Inspiration for creating (blockbuster) movies can be found in books. There are hundreds of books which have been turned into movies. Some successful, others not so successful. There's no real formula to determine if a movie is gonna be successful or not. Having the right producer(s), director, a large budget, and a star cast doesn't guarantee a good movie (with lots of money)..... but it might help.
The reason for starting this blogpost is that I'm a big fan of the Clive Cussler books. I started reading them after I saw the movie Sahara. I like these kind of movies. Action-packed, funny, intrigue, etc. After I saw the movie, I made the reference to the Indiana Jones movies. I thought there was room creating an Indiana Jones alike series (adventure, myths, etc) of Dirk Pitt movies, but I turned out to be wrong. Completely wrong.
It seemed that the books author, Clive Cussler, didn't agree with what the movie turned out to be. That's not a real shocker, because it's terribly hard to make a good movie from a book. There are things that can't be translated to the white screen (characters thoughts etc.), and in the case of the Cussler books, you can't create a movie with all those story lines, twists and plots. You (the screenwriters) need to make certain choices. These choices are mainly subjective, so there's always someone disagreeing. In this case the author of the book.
In the mean time I started the audio version (unabridged) of the Sahara book. It's a great 'read' during the commuting hours to and from work. I must agree with Clive that the movie isn't like the book. But is that a bad thing? I don't think so. There are more examples in which the book and the movie differ completely (e.g. the last two Jason Bourne movies).
Matthew McConaughey played a convincing Dirk Pitt (and his hair was as black as Clive wanted...). Even the casting of Steve Zahn as Dirk's sidekick Al Giordino was on the spot. I even would have gone to the theater to see a sequel, and I would probably have bought the DVD/BR disk (as I did with Sahara). But knowing that Clive sued the studio etc. for 'raping' his book, I don't think that I'll be going to the cinema to see his movies. In the mean time I'll keep on listening / reading his Dirk Pitt novels.