10 Bad Movies Oscar-Winning Directors Went On To Make

Peter Jackson and book adaptations proved a potent combination at the turn of the century with his Oscar-winning rendition of The Lord Of The Rings trilogy, but he was unable to re-capture that same magic with The Lovely Bones, a project that ended up being a plodding, tonal mess.

To be fair to Jackson, the novel upon which the film is based is incredibly complex and expertly crafted, but he didn't even attempt to dilute it, trim it, or otherwise tweak the story to make it more big-screen friendly - he just took the book and filmed it.

After all, there's a reason pretty much every book-to-film adaptation differs from the source material in some way, or cuts significant things out; not everything will work when translated to a full-length feature.

Jackson appears to disregard this notion, the director apparently still stuck in his Lord Of The Rings days where he was given all the leeway in the world in being allowed to craft a trilogy with an eye-wateringly long runtime.

But chucking everything and the kitchen sink at the screen won't work with every novel, and it doesn't work here. The Lovely Bones is two hours and fifteen minutes long when it should have been one hour and fifty, the film ultimately boring rather than inspiring.