Why Watching These Movies Without Reading the Book is a Big Mistake

Are you one of those people who insist on reading the book before watching the movie adaptation? If so, you would probably like to know how long it will take you to read the book before committing.

Well, writing experts at ProWritingAid have conducted a new study that has calculated this for you. After taking major book-to-movie adaptations from IMDb’s list, the books each movie is based on were found, along with the page numbers. The number of hours or days it would take to read each page was calculated by inputting these page numbers into a reading time calculator.

Where the Crawdads Sing

•  by Delia Owens – 13 hours 20 minutes 

‘Where the Crawdads Sing’ is the newest movie adaptation of all the books in our study and was released in July 2022.

If you want to get started on this book, it will take you over 13 hours to finish.

The movie stars Daisy Edgar-Jones as a woman who raised herself in the marshes of the deep south and is later accused of murdering a man she was once involved with.

White Bird: A Wonder Story

•  by R.J. Palacio – 7 hours 35 minutes

With 224 pages, this book would take approximately seven and a half hours to read when reading at an average speed of half a page per minute.

The film adaptation of the bestselling book is a World War II story about a young Jewish girl who a young boy saves, whom she and her friends used to shun.

White Bird: A Wonder Story is actually the sequel/prequel to R.J Palacio’s Wonder, which was also a major movie adaptation starring Owen Wilson and Julia Roberts.

Wonder deals with similar themes of prejudice and friendship as a young boy with a facial deformity is bullied; that bully plays an important role in ‘White Bird.’

If you’d like to take on both books to allow for more context, they will take a combined 17 hours and 55 minutes to complete. The movie, released on October 2022, stars Helen Mirren and Gillian Anderson.

Matilda

• by Roald Dahl – 8 hours 32 minutes

Now here’s one for the kids. The classic Roald Dahl book will take the average reader eight and a half hours to read through Matilda’s magical and imaginative world.

While this book has already been adapted into a successful movie and Tony award-winning musical, it will be fascinating to see how a series breaks up the story and how new actors portray each role.

This children’s favorite hit Netflix in December 2022 with stars like Emma Thompson as Mrs. Trunchbull, the evil headmistress.

Spaceman of Bohemia

•  by Jaroslav Kalfar – 9 hours 36 minutes

With 288 pages, this sci-fi novel will take approximately nine and a half hours to read. The film adaptation, with the title shortened to ‘Spaceman,’ will star Adam Sandler, who plays the main character Jakub, an orphan from the Czech Republic who embarks on a solo mission to Venus.

Integrity: Good People, Bad Choices, and Life Lessons From the White House

• by Matthew Krogh – 10 hours 8 minutes

Reading all 304 pages at a rate of half a page per minute, you can finish this book in just over ten hours. The TV mini-series adaptation, with the title, changed to ‘The Whitehouse Plumbers,’ will follow the true story of how Nixon’s own political saboteurs and Watergate masterminds, E. Howard Hunt, and G. Gordon Liddy, accidentally toppled the presidency they were trying to protect.

The Whitehouse Plumbers is released on HBO this year and will star Woody Harrelson, Lena Heady, and Justin Theroux.

My Policeman

•  by Bethan Roberts – 10 hours 8 minutes

The LGBTQ+ movie adaptation follows the story of a secretly gay police officer called Tom who must hide his sexuality as homosexuality was illegal in 1950s Britain. The highly anticipated movie with star Harry Styles is available for streaming on Amazon Prime.

If you’d like to read the book first, it will take you just over ten hours to do so.

 Little Nemo in Slumberland

• by Winsor McCay – 10 hours 36 minutes

Now we come to a slightly different adaptation as Little Nemo began as a comic strip in 1905. You can get a hold of a book full of colorful comic strips from Barnes and Noble, and it will take you approximately ten and a half hours to get through.

Jason Momoa stars in the comedy film adaptation, ‘Slumberland,’ which follows a young girl named Nemo through her fantastically whimsical dreams.

A Man Called Ove

• by Fredrik Backman – 11 hours 14 minutes

The 337-page book will take you just over eleven hours to read if you read at an average speed of half a page per minute. The book is about a grumpy yet loveable older man who surprisingly befriends his boisterous new neighbor.

The movie adaptation, renamed ‘A Man Called Otto, ’ stars Tom Hanks as Otto.

Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI

• by David Grann – 13 hours 20 minutes

The joint longest book in the study has 400 pages and will take you just under 13 and a half hours to read. As the title suggests, the book is about the inception of the FBI after mysterious murders occur in the 1920s. Martin Scorsese is directing the movie, starring Leonardo DiCaprio and Robert De Niro.