Selling Their Souls: Authors Writing Movies

Many writers have had their own books turned into films – they may have written the screenplay or they may not have. Neither apply here. These are writers who perhaps (but not necessarily – i.e. Chandler and Faulkner) have written somewhat unexpected, out of character, okay usually pretty bad, original screenplays for films not based on any book they’ve written.

Martin Amis: Saturn 3
Samuel Beckett: Film
Ray Bradbury: Moby Dick
Charles Bukowski: Barfly
Truman Capote: Beat the Devil
Raymond Chandler: Double Indemnity
Douglas Coupland: Everything’s Gone Green
Roald Dahl: You Only Live Twice
Ian McEwan: The Ploughman's Lunch
John Fante: Walk on the Wild Side
William Faulkner: The Big Sleep
Patrick Lee-Fermour: Roots of Heaven
F. Scott Fitzgerald: Three Comrades
Stephen Fry: Bright Young Things
Don DeLillo: Game 6
Norman Mailer: Maidstone
Dorothy Parker: A Star is Born
Tom Stoppard: Shakespeare in Love
John Steinbeck: Viva Zapata!
HG Wells: Things to Come