AEE: Can Movies Make You More Excited to Read?

This is the All Ears English Podcast. Can movies make you more excited to read? Welcome to the All Ears English Podcast, downloaded more than 200 million times. Are you feeling stuck with your English?

We'll show you how to become fearless and fluent by focusing on connection, not perfection with your American hosts, Aubrey Carter, the IELTS whiz, and Lindsay McMahon, the English adventurer. coming to you from Arizona and Colorado, USA. And to get your transcripts delivered by email every week, go to allearsenglish.com forward slash subscribe.

Movies that get made into books or vice versa are a common conversation topic at a party or when you're socializing. Listen in today to learn how to give your opinion in English when a book becomes a movie.

Sometimes English learners think their problem is vocabulary, but often the issue is something deeper. It's hesitation. You pause to translate. You pause to check grammar.

You pause to search for the perfect word. Those small pauses add up and interrupt the natural flow of conversation. You can respond with ease without constantly analyzing every sentence. Our free two-minute fluency quiz will show you your current level and what skills you need to improve.

Go to allearsenglish.com slash fluency score. That's allearsenglish.com slash f-l-u-e-n-c-y-s-c-o-r-e. Hello, Lindsay. How are you today? Hey, Aubrey.

I am just fresh off going to the movies. I went to see The Odyssey two weekends ago. I took a little bit of a Friday afternoon off and went to the movies. Definitely a good one to see in theaters.

Hopefully a lot of you out there listening were able to experience it either in IMAX or just... I didn't do the IMAX. I just did a regular but like theater screen. Yes.

And it's such movies like that that are big and loud and impressive are fun to see in the theater. Yeah. Yes, very fun to see. And today we're talking about one particular movie.

But one quick question before we get into what movie we're going into today. Has a film ever made you want to actually read the book? Have you ever watched a movie and then felt, oh, I need to read the book now? Yes.

Usually it's the opposite, right? Often we read the book first and then want to see the film if there is one. But this happened to me with Project Hail Mary. I hadn't read the book yet.

And The Martian, both by the same author. I hadn't read the books, saw the film first, and then had heard it was a book. I'm like, okay, I have to read the book. Yes, for sure.

What about you? Yeah, it's happened a few times, I guess. But it's interesting. I think sometimes reading books is magical because you get to create the image in your head.

So I do think it's better to start with reading the book and then seeing the movie. Read the book first. Absolutely. Yes. Otherwise, you just have what you saw in the film in your mind and you're not able to be as creative, right?

Exactly. Exactly. So what are we talking about in today's episode? Yeah. So I saw this article in The Guardian about the film that you saw. We both saw The Odyssey.

And a lot of you probably saw it a couple of months ago. But what's fascinating is this article was titled, Nolan's film could make The Odyssey the most sought after book in the US.

And it was fascinating. It shared some details about how the film boosted book sales by several thousand percent. That's impressive numbers. And I loved this.

A lot of us had to read it in high school or college. Did you, Lindsay, did you read that book? Yeah, of course. I think in high school. So yeah. Yeah.

And I have a feeling listeners out there, a lot of you saying you may have read the Odyssey when you were younger. But I'm so curious. I think this is interesting how a lot of people buying this book probably read it when they were younger and then wanted to read it again after watching the film. Or maybe they hadn't read it.

And this was the first time they were like, oh, I want to read this book. Or maybe they read the book again a second time before going to the movie too. That could also be what happened. But I think a lot of people did read it in high school and they felt they needed a refresher.

Because I know for me, it had been a long time. And the story was very fuzzy in my head by the time I sat down in the movie theater. Yes, same. There were things in the movie that I'm like, did this happen in the book?

I think I need to read the book again. Yes, for sure. For sure. So yeah, this is interesting. We're going to dive into this a little bit because this is such a great conversation topic.

What a fun thing to connect about. Books you have read that made you want to see the movie or vice versa. Films you watch that make you want to read the book. I've had a few conversations about people, about this with people since watching the Odyssey.

And we want to give you the conversation starters, the questions you could ask to have this very fun conversation in English. I love that. But before we go into all this in today's episode, guys, hit the follow button now. The reason we want to ask you to hit follow is because this will get our show right into your listening queue on nearly a daily basis, right?

It's five days a week. So if you want to drop right into the listening queue, be right there. It will remind you to listen when we publish a new episode. Go ahead and hit that follow button.

All right? Yes. Love this. So this is going to be fun. We're some other films that greatly boosted book sales. But for some details about the Odyssey, if you haven't seen the film, we're curious if you liked it.

Definitely come back, check out the Spotify poll today. We want to know if you liked this film. It was pretty popular worldwide, right? And I've heard some mixed reviews, though.

I personally was telling Lindsay some of the things that I really didn't like. I really hated that they had American accents. I don't understand if this is ancient Greece. Why do we have an American accent?

There's a moment when Tom Holland says, Dad! I'm like, what? It's a fair point. It's a fair point. And it's interesting because a lot of TV shows and films that are about ancient civilizations, they'll usually use kind of this general British accent, maybe.

And they're sort of trying to make it like... they're trying to remove a certain place from it, like Game of Thrones or something like that, right? But it would never be American. So this felt strange to me.

This is not common, right? It's not often that they'll give, especially where a couple of the actors were British, Tom Holland and Robert Pattinson were both faking an American accent. So why not have Matt Damon and Anne Hathaway fake a British accent? I'm curious how they chose that.

I would like to hear from the producer and Christopher Nolan to understand why that choice was made. Let's have Christopher Nolan on the podcast to tell us why he made that decision. Let's do it. Let's do it.

Oh my gosh. So what are some other films that boosted book sales historically? Let's dive into this. So we found a fun list of films that greatly boosted book sales because this happens a lot, but sometimes there's...

It's really big numbers. So Harry Potter, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, which came out in 2001, book sales more than tripled following the premiere of the movie. And this is interesting because at that time, most everybody who was going to read Harry Potter had read Harry Potter, I felt like. And so this is interesting that book sales would still increase by that much.

That is really interesting. So it's the movie effects. Yeah. Wow. Or The Martian, which I missed this one. Back in 2015, it's a sci-fi film. And it propelled a lot of sales, like propelled by Andy Ware's self-published turn bestseller.

So he's the author. And this was interesting because he was self-published. The Martian, he published on Amazon. And then it was picked up as this film with Matt Damon.

If you haven't seen The Martian Lins, you've got to see it. It's fantastic. I highly recommend this film. And then he after that, he wrote the new one.

Why can't I think of it? I talk about it all the time. Also, you know, with Ryan Gosling. Anyway. Okay. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. And you maybe still haven't seen it with Rocky.

It's funny that I can't think of it. Listeners at home are like, really, Aubrey? Project Hail Mary. I came up with it. He wrote both of these, both excellent books, excellent films.

But yeah, the sales boosted after, and this is fascinating. This is rare that a book that self-published would become such a bestseller and be such a popular film as well.

Interesting. And then Fifty Shades of Grey also came out back in 2015. This was kind of a super popular phenomenon in our culture, right? Yes. And the sales for the novel surged by 738%.

in the week leading up to the film's debut. I was actually listening to a podcast about the book Gone Girl. And they were, I guess they both came out at about the same time, Gone Girl and Fifty Shades of Grey. And the people on this podcast, it was fascinating.

They were talking about how that really changed literature in a lot of ways. Like there are some things in those two books that weren't as popular before those books. And then there was this like rush of like so many books available that sort of changed some genres. Yeah.

Do you mean like in the story that happened? So in the movie and the book? Yes. And it's tricky. I kind of don't want to say because anything I could say would really spoil Gone Girl if anyone out there hasn't read it or seen the film.

Yeah, it's one of those things where if you share what was so surprising and different in that book, then you read it and it's spoiled. Okay, got it. Then we won't share it. We'll just let our listeners go ahead and read the book.

Suffice it to say that there were some groundbreaking things in these books, especially Gone Girl, but they were related, that now is a little more common in a book. You can see it coming a little more. Okay, good to know. And then The Hunger Games 2012, huge hit, right?

But also people read the book before and after. Yeah, exactly. Right. So this film also really boosted sales for the books. And a lot of us had read the books before the films came out.

But I could see these films were really entertaining. So this doesn't surprise me that a lot of people would watch it and be like, oh, I need to read this book. Yeah, for sure. And then of course, good old Forrest Gump, 1994.

Is that when that came out? Oh my gosh. Yes. Crazy. It's crazy to think about that. Feels like yesterday. Have you read the book, Forrest Gump? Have you read the book?

I haven't. Have you? No, I haven't. I haven't actually. You don't need to. No, I love the movie. It's one of my favorites. But guys, just listen to our conversation here.

This is very common that you ask, you know, someone's like, have you seen the movie? Oh, no, but I read the book, right? Very common topic of conversation between native speakers. Yeah.

Okay, definitely. Absolutely. Have you ever listened to native speakers and thought, I understand the words, but I still feel slightly lost. That's because real English conversations include more than vocabulary.

There's speed, there's connected speech, there are cultural references and casual phrases. Your brain has to process all of this in real time. If conversations sometimes feel overwhelming, it may simply mean you're ready for the next level of training. Find out your exact level with our quick, free fluency quiz.

Go to allearsenglish.com slash fluency score. That's allearsenglish.com slash F-L-U-E-N-C-Y-S-C-O-R-E. All right, Aubrey. So what are some opening questions to start a conversation then?

Yes, this is such a fun conversation, but how do you start that conversation, right? So some great questions you could ask. The one we asked at the top of the episode, has a film ever made you want to read the book? And a lot of people will have an answer, right?

Or that might take them a second to think of something. But for all of the questions we're going to share, I think it's important to have your own answer because there is a chance that someone will be like, no, or like, huh, I would have to think about that. What about you? And then if you also are like, no, I don't know either.

Yeah, it's kind of weird. Have an idea. Right. Usually when you ask a question, you will have like, you'll want to talk about this topic. So you'll have a pretty firm opinion.

Make sure you do guys. Right. And then the second one, have you ever seen a film based on a book where they changed the story in a way you didn't like, or just maybe just wait where they changed the story. And then you could say, what did you think about that?

Yeah, definitely. Because maybe you did like, maybe you thought it was an improvement or maybe you thought it, but this is an interesting conversation. And I feel like everyone has really strong opinions about this. They've read a book and then it was developed into a film or a TV show and something about it they really hated.

So this makes for interesting conversations. What's the third question, Aubrey? Third, you could say, what is a book you've read that you'd like to see made into a movie? And I feel like everyone's going to have an interesting answer to this, right?

We've all read these amazing books that we're shocked haven't yet been picked up and made into a film. Absolutely. Really good. So guys, yeah, I mean, don't shy away from these kinds of conversations.

People like to read. People love to watch movies. Get into it. We're going to show you an example here in our role play. Here we are friends just chatting at a party.

Very common topic for a party that might come up. Absolutely. All right. Yeah. Start us out. Have you ever seen a film based on a book where they changed the story somehow?

Yeah. Yeah, The Giver. The movie added a lot of action scenes that weren't really the focus of the book. I felt like they watered down the most important part of the story.

I know exactly what you mean. It seems like filmmakers often try to make everything appeal to a wider audience. Yeah, and in the process, they lose what made the book special in the first place. What about you?

Are there any movies that you felt were especially good depictions of the book that they were based on? Yes, The Martian. I loved both the book and the film. I thought they did a really good job.

The movie definitely lives up to the hype. Okay. That's a bonus phrase for today, though. Lives up to the hype. What is that? What does that mean? Yeah.

So the Odyssey, I think people use this phrase a lot. Like, does it live up to the hype? So the hype is when you're hearing a lot of positive reviews, people saying they loved something. It's getting hyped up.

And then if you watch it and it's not as good as you expected, you'd say it didn't live up to the hype or it doesn't live up to the hype. And if it is just as good as people said it would be, then we say it lives up to the hype. Yeah, you know what movie I thought didn't live up to the hype? This is my opinion.

Devil Wears Prada 2. Did you see it? Yes, just yesterday, actually, with my daughter. And I agree with you. Yeah, it was something about it. For some reason, in that movie, Anne Hathaway's character just annoyed me.

It felt like a big cliche. Yes, absolutely. I don't know. It was overdone. It's like, we've done this and there's nothing new here, right? Yes. We're on the same page, Lindsay.

And I was so excited. So I'm like, oh, I love that there's so many fun things they could do with it. And then it just fell really flat for me. Yeah. But the original, fantastic.

I think I've watched it a hundred times. So you would think you'd be a fan of part two if you love part one, but not necessarily. But no, because it was so unique and new and yeah, it just felt like a redo and a little watered down from the first one personally. And then this could be added as another great question.

What's a movie you think didn't live up to the hype or a book? What's a book you've read that did not live up to the hype or that did? You could ask what's something that did live up to the hype, right? These are both also great conversation starters and people are going to have strong opinions.

yeah what did your daughter think of the movie because had she seen the original did she have that reference point or was she she had seen the original but just once not that long ago but she did like the original okay and she she wasn't as much of a hater as you and i but it also was kind of like this is not anything that exciting or special yeah yeah okay interesting um another phrase that came out of this role play is i felt like they watered down again let's just review that the meaning of that phrase one more time aubrey Yeah, this is good too. So you're talking about The Giver. And this is, I don't even know if you've seen that.

This is just for the role play. You're saying maybe the movie added action scenes that weren't a big part of the book. And then you say, I felt like they watered down the most important part of the story. So this means to make something less important.

Just like if you have a lemonade and you water it down, it's not going to taste as strong and flavorful. That just means adding more water. We use this idiomatically for books and movies and experiences. If it gets watered down, it's not as exciting.

Something about it is not as fun and exciting. Yeah, we could actually do a whole separate episode just on the phrase watered down. I think we could come up with lots of context in which we use it. That would be a great one.

So guys, hit the follow button. Yeah, don't miss that episode coming up soon in the future. Aubrey, where can our listeners go to keep listening? Yes, be sure to check out episode 2703.

If you missed it, just scroll up. It was called A More Interesting Way to Say You're Interested. So go check that out. This is a great way to connect and some fun phrases there.

All right. All right. Sounds good, Aubrey. We'll see you next time. Have a good day. Awesome. Thanks, Lindsay. See you guys next time. Bye. Thanks for listening to All Ears English.

Would you like to know your English level? Take our two minute quiz. Go to allearsenglish.com forward slash fluency score. And if you believe in connection, not perfection, then hit subscribe now to make sure you don't miss anything.

See you next time. So entspannt kann Finanzieren sein. Mit Easy Credit.