Popular TV shows and the books they were based on: House of Cards
This post is part two of our series on books transformed into TV shows - check out part one, Game of Thrones, here.
It's common knowledge that many of today's biggest television series were inspired by or based on books. Some came from bestsellers, others from lesser known titles. In a lot of cases, it has been the TV successes that have pushed the stories into popular culture, but this shouldn't take anything away from the books!
Today's post focuses on...
House of Cards
The writer of the original House of Cards book was Michael Dobbs, a British politician working for the Conservative party at various points of the 1980s and 1990s . He wrote House of Cards after an argument with Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, and then wrote a further two books to create a trilogy - House of Cards, followed by Play King and then Final Cut.
These political thrillers became a three part BBC television series in 1990, playing out against the backdrop of the final weeks of Margaret Thatcher’s downfall and the succession of fellow Tory John Major to the seat of prime minister.
Then in February 2013 an American adaptation launched as a series on Netflix, with the 4th season having been released at the start of this March.
The American version came about after an intern at Media Rights Capital, an independent studio, recommended the series to the studio's co-founder, who optioned the rights to House of Cards, eventually leading to the Netflix deal.
The story has changed a lot through two TV adaptations, but in them Michael Dobbs still sees the "the spirit of the story [...] - a dark tale of greed, corruption and unquenchable ambition."
Some of the main differences he sees between the American TV series and the book are:
South Carolina Kid versus Scottish Aristocrat, Washington versus Westminster, Ruthless Journalism versus Conscientious Journalism, Robin Wright versus... no Robin Wright, Big Business versus the Power of the Press, and 1980s versus 2010s.
To delve deeper into what these mean, author Michael Dobbs takes you through them here.
And look out for tomorrow's article on... Orange is the New Black!
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This post was written by Holly Newson
Picture credit: Photo Giddy - Flickr
