So, apparently this movie Precious is out right now. It’s based on the book Push by Sapphire, and since it has gotten the Queen Oprah seal of approval, it was spared the fate of being labeled “the best indie movie you haven’t seen.” I know I should want to see this movie and the million people I know who have seen it/will see it will tell me, “Oh you must! It was so moving and powerful,” but basically I’d rather read the book.
Which brings me to my topic of the day: movie tie-in covers. I don’t know about you, but movie tie-in covers actually put me off from buying the books. I’ve been denying myself Charlaine Harris’ Sookie Stackhouse novels because it seems the original paperback cover of Dead After Dark only exists in True Blood form now. It’s been over a year that I’ve been searching for the REAL cover, so I think I might just have to swallow my pride on this one. (Especially since there’s that boxed set out now that STILL, unfortunately, includes the True Blood cover…. arrrrgh!)
But I digress.
Other books-to-films coming soon to theaters near you are New Moon and The Road, both books of which have tie-ins (obviously). I can’t imagine a disheveled Viggo intriguing more people to buy The Road, but, as much as I hate to admit it, I can see the value in putting the public faces of Edward and Bella on the covers of the Twilight series. The non-tie-in covers seemed to do just fine without them, but now that Robert Pattinson has reached Beatlemania status among tweens with disposable income, why not sell a few more copies of books they already own? Still, I don’t remember seeing Daniel Radcliffe’s face on a certain YA fantasy series, and I think those books did OK.
What are your thoughts on tie-ins? Does anyone even care about them as much as I do? To me, they seem impure, or as another example of how people don’t actually read anymore and that they need Hollywood in order to get noticed.
I will admit to this though: I found a very old copy of Rosemary’s Baby at a flea market a couple years ago and it had the little “Now a Major Motion Picture” stamp on it and I thought it was cool. Does that make me a hypocrite? Maybe I can stand Hollywood’s infiltration as long as no actors grace my books with their presence… and about forty years have passed.
Sarah LaPolla 
I guess we all do in some way. Those tie-ins may have great personalities, but some of us like nice hair and a cute smile to go with them.
I'd also like to make a correction to the above posts. For some reason I kept calling “Dead Until Dark” by the wrong name. Apologies.
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i personally hate TIE-IN's, to the point that i've put down books i wanted to read because they said “now a major motion picture”. i guess that means i judge books by the cover, but i feel that the cover is an important aesthetic to a book.
also, Robert Patterson is very dreamy.
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