Novel Massacre Coming Soon to Theaters Near You

Remember the years when all the close movie theaters closed and all the movies sucked? When the plots weren’t interesting, the lines not funny, and the 3D just in-your-face? Well, that was just the calm before the storm, the dry sands in face of a tsunami.

The box office has been feeling the same loss over the past decade as they are selling 210 million less tickets than the last boom in 2002, a 35% loss, according to Box Office Mojo. Now it plans to use the ultimate key to teenagers’ hearts: movie adaptations of young adult books.

We’ve all seen the success of the “Harry Potter” movies that collectively pulled in a gross of $2.39 billion. That and the recent successes of the “Hunger Games,” “the Hobbit,” and the current “City of Bones” make the recent wave of book movies seem profitable and acceptable.

Don’t be fooled. A movie strips away all writing quality and subtly, baring a book’s plot to the whole world. Some books just can’t stand up to such scrutiny if the plots were iffy in the first place—like  a girl never realizing she is a plant until a flower grows out of her back (I’m looking at you, “Wings”). Others just don’t have enough action or dialogue to make a movie; the tear jerker “If I Stay” will be reduced to a girl hanging out in a hospital and “Maze Runner” will be subjected to uncharacteristic “emotion time” to clue in the audience.

Few novels will be spared as over 40 are scheduled to release in the next few years, leaving shattered book spines and splattered ink in the producers’ wake.

The wave is coming, people.

So make sure to buy your tickets in advance to get a good seat.

Keep an eye out for: “Book Thief” (Nov. 15), “Why We broke Up” (2014), “Vampire Academy” (2014), “Divergent” (2014), and “The Scorpio Races” (2015).

Even more that are in development: “Wings,” “Maximum Ride,” “Wicked Lovely,” “Shiver,” “Fallen,” “Before I Fall,” “The Raven Boys,” “Heist Society,” “Dash and Lily’s Book of Dares,” “Daughter of Smoke and Bone,” “Firelight,” “Graceling,” “Hush Hush,” “If I Stay,” “Incarceron,” “Clockwork Angel,” “Looking Glass Wars,” “Matched,” ‘Paranormalcy,” “Uglies,” and “13 Reasons Why.”