The Success Of Michael Crichtons Novels In The Media Industry :: essays research papers

The Success of Michael Crichtons Novels in the Media IndustryOne only has to look at the astonishing opening weekend of ParamountPictures accomplishment adventure thriller Congo which was universally panned bycritics, to be reminded of the power of the person who created the underlyingmaterial Jurassic Park author Michael Crichton. The films whopping $24.6million opening, which shock insiders, underscored the value to Hollywood ofan exclusive club of best-selling writers (Eller 3).Michael Chrichtons novels all have their similarities. He seems tofollow a pattern which is working very well for him. He picks a hot-buttonsubject and uses it to lend his novels a glossy veneer of topicality. He castshis novels with some really detestable villains so attentive readers willautomatically experience who to root for. He ends each chapter on a scary, cliff-hanging note to make sure that readers will keep reading, regardless of thecharacters vapidity. He includes many aroused chase scenes or race-against-the-clock scenes that will translate graphically onto the screen. He puts plenty oftechnical, pseudo-specialist talk into his characters mouths to give readersthe illusion that theyre learning something as they quickly squeeze the pages(Kakutui 3).Michael Crichton has definitely made a boom in the entertainmentindustry. Whether it is his top grossing movies or his top rated televisionshows like E.R. which took a leading twenty prime-time Emmy nominations conkyear including best drama (Carter 23).Crichtons latest movie Congo, which had a great opening weekend, wasone of his successes. This movie was based on a book that Crichton wrote in theearly 80s, long before he became the entertainment powerhouse that he is now.Chrichtons novels seem to be written for big screen translations (Brom 14).Publishers say that they cant recall a time since Jaws and The Exorcist, twodecades ago, when movies gave such a boost to the books that inspired them(Romney 5). Michael Chrichton i ndefinitely tops this long list of authors.Crichtons novels cover many subjects such as transmittable engineering inJurassic Park, sexual harassment in Disclosure, or Japans threat to America inRising Sun (Denby 12). I think that it is this wide variety of subject matterthat keeps his readers coming back for more.Crichtons biggest success by far was the novel Jurassic Park. Thisbook made a sales script in both the novel and on the screen (Turan 11). Itended up grossing over $913 million total in ticket sales and holds theprivilege of universe the top selling live action movie ever on home video (WallStreet Journal B5). It was such a success that its director, Steven Spielberg,