Malamud's ending is dark and pertinent to his message. The movie betrays all this for a feel good ending that will spur good word-of-mouth vibes and thus a hit. Selling out is one of the book's themes and the movie does just that for the sake of box-office profits.
shareGo get some B12 (try a burger: nutritious and delicious).
Often movies will deviate from the book for a variety of reasons. The studio may like most of the book, but think it could make a better film if changes are made when the screenplay is written. Since movie studios are not in the business of entertaining you, but investing money to make money, it should be their call. Clearly this movie was a success.
Just once, I'd like someone to call me sir without adding 'you're making a scene' ~H Simpson
[deleted]
The ending to Field of Dreams is better than the one in Shoeless Joe. I read the book after seeing the movie dozens of times. The movie cuts out some characters who are essential to the book's ending, but the movie ending can make men cry. The book ending was disappointing in that respect.
shareFunny, in "selling out", the Natural creates one of my all-time favorite moments in cinematic history. Nearly thirty years after it first came out, and after countless viewings, Hobbs' walk off still sends chills down my spine.
share[deleted]
The Godfather is a good example of a movie that was better than the book. The book's ending was over several pages of Tom explaining to Kay why Michael had to do what he did. The movie cut out a lot of the singer's story and had a different ending, a real killer that said a lot with no dialogue.
But, endings in the book and movie version of The Natural are completely different. Besides selling out, it may have just looked better on film.
"Two more swords and I'll be Queen of the Monkey People." Roseanne
Oh well. Watch something else then.
shareI had a class in college - Baseball in Literature - and, of course, we read baseball books. Some that I remember (1) Creamer's biography on Ruth (2) Eight Men Out (3) Bang the Drum Slowly (4) The Natural
3 of the 4 were eventually movies (except Creamer's Babe: The Legend Comes to Life). As far as books, Eight Men Out is one of the best I've ever read, regardless of genre. Bang Drum was great. Babe was good. The Natural sucked! I thought as a movie The Natural was decent, but I was shocked to find the book boring. I was completely uninterested. Had no sympathy for the character. So, Hollywood changed the book. They had to! Otherwise, word of mouth would have kept everyone away!
The main problem with your presumption here is that movies are NOT books.
More importantly, American moviegoers are not the same creature as book readers.
Theater audiences prefer happy endings, and almost universally rate bad or sad endings as something they would rather not see.
With a book that doesn't take that much in infrastructure costs to write and produce, this is acceptable. To movies which take many millions of dollars, it's a different business, with different necessities and different rules.
————
CUCUMBER WATER FOR CUSTOMER ONLY!
It worked lol. You can end it all dark and brooding when you put up the money.