Which is the most faithful adaptation?
I mean I was skimming over the wikipedia summaries for the various versions of this novel and yeah all of them seem to be very different from the novel.
shareProbably the 1998 TV miniseries adaptation with Gérard Depardieu. The Count of Monte Cristo is a very long novel, originally published in serial format over the course of more than a year. It has intricate subplots, and an enormous array of characters. You can't expect any feature length film version to adapt all that very faithfully. There's just too much that has to be cut out to fit a roughly two-hour time constraint.
That said, I think the 2002 film version is my favorite of the movie versions I've ever seen.
Yeah I know, in order to make a truly faithful adaptation it would have to be 3x 3 hour movies and I doubt any studio is going to take that kind of a risk. I mean the first half of the 2002 version was relatively faithful but it all falls apart after he discovers the treasure. I've read the entire 1300+ page novel and yeah it is very lengthy and detailed.
shareI wouldn't say "falls apart." It simply has to tell an enormously simplified version of the revenge plot in order to exist under the time constraints this medium imposes on it. Given that reality, I think they did a pretty solid job. You have to accept this for what it is, and what it isn't. Had this been a TV miniseries -- or if an outfit like Netflix or Amazon Prime were ever to make a series version, possibly stretched over two or three 10-12 episode seasons -- then they could do something much closer to the book.
shareWord on the stree is that an eight-episode mini-series is on the way.
https://collider.com/count-of-monte-cristo-miniseries-cast-sam-claflin/