10 Movies Where The Director Hated The Source Material

3. A Clockwork Orange

Anyone familiar with the production of The Shining will be well aware of how little Stanley Kubrick cares about sticking to the source material.

And though Kubrick never outwardly trashed Stephen King's novel, when it came to his controversial film A Clockwork Orange, he was decidedly more eager to highlight one major aspect of Anthony Burgess' 1962 novel he wasn't much keen on.

Though Kubrick's film is spiritually faithful to most of the novel, the filmmaker actually didn't read the full, original print of Burgess' book until he was almost done writing the script.

Kubrick reportedly harboured an intense dislike for the original version's "blandly optimistic" ending, in which protagonist Alex DeLarge (Malcolm McDowell) is genuinely redeemed, opting instead for a more cynical and nihilistic ending in which Alex's sociopathy remains.

Kubrick studied an American reprint of the novel while preparing the movie, which similarly omits the sunnier epilogue, and upon reading the original version while putting the finishing touches on his script, commented that he never once considered using Burgess' "true" ending.

And Kubrick was absolutely right: the original ending is unrealistic and nowhere near as thought-provoking.