I can hear many people saying "But there are so many things in a book that don't fit in a movie." Don't! Just don't.
I believe the beginning of this fashion was with the 7th book of the Harry Potter series 'Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows'. Yes I am a Potterhead; no I am not saying what I'm about to say because I'm a Potterhead: The only book that deserved to become a two-part movie was The Deathly Hallows.
To begin with the whole reason the final book of the Harry Potter franchise was divided into two parts was that there really was too much important content that was necessary to be involved in the movie and using all this content would cause the film to be way too long.
If you have read the series, despite the other 6 books the final one does not beat around the bush or involve some silent moments or give place to many descriptions. The final book is all about the final big war and the characters literally don't spend much time in one place.
Now here's the deal... Yes the beginning of this fashion was with Harry Potter and I actually believe that it was a very sensible move, the rest that followed was not in aim of giving the story line what it deserved but to make more money out of the franchise.
The first follower of the "why make one movie when we can make 2" idea was of course the infamous Twilight Saga.
Just one thing, I have read all of the books and I have seen all of the films and I even liked the first book. (The first movie is a whole other thing; it was worse than horrible if there are any words to describe it with.) The first part of The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn was released exactly 1 year and 1 day after the first part of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows and right after the Harry Potter movie I can almost see the light bulb shining on the top of the Twilight producers.
The final book of the Twilight Saga was my least favorite and the moment I heard that it was going to be separated into two parts I knew what was coming our way with part 1: Two hours of nonsense -not that the second part was good-.
I went to see it anyway and it was nothing more than what I have expected. How can just nothing and absolutely NOTHING happen in a movie? Thank God that was the final book and we were getting rid of the Twilight hysteria for good. But unfortunately the idea was already out and it was bound to have more followers. At least the next follower was a more appealing representative for my geeky tastes.
On July 30 2012 Peter Jackson announced that The Hobbit book -which was expected in two part- we in fact going to be in three parts. One movie for each of those thick Lord of the Rings books and three movies for the relatively thinner Hobbit? That makes sense! Not only that there are three movies, each movie is almost 3 hours long.
-Is there that much content in the book?
-No.
-What should we do?
-Let's put Legolas and Tauriel and bunch of other characters that are not originally in the book.
Sure thing!
Finally the non-ending fashion was followed by no other than the Hunger Games franchise with their final book and final movie(s) The Hunger Games: Mockingjay -part 1 and 2-. To be honest the first part didn't suck as much as I expected it too. I didn't have much high hopes about it still they managed; maybe with Jennifer Lawrence's charm or Sam Claflin's I don't know. Still I have to say that it could be better off as one movie.
This thing about splitting of course has its pros on the audience side too. If you're a hardcore follower you can hold on to the ending franchise for one more year and get the opportunity to keep spending mindless money on it. However I believe that in conclusion the dividing process decreases the overall quality and on a longer run it damages the franchise itself.
As usual, thank you for reading my humble opinion.
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