One of the best movies I saw this year so far was "Project Hail Mary," an adaptation of the book by Andy Weir. What made the movie good was one thing: faithfulness to the source material. Weir wrote a very interesting book about a dying sun and an unwilling science teacher who is the last hope for humanity. Sprinkle in one of the best alien sidekicks in the history of sci-fi, and it was a recipe for success.
Adapting books to film takes skill. Sometimes, it's done well, as in "Project Hail Mary" or "The Lord of the Rings" or "Harry Potter." Other times, it's not. One of my favorite books is Billie Letts' "Where the Heart Is." But its film adaptation, starring Natalie Portman and Ashley Judd, is awful. It takes the heart of a beautiful story and waters it down to Hollywood rom-com slop.
But even that is not as offensive as what Hollywood has been doing to some other beloved IPs as of late. This includes "The Rings of Power," which will feature these characters in Season Three:
According to screenrant this is a image from Lord of the rings: rings of power season 3.
— Emerald Apple (@AI_EmeraldApple) August 24, 2026
My god... What is this abomination?
Evil cannot create beauty and only destroys, sewing destruction and creating some of the most disgusting things ever seen. pic.twitter.com/NvPM3CGDTK
What is that?
Then there's Star Wars, of course. The epic space drama was reduced to the "gayest" thing ever with things like The Acolyte, and the girl-bossing of Rey throughout the last part of the trilogy. Star Wars had a massive expanded universe, written out, chronicling the adventures of Han, Luke, and Leia after "Return of the Jedi." All of that got thrown out in favor of ... whatever the heck "Rise of Skywalker" was.
All fans ask for is this: be faithful to the source material.
But for Damon Lindelof, executive producer of "Lanterns," the latest DC offering, the source material isn't important, apparently.
#Lanterns EP Damon Lindelof says risk-taking is essential to adaptations. "I don't think anybody wants to see you be completely and totally vigilant to the source material." https://t.co/bPHzDA92xO
— The Hollywood Reporter (@THR) August 22, 2026
If anyone understands fan backlash and demands for adaptational fidelity, it’s Lanterns‘ Emmy-winning co-creator Damon Lindelof. He’s worked across a wide range of existing IP, including Watchmen, Star Trek, Star Wars, Alien, World War Z and The Leftovers. He also co-created Lost, a series that is bound to be revisited or reinterpreted by someone else down the road. Having lived on both sides of the equation, he has heard every possible reaction to his work, from effusive praise to deep-seated contempt.
“We all just have to acknowledge that there’s a level of hubris involved in taking on any of this preexisting IP. But it is called adaptation. Source material is supposed to change and evolve [by definition],” Lindelof tells The Hollywood Reporter. “As a consumer and as someone who’s making this stuff, there’s almost a responsibility to take risks. I don’t think anybody wants to see you be completely and totally vigilant to the source material because then it isn’t an adaptation at all. Shouldn’t we be beyond this conversation by now?”
We do, actually. We don't want you to "take risks." We don't want you to retcon our beloved heroes and stories to appeal to "modern audiences" — which often means, to paraphrase South Park, putting a chick in it and making her lame and gay. Those stories lasted as long as they did because people liked them. We related to the heroes, we understood their struggles, and the stories resonated with us.
But I get it. In a Hollywood where no one is really a villain, not even Cruella DeVille. The monster who literally wanted to turn puppies into purses had a tragic backstory. If there are no villains, there cannot be any heroes, either. And Hollywood is now populated by people who have no idea what the world is like outside their little leftist bubbles. They can't write good characters or good stories because they have a myopic view of the world. And that already limited perspective is further narrowed by their need to put politics into everything.
That's what Lindelof means by "taking risks." He means angering the fan base by injecting contemporary politics into IPs to draw in the "modern audiences" that simply don't exist. A few weeks ago, I wrote about how Hollywood won't fork over $10 million to Andy Wachowski, director of "The Matrix," for his all-trans film, a film Wachowski himself admits was written from his pent-up rage. About six people would go see that movie, which is why Hollywood won't burn that cash.
The audiences just aren't there, even if Hollywood pretends they are. So they create a product that actual fans don't want for fans that don't exist, and call that "taking risks."
Then they blame the audiences for the movie flopping.
I think what audiences want most is originality. There's a reason why "Obsession," the horror flick made for $750,000, is now one of the most profitable films of all time. It's made $501.6 million worldwide. Those small, low-budget movies require talent to direct, stage, and produce. They require strong acting performances. That's what audiences crave. But for many of the reasons I mentioned above, Hollywood doesn't do much of that anymore.
So if we can't get originality, all we ask for is faithfulness. "Game of Thrones" was one of the best shows on television, and that was because it drew directly and faithfully from the books. It all went off the rails after the books ended, and that's not a coincidence. But until then, it was stellar, and no one was telling the showrunners to take risks with Westeros.
It's not that hard.
