Ben Affleck finds making films on books tricky

Actor-filmmaker Ben Affleck says giving visual translation to any book is a challenging task.

He says it is difficult to figure out how to take in order to have a reasonable running time for a movie while preserving what's great about the book.

The actor expressed his views while talking about his forthcoming film "Live By Night" -- based on the award-winning best-seller by Dennis Lehane.

"Well, the biggest challenge was trying to figure out how to take out as much as we had to take out in order to have a reasonable running time for a movie while preserving what's great about the book. That's tricky," Affleck said in a statement.

He added: "There's a kind of long division that you have to do in terms of breaking down a book that's hundreds of pages long and shaping it into a 120-page screenplay. You don't want a movie that's small or diminish the story in any way. So, there were a lot of those tough moments where I had to discard a scene that I really loved just because we just didn't have the space for it. There's definitely signature stuff from the book that's not in the film simply because we couldn't fit it in."

Along with starring in "Live By Night", Affleck has written, directed and produced the gangster film. "Live by Night" - backed by Warner Bros - is slated to release in India on January 13.

--IANS

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