Proving, once again, that I really do need to start sharing links from my "rainy day" folder more regularly that I have been doing... Here's a link to an article from about this time last year (!!!!) called When Adaptations Go Wrong: 15 Book-to-Movie Flops

https://startefact.com/news/when-adaptations-go-wrong-15-book-to-movie-flops_a117

It's hard to make a case for most of these flops, although I really enjoyed the Gold Compass movie myself. And I really enjoyed the entry that pops up at #13 on the list -- no prizes for guessing what that one might be!!!

The compilers noted, of Cirque Du Freak, that it possessed "An intriguing foundation crumbled by a lack of focus and jumbled subplots." This is a pretty good summation, in my opinion, of why it didn't work for a lot of people. (Though there are quite a few, like me, who do appreciate it.) The books are VERY focused, building carefully, one block at a time, whereas the film rushed things along and threw in too many elements, including from later books. Sometimes you CAN have too much of a good thing.