Why Adapt? Middle Earth to Oz
Why would anyone want to adapt a story? Is it a laziness inherent in the system to trust proven properties, a reluctance to trust something new, or love for a particular work that leads to the translation of that work into another media or voice? Could be all of the above, to be honest.
What makes something an adaptation rather than, say, reading a joke on the internet and then telling that joke in your own words? The easiest, most current example is material from JRR Tolkien. The Hobbit, Lord of the Rings, and various other properties and ideas have been adapted from their original written works to various success. A guy wrote a book set in a world, and someone else took that book and their own liberties and made themselves movies, television series, radio plays, theater productions, comics, video games, music, and so much more. Holy shit, there's just a lot. The key here is to take the whole of the concept, the story, and redo the thing in another way. Not just mention it or take a scene here and there as a reference.
But why? We have the pure thing right there in book form, yells the wizard from on high. Another wizard looks at the novelization of his favorite movie and screams that they didn't include the shot with the thing and special effects. Yet another says that their favorite band's best song is being played real slow over a movie trailer but fuck that last guy because that's a "cover" of a song, not an adaptation. The difference is… Oh my god this is getting too long.
One reason someone may adapt a story is pure greed. You can hide it behind whatever altruism floats, but "we want to make it a movie so the brilliant work will be seen by more people" is bullshit. Movies can be challenging, awe inspiring, and many other -ings, but mostly they are a passive way to consume a story quickly, meaning money can roll in. They ask very little than a few hours of your time to sit and stare at a thing. Music or the absence tells you how to feel, the camera rarely lies or hides the message, and the codes and tropes are right there to see.* Since movies began, they have been looking to written works back to antiquity and adapting them for two reasons: they have been honed and focus tested by time. There's a reason Disney has mostly stuck to fairy tales, and it's not because they really love stories about young women finding dates. The stories are already popular and well formed. They just need to be spruced up with visuals.
That being said, sometimes there are good reasons to adapt a work of art. Mostly, because that work of art kinda sucks. Or the more modern author thinks it sucks. In 1900, L Frank Baum published The Wonderful Wizard of Oz featuring the Wicked Witch of the West as the evil antagonist. Thirty-nine years later, a movie came out that made the witch green, big improvement for a color movie. Fifty-six years after that, Gregory Maguire looked at the evil witch and said fuck that shit** and wrote Wicked, a story featuring the green skinned Elphaba and how she was a misunderstood hero. Eight years after that shit came out, Broadway went "hey, money honey honey" and kicked all the ass with a stage musical based on the book that was very pop-you-lar. This summer, one hundred and twenty-four years after the original book, a movie of the theatrical musical based on another movie and the original book will be released. So, yeah, adaptation. Some works just say "what if the main guy was black?" and move on, and others adapt with the times to create new stories and media
What have we learned? Probably that I'm biased against studio executives, but also that adapting works is kinda fascinating. Most of human history was oral tradition and therefore exclusively adaptation. Authorship, as far as humanity is concerned, is really new, but we are still telling the same basic stories. Call it the hero's journey or whatever, the bones of stories are always being dug up and dressed up and put on for a new audience because, well, it's fun. It's safe. And it makes money.
*And before you get all "not all movies," comment below. It helps engagement.
**direct quote from anonymous source that will not even tell us who they are