Adapting Bestsellers
Fantasy, Franchise and the Afterlife of Storyworlds

Focuses on adaptations of bestselling works of popular fiction to cinema, television, stage, radio, video games and other media platforms.

Ken Gelder (Author)

9781108731089, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 2 January 2020

75 pages
12.5 x 18 x 0.5 cm, 0.1 kg

'… Ken Gelder presents an illuminating and diverse journey through the franchises of three fantasy bestsellers, prompting an interesting, specific, and plausible argument to emerge.' Marcus Berian Nicholls, Adaptation

This Element looks at adaptations of bestselling works of popular fiction to cinema, television, stage, radio, video games and other media platforms. It focuses on 'transmedia storytelling', building its case studies around the genre of modern fantasy: because the elaborate storyworlds produced by writers like J. R. R. Tolkien, J. K. Rowling and George R. R. Martin have readily lent themselves to adaptations across various media platforms. This has also made it possible for media entertainment corporations to invest in them over the long term, enabling the development of franchises through which their storyworlds are presented and marketed in new ways to new audiences.

1. Introduction: adaptation, franchise and modern fantasy
2. The afterlife of modern fantasy
3. Adapting J. R. R. Tolkien
4. J. K. Rowling and the Potterverse
5. George R. R. Martin and HBO's Game of Thrones.

Subject Areas: Fantasy [FM], Fiction & related items [F], Literary reference works [DSR], Literary studies: general [DSB], Literary theory [DSA], Literature: history & criticism [DS], Literature & literary studies [D]