When people have said Hollywood has run out of ideas, I’ve always defended them, but a new trend towards buying the rights to self-help books is making me wonder. Everything from baby raising to relationship books have been acquired recently with the eye to turning them into a film. But what’s the point? After all, self-help books don’t have plots and the people behind the movies could have made whatever film they end up with without the expense of buying book rights.
However, if you’re going to buy a self-help book and try to turn it onto a film, at least get one with major brand recognition, and that’s what Summit has done by acquiring John Gray’s series of relationship advice books, Men Are From Mars, Women Are From Venus. The plan is that producers Gail Berman and Lloyd Braun will oversee things for Summit, with the hope of turning Gray’s book into a major television and film franchise.
Erik Feig, Summits President of Production, stated, Men Are From Mars, Women Are From Venus is not just the title of a book, or what we know will become an amazing film and TV franchise it is a pop cultural mainstay and comically, sadly, romantically, all too often still true these many years after first being published. We are thrilled to have the opportunity to work on a franchise whose name everyone knows and whose reality everyone lives!
God knows what they’ll come up with to turn Men Are From Marsinto a movie, although I’m presuming a rom-com. At least with the books to work from, they can try to come up with characters who at least approximate real human beings, which is something most romantic comedies signally lack.