In general, the written word far outstrips movies or television. I love Robert B. Parker's Spenser novels, but when they made it for television as Spenser for Hire, Robert Urish was nothing like I saw Spenser.
There are two cases where very average potboiler-type books were made into very good movies. First was Francis Ford Coppola's movie "The Godfather" in 1972. Mario Puzo's book was very low on the literary scale, while Coppola's film is one of the best American movies of its generation.
Second was Peter Benchley's "Jaws," the big beach read of 1974. A horrible book with subplots about the Mafia and about Matt Hooper having an affair with Chief Brody's wife. Spielberg cut out all the crap and made a very nice movie.
The difficult thing about King's books is that most of them are written almost as if they were teleplays or screenplays. I hated the Kubrick adaptation of "The Shining," mostly because he took a character who was supposed to go crazy slowly and made him nuts overnight. "Shawshank" was wonderful as was "Stand By Me," although Rob Reiner made one big mistake in shifting the scene from Maine to Oregon. (In Oregon, the "How do you know a Frenchman has been in your back yard?" joke makes no sense.)
"It" was a big disappointment, mostly because it should have been at least three nights instead of two. Most of the casting choices were outstanding, although it's getting harder to remember Harry Anderson, Tim Reid, Dennis Christopher and Richard Thomas.
I haven't seen "Desperation," and I will, but it's hard to imagine that book as a TV movie.
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