. Elements of Nadine's character (particularly the presence of Joe) were also merged with the Lucy character. Fran's mother is dead in the beginning of the TV adaptation. And Dayna is also a Composite Character with another minor character.
• Nurse Christine Chapel, one of the main characters from Star Trek: The Original Series (and one of only two female leads), is The Ghost in Star Trek (2009) (McCoy does name-check her but she is not actually seen on-screen), presumably so Uhura can benefit more from The Smurfette Principle. Chapel's absence is handwaved in Star Trek Into Darkness, confirming that at least she still exists and is alive in-universe.
• The 1994 Street Fighter movie includes just about every single character from Super Street Fighter II, with one major exception. Cammy, T. Hawk and Dee Jay all appear, but the fourth New Challenger, Fei Long, does not, and is instead replaced with a Canon Foreigner / Suspiciously Similar Substitute named Captain Sawada. Several reasons for Fei Long's absence were given, among them being the creators considering him "too generic," worries he'd seem too redundant given the inclusion of Ryu and Ken, and the possibility of having to pay royalties to the estate of Bruce Lee.
• Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li is more liberal when it comes to this, as poster boys Ryu and Ken are omitted from the film despite making up the core trio alongside Chun-Li. Ryu is mentioned by name but only right at the end. Similarly Cammy despite being other the poster girl of the franchise is also missing in the film. Other characters such as Guile, Zangief and Blanka are omitted as well likely to fit the grounded tone.
• Princess Peach of Super Mario Bros. fame is missing from Super Mario Bros. (1993). Instead it's Princess Daisy, who is set up as Luigi's love interest instead of Mario's.
• There was a fourth son in The Swiss Family Robinson book. He got dropped from the Disney movie.
• The 1925 silent film Tartuffe drops most of the characters from the original play, retaining only Orgon, Elmire, Dorine, and Tartuffe himself.
• Tekken (2010) is a very loose adaptation of Jin Kazama's origin story from Tekken 3, but leaves out some key characters:
  • In the game, Jin's entire reason for entering the tournament was to destroy Ogre, the creature that “killed” his mother Jun. Ogre is nowhere to be seen in the film, and Jun is instead killed by Kazuya's Jackhammer forces.
  • Jin's friend Xiaoyu and his rival Hwoarang are also removed. Xiaoyu's absence is especially notable since she's the closest thing Jin has to a love interest in the games, while the movie randomly pairs him up with Christie, a character he has zero connection to in the source material.
• In Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (2014), Hamato Yoshi is nowhere to be seen, with Splinter a mutated rat (not Yoshi himself) who learned ninjutsu from reading books on it.
• In part due to the Compressed Adaptation nature and Alternate Timeline plot of Terminator Genisys, many characters from from the first two movies are omitted, including Sarah's roommate Ginger Venture, Lt. Traxler and Sgt. Vukovich, and John Connor's foster parents Janelle and Todd Voight. Given both the Alternate Timeline plot, and the original Terminator and T-1000's Deaths by Adaptation, they're probably alongside Kyle Reese, the heroic T-800, and Miles Dyson in Spared by the Adaptation.
• Due to the novel having many character, Terrence Malick's The Thin Red Line fails to feature several major characters, including Queen the Texan.
• The 2018 Tomb Raider film omits the entire supporting cast of the 2013 Tomb Raider game, most notably Samantha "Sam" Nishimura, who played a major role in its plot.
• Despite being one of the main five who go down to London at the end of Trainspotting for the drug deal, Second Prize is absent in the film, though some of his character traits are given to Spud. Other important book characters such as Matty, Davie, Lesley, Kelly and Mark's brothers are also absent.
• Out of the original five patients from Ring for Catty, the only one not to have any counterpart in Twice Round the Daffodils is Bill Jones, a labourer.
• Twilight ended up cutting several of the human characters and Pair the Spares by having two characters who had their love interests taken out with each other.
• Twilight Zone: The Movie:
  • In "It's a Good Life", Anthony mentions that his real mother and father hated him and wanted to "send [him] away to someplace bad." Ethel tells Helen Foley that he did something terrible to them but she does not go into details. In the short story "It's a Good Life" by Jerome Bixby, Anthony's parents are major characters.
  • A variation in "Nightmare at 20,000 Feet". John Valentine is traveling alone, like his counterpart Arthur Wilson in the short story by Richard Matheson. However, Bob Wilson, the protagonist of the original episode, was traveling with his wife Julia.
• In Vampire Academy, this is the fate of several minor characters from the first novel:
  • Jeremy, a human housemate of Rose and Lissa, is adapted out. So is the scene where Lissa uses compulsion to convince him to hand over his car keys.
  • Teacher Stan Alto is also missing, along with the scene where he publicly grills Rose for details on her guardian methods.
  • Xander Badica is missing, along with the scene where he asks to taste the blood of Rose.
  • The dhampirs Anthony and Mile are missing, along with the scene where they try to force Rose to sleep with them.
  • The most important character missing is probably Eddie Castile, Mason Ashford's best friend. He only appears as a party boy in the original novel. He would receive more meaningful roles from Frostbite onwards, becoming one of the most important supporting characters.
• Given that the original books are edging on doorstoppers, it's understandable that several characters would be missing from the film adaptations of The Vampire Chronicles. Not only minor characters got ignored, though:
  • Interview with the Vampire axes Louis' younger brother Paul, whose death was the catalyst for Louis' suicidal depression in the beginning of the book, replacing him with a brief mention of a dead wife and child who didn't exist in the books. An entire subplot regarding a woman named Babette who Louis secretly advises in running her family was also dropped.
  • Queen of the Damned is much more liberal with the axe. Louis and Nicolas are both entirely absent, despite being Lestat's love interests and, especially in Nicolas' case, integral to the plot. (It was his violin Lestat played to wake Akasha.) Daniel is also dropped, leaving Armand Demoted to Extra as his plotline revolved mostly around Daniel. Mekare is also missing, apparently having become a Composite Character with her sister Maharet, and Khayman is nowhere to be seen (aside from a brief cameo, where he's played by Bruce Spence), as much of the backstory was dropped to focus on the modern plot. The Talamasca agent Aaron Lightner has also been removed from the film, with his role as Jessie's mentor being taken over by the Composite Character David Talbot. Lestat's maker Magnus is also absent, being replaced by Marius, who is also a Composite Character.
• Venom (2018) set itself the impressive challenge of adapting Venom without any reference to Spider-Man, the single character most central to Venom's comic backstory, ultimately having the symbiote brought to Earth by Corrupt Corporate Executive Carlton Drake and making Eddie's fall from grace at least mostly his own fault.
• Warcraft (2016), film adaptation of Warcraft, drops a thing or two:
  • One of the most important plot devices in the Warcraft universe, the Blood of Mannoroth, is nowhere to be seen, and Gul'dan empowers the orcs with fel magic directly instead. While this is plausible for a few orcs (as Durotan and his Frostwolves, Thrall, and Orgrim didn't drink the Blood but still eventually developed green skin), it seems inefficient for the masses of them in the movie. Likewise, neither Kil'jaeden or Ner'zhul appear in the film.
  • On a similar note, Drek'Thar, the Frostwolf Clan's shaman, has been replaced by Orgrim Doomhammer (and fellow Frostwolf in this film) as Durotan's right hand Orc and closest advisor.
  • Aegwynn and the Council of Tirisfal do not show up in the film. Instead, Medivh was raised and trained by the Kirin Tor to become the Guardian, with Khadgar being trained to become his successor.
  • While Medivh did turn into a demon in the end, the concept of the Burning Legion is left almost completely untouched. In the non-movie continuity, Gul'dan's master was Kil'jaeden and Sargeras had possessed Medivh as part of the Legion's effort to destroy Azeroth. In the movie, it's basically implied that there was just some single unexplained demon who was the Man Behind the Man. Gul'dan is mentioned as having spoken to a demon to get the idea for invading Azeroth, but he's never named. Fans will recognize Eredar^note Sargeras is not an Eredar, though Kil'jaeden is facial features appearing on Medivh when he starts turning into a demon.
  • Gul'Dan seems to be the only Warlock in the Horde, and his Shadow Council is never mentioned. In the main universe every clan had at least one Warlock (each formerly a Shaman), and the Shadow Council controlled the Horde jointly with Gul'Dan (although he was still their leader.)
• Watchmen:
  • The giant squid monster is removed, yet the backstory about its creation still seems to exist - only this time to make Dr. Manhattan reactors\bombs.
  • Bernard and Bernie, the newspaper seller and the kid who hangs around his stand, don't appear except during the big explosion which wipes them out, making you wonder who they are. Though they are put back in the Limited Special Collector's Ultimate Edition, the rest of the cast of their B-plot still either don't show up much, or are cut out entirely (as with Joey and Aline, the feuding lesbian couple).
  • Dr. Long, Rorschach's prison psychiatrist, has his role cut down significantly due to time purposes. Thus, his wife and her subplot of leaving him were dropped. Rorschach's land-lady and her kids also went missing.
  • Ozymandias originally had three Vietnamese servants, who would later die from him drugging their wine.
  • In the comic there is a flashback where a little-seen costumed vigilante named Captain Metropolis calls together a meeting to form a group called Crimebusters. In the film, this role is given to Ozymandias, and the group's name is Watchmen. As a side note, the comic carefully avoided ever using that particular name about any group.
• The TV movie adaptation of The Westing Game lacks Theo Theodorakis, Flora Baumbach, Dr. Denton Deere, and Madame Hoo.
• In What's the Worst That Could Happen?, everything related to the Dortmunder series (although it was light on continuity to begin with) was removed.
• The Witches of Eastwick dropped the characters of Jenny Gabriel and her brother, Chris. The former draws the wrath of the Witches when she marries Van Horne, and is cursed with terminal cancer for it, while the latter attempts to avenge her death in the book's sequel, The Widows of Eastwick. Their parents, Felicia and Clyde, are still in the film, where they are renamed the Aldens.
• In War Dogs, David and Efraim's vocal opposition to The War on Terror comes from the third player Alex Podrizki.
• Warm Bodies: Colonel Rosso does not appear at all in the movie. Neither does R's zombie wife and "adopted kids".
• Wee Sing: King Cole's Party is based on the songbook and album Wee Sing Nursery Rhymes and Lullabies, where the main little boy character who gives King Cole his own blanket as a gift is Georgie Porgie. But King Cole's Party omits both the character and his rhyme, and Jack of "Jack and Jill" fame becomes the blanket-giver.
• West Side Story (2021):
  • The overture is not performed at the beginning of the film, while it had in the 1961 version.
  • While they don't appear in person, both the original film and stage version establish that Bernardo and María's parents live with them, and their voices are even heard calling to María from inside the apartment during the "Tonight" scene. Here, it's explicitly stated that Bernardo, Anita, and María live together on their own, and their parents are implied to be dead.
  • Tony's mother is also adapted out, as he's shown living in Valentina's shop's basement.
  • Riff's uncle is not mentioned, and it's hinted he has no living relatives.
• Whale Music: Several characters from the book (including all the real-life celebrities) are completely absent from the film; most notably, Desmond's parents, his psychiatrist Dr. Tockette, the Indian guru Babboo Nass Fazoo, and recording engineer Fred Head.
• What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?: The novel states that the two girls went to live with their aunt after their parents died of influenza, and that was how Blanche got into films. The movie just cuts from 1917 to 1935 when Blanche is already a film star, with no mention of an aunt.
• What's Eating Gilbert Grape: There are two other Grape children: eldest brother Larry (who is mentioned only once in the film as being the one who "got away") and second-oldest sister Janice, who isn't mentioned at all.
• What's Love Got to Do with It (1993): Raymond Hill, who was Craig Turner's biological father, is not portrayed in the film. In fact, Craig is depicted as Ike and Tina's first of two sons together. In real life they only had one child together, Ronnie, who was given an Age Lift in the film to make him several years younger than his brothers. Tina's relationship with Hill was likely cut out in the interest of time.
• What Maisie Knew: Mrs. Wix is entirely omitted in the film adaptation.
• What's the Worst That Could Happen?: Everything related to the Dortmunder series (although it was light on continuity to begin with) was removed.
• When a Stranger Calls: The original film's second and third acts' Time Skip, which happened after the incident when Jill was terrorized while babysitting, is completely removed in the remake.
• In Where Eagles Dare, Inverted — whereas the book has just one loyal commando who dies early on (Harrod), the film has two (Harrod and MacPherson).
• In Whip It, Bliss's life in Bodeen is a much smaller percentage of the film's running time; an understandable reduction considering the visual appeal of roller derby vs. the prosaic nature of Bliss's hometown.
• White Oleander: Astrid and Ingrid's upstairs neighbor, an agoraphobic alcoholic named Michael. The Turlock and Ramos foster homes and associated characters like the prostitute Olivia Johnstone and the social worker Joan Peeler.
• Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory: Prince Pondicherry and his palace made entirely of chocolate aren't mentioned at all, likely because it would have been too hard to dramatize that Flashback convincingly with 1970s tech.
• Im Winter's Bone, the flashback scene where this is shown but the characters still act in a way that implies it. It is also never specifically stated in the film that Blond Milton is Sonny's father, though dialogue later in the movie alludes to it.
• In Woody Woodpecker, none of the other Woody Woodpecker characters are present due to the film being a Human-Focused Adaptation.
• X-Men Film Series:
  • X2: X-Men United is loosely based on the graphic novel God Loves, Man Kills. In the book, Stryker's second-in-command is a mercenary named Anne. The movie omits her in favor of making Lady Deathstrike his number one henchwoman.
  • While they added a lot of characters in X-Men: Days of Future Past (in the original story's future, only Magneto, Storm, Colossus, Kitty Pryde, and Wolverine survived while Beast and Magneto's younger self were not involved in the story), at the same time a lot of characters were removed:
    • Rachel Summers and Franklin Richards are not present in the bad future, since Rachel's parents were killed before conceiving her and Franklin is tied to the Fantastic Four and thus would require too much explanation. Giving Rachel's powers to Future Kitty as some sort of secondary mutation was the least problematic solution.
    • In the comic storyline, the present-day X-Men fight against the new Brotherhood of Evil Mutants: Mystique, Destiny, The Blob, Pyro, and Avalanche. In the movie, Mystique works alone. The only justified absence is Pyro, who in the movies is a classmate of Kitty's and thus wouldn't have been born yet in the 1970s. Destiny's absence from the entire series is probably the most glaring, as she was Mystique's lover in the comics. Instead, Mystique's major love interest in the movies is Beast.
    • The movie also introduces Quicksilver, but his twin sister Scarlet Witch is absent - which is particularly noticeable given an entirely different Marvel continuity made sure to feature both (at most the Rogue Cut adds a line where Peter is told to "Go upstairs and bug your sister").
  • In the comics, Jean Grey has an older sister named Sara. Sara is absent from both X-Men: The Last Stand and Dark Phoenix, despite the heavy focus on Jean's childhood and backstory. Also omitted from both films is Jean's childhood friend Annie, whose death is what actually triggered Jean's powers in the first place (though she does get mentioned in the novelization of The Last Stand).
  • Additionally, while both The Last Stand and Dark Phoenix are adaptations of The Dark Phoenix Saga, neither film includes Mastermind or the Hellfire Club, who played key roles in corrupting Jean in the original story. Instead, The Last Stand has Magneto be the one who manipulates Jean and encourages her descent into evil, while Dark Phoenix has Vuk, a member of the D'Bari race, play the same role.
  • Logan's half-brother Dog and childhood friend Rose were omitted from his back story in X-Men Origins: Wolverine, and their roles in the plot were given to Sabretooth.
  • In the comic books, Magneto had an infant daughter named Anya, whose death was a major contributing factor to his fall from grace. But in X-Men: First Class, both Anya and her mother, Magda, are omitted from this movie, which instead presents a missile attack from the U.S. government as the final reason Magneto turns to villainy.
    • And then Anya (renamed to Nina) and Magda appear in X-Men: Apocalypse as the final reason Magneto returns to villainy.
  • In the comics, Professor Xavier was crippled by an alien named Lucifer. In this movie, he's accidentally crippled by Magneto. This is adapted from the Ultimate continuity, where Magneto was responsible for crippling Xavier.
  • In Deadpool (2016), to make the movie more self-contained (and leave some room for any future films on the Weapon X project), Deadpool's power is from his own innate mutation rather than from Wolverine.
    • In the comics, Vanessa is a mutant shapeshifter with mimicry abilities codenamed Copycat. Here, she's just a regular human. (On the production features of the DVD, director Tim Miller says this was left open for future development.)
    • Bob, Agent of HYDRA, gets a cameo in the film, but rather than being an agent of HYDRA (for obvious copyright reasons), he's just a mercenary Wade knew prior to becoming Deadpool.
  • In Deadpool 2, while we do see Cable's family, his son Tyler is not present.
• Yves Saint Laurent:
  • Although she was a great friend of Yves and one of his muses, Catherine Deneuve does not appear in the film, either as a character or in a cameo.
  • Although he mentions being a dog lover, none of Yves's many beloved dogs appear in the film.
• Zola: Two notable instances from the original thread that were left out include a moment where the pimp forced Jessica (the real life counterpart of Stefani) to have sex with him while her boyfriend watched, and the conclusion to the saga where Jessica, the pimp, and his fiancé were arrested for the events that transpired.

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