Movie adaptations of Michael Crichton's Novels

The Andromeda Strain.
This is where it all started. The novel (1969) was the first one he wrote under his own name and was an instant success. It was made into a film in 1971, which also became a great success. In 2008 a remake was released by Ridley and Tony Scott as a 4-episode mini-series.

  

Adaptations of early novels written under pseudonym.
Encouraged by the success of The Andromeda strain, in 1972 Michael Crichton saw three of the novels he had written earlier under pseudonym made into movies. He directed one of them, "Pursuit", adapted from his novel Binary.

 

The Terminal Man and The First Great Train Robbery.
The 70s saw two more Michael Crichton novels adapted into movies. Michael Crichton wrote the screenplay for and directed The First Great Train Robbery himself.

   

The Jurassic Phenomenon.

Jurassic Park is undoubtedly what made Michael Crichton most famous. It triggered a mass phenomenon of interest in all things dinosaurs, and a whole franchise of two film trilogies between 1993 and 2022, and an 8-minute YouTube short film set between the last two installments..

Rising Sun, Disclosure, Congo.

Following the success of Jurassic Park, three more novels by Michael Crichton were adapted to films in the following years.

  

Sphere, The 13th Warrior and Timeline.

The final three novels that were adapted into movies between 1998 and 2003.

  

The rights for other Michael Crichton novels have been acquired by various producers, including Micro, Dragon Teeth and the upcoming Eruption, but no plans have been announced yet about the films being made.

Movies directed

Probably encouraged by the success of the movie adaptations of some of his novels Michael Crichton had a go at directing in the 70s and 80s, beginning with Pursuit (1972), adaptation of his own novel Binary (written as John Lange, and credited as such). Then followed Westworld (1973), the adaptation of Robin Cook's novel Coma (1978), The First Great Train Robbery (1978), Looker (1981) and Runaway (1984). He stopped directing after Physical Evidence (1989) did not harness much success, and concentrated in his successful fiction writing career.

  

In 1999, however, he sat again in the director's chair for some uncredited reshoots for The 13th Warrior, the adaptation of his novel Eaters of the Dead, after the studios broke up with the director John McTiernan due to "irreconcilable differences". 

Movie Screenplays

Once in the filmmaking mindset, and having written teleplays before, Michael Crichton also went for writing screenplays, beginning with Extreme Close-up (1973), also known as Sex Through a Window, and one of his most famous screenplays, Westworld (1973). In 1978 two further screenplays were made into films by himself, with Coma, based on Robin Cook's novel, and The First Great Train Robbery, which is the only one which he wrote, directed and was based on one of his own novels. Later he again directed himself his own screenplays for Looker (1981) and Runaway (1984). 

     

In 1974, Michael Crichton wrote a screenplay that would become the script for the pilot episode of ER in 1994.

Michael Crichton is also listed as co-writer of the screenplay of the adaptations of his novels Jurassic Park and Rising Sun, both released in 1993.

In 1996 he co-wrote the screenplay for Twister with his then wife Anne-Marie Martin, whom he had met on the set of Runaway. 

Anne-Marie Martin, on the set of Runaway

Screenplays that never got made into a movie

GENES (1989)
Among the rarities in my collection I have the privilege, thanks to Marla Warren, to know of Michael Crichton's take on the Frankenstein archetype in his screenplay "Genes" that was never made into a movie. He wrote it in 1989.

MORTON'S RUN (1969)

Some 20 years earlier he was reported to be writing another screenplay called "Morton's Run", which was not made into a movie either. As far as we can tell no manuscript has been found for this one. The film trade newspaper Boxoffice reprted on May 12, 1969 that a John Lange screenplay with that title had been sold to Universal, also revealing that Michael Crichton was behind that pseudonym. 

The Daytona Beach Morning Journal reported about it on July 6, 1969, on page 18, directly mentioning the author as Michael Crichton: