What are some cross-media adaptations/tie-ins that you'd recommend?
It could be a novelization of a movie, game, television show, etc. Or any of the other combinations (e.g. a movie based on a game, television show, novel, etc.).
It doesn't solely have to be an adaptation either. Tie-ins are often universe extensions, such as when books are written in a pre-existing movie/show/game universe.
Often, media tie-ins are seen as soulless marketing cash-ins (which is sometimes accurate), but others are legitimately great in their own right.
What are the ones that you like and would recommend? What makes them noteworthy?
Meta note: Feel free to interpret this criteria as broadly as possible. This isn't about splitting hairs about what "counts" as a tie-in, but more about exploring things that have done a good job at jumping between media types. If you've got a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles watch that you love, that counts! Same for that Death Stranding fanfic you can't get enough of.
If you include books --> TV shows, then I would recommend The Expanse. Six seasons of the best sci-fi on tv that I know of. In my opinion, the first season is the one some people bounce off of, but world building takes some time in this show. Overall, a great experience, and I prefer the tv series to the books. The books can be a little clunky at times in comparison.
And another adaptation that I've enjoyed is Silo, Seasons 1 and 2, a tv show on Apple TV+. They are based on Hugh Howey's novels and short stories, including Wool, Shift and Dust. Apparently there is a graphic novel based on his stories as well, though I've not seen it.
It will be a while before we see seasons three and four of Silo. From what I've read they won't be out this year.
I will co-sign both of these!
The Battlestar Galactica Board Game and its three expansions are a fantastic adaptation of the 2003 TV miniseries & follow-up seasons.
As a survival/hidden role game, it's an absolute blast. For many years it was BGG's top-ranked thematic board game, to give you an idea of how well it encapsulated the spirit of the show. Even now, the board game is listed at #118 of BGG's overall rankings (I think it had capped out around #25 closer to its release, but started getting kicked down the list after Gloomhaven showed up on the scene). Overall one I'd strongly recommend if you can get your hands on a copy. Speaking of which, Unfathomable is a remade/rethemed Cthulhu-esque version released in 2021, though I haven't played it myself.
Unfathomable is my wife's favorite board game after years of conventions and dozens of board game nerd friends introducing stuff to us, for what it's worth. I've overplayed it a bit, but the semi-co-op angle of not getting assigned factions until a couple rounds in is fantastic.
The Halo novels were pretty dang good when I was 13/14.
The Chronicles of Riddick: Escape from Butcher Bay was also quite a good video game based on The Chronicles of Riddick movies. I remember that game better than the movies and I liked the movies back then as well.
Second! And all of the Eric Nylund books in particular.
Hunt the Truth was also an excellent audio drama, at least for the first season.
In the manga sphere, Corpse Party: Another Child is a spin-off of the Corpse Party games with an original story and cast that I enjoyed a lot. There are a lot of neat manga spin-offs of video games with original stories, but that's the main one to come to mind since it came up in a recent conversation.
Well, that and the Pokémon Adventures manga. That series explores the darker sides of the world-building in ways the games and anime never touched on. Super fun!
There's also an old manga adaptation of eight Ray Bradbury short stories called R is for Rocket. The art style is very dated and pretty cartoony, so a bit of an acquired taste, but I think it fits the tones of the stories. The adaptations are pretty faithful with some mild changes (biggest one is that Come Into My Cellar introduces a teenage daughter as the protagonist instead of the dad). I'm actually curious how this one came to be, since it never got licensed in English. I assume they got permission, but I can't find any English-language sources that reference its existence outside mentions on profiles for the mangaka, Hagio Moto. So, who knows?
Then there's the short story collection Dark Water by Koji Suzuki, author of The Ring novels. It's an anthology of water-themed horror stories. As the Wikipedia page notes a few of them have been adapted into films or TV shows outside Japan, namely the Dark Water film (an American remake of the original Japanese adaptation), Open Water 2: Adrift, and the Masters of Horror episode Dream Cruise. So if you're a fan of any of those or horror in general, worth reading the collection!
Outside the manga/anime and horror sphere, Indiana Jones has a whole novel series. I've only read the twelfth one, Indiana Jones and the Secret of the Sphinx, way back in seventh grade. Apparently it's the last one so it felt like there was some context I didn't have (something about him looking older...?), but even then it was pretty fun.
Lastly: I haven't read it, but for Star Wars fans, the anthology Tales of the Mos Eisely Cantina can change how you see the cantina scene. Specifically:
Spoilers
My teacher pointed out an alien couple on screen and very cheerfully informed us how the female later killed the male as part of her species' mating process.One of my takeaways from my creature design class is that the Star Wars extended universe is fascinating and wastes a lot of potential with so much of the focus on the Jedi parts. They could have spin-offs in pretty much any genre they want with how fleshed out the universe is.
Hard agree my personal favorite Star Wars novels were not the ones that focused on the Jedi nor the Skywalkers, it is Death Troopers by Joe Schreiber which a zombie outbreak that occurred on a Star Destroyer that spreads to a Imperial prison barge that happened to be in the area, and the Clone Commando series and game, the books follow Omega Squad, while the game follows Delta Squad during the Clone Wars.
This is kind of a media tie-in (a movie within a movie, but directly related to its origins in name only), and maybe I'm crazy, but the Lightyear movie. It got panned by critics. It got shit on for maybe 10 seconds of daring to acknowledge that a lesbian couple existed (the fucking horror!!111oneone). It got shit on for a lot of reasons that kept me from watching it on release. But I've now seen it a dozen or so times thanks to my son, and I kind of love it?
Honestly it never should've had anything to do with Toy Story. And literally all it would've taken is changing the main character's name, military branch, and removing a catchphrase or two. But the film itself is a very fun, kid-friendly animated SciFi movie. It explores TIME DILATION, for crying out loud. IN A KIDS MOVIE!
I think the worst decision was starting the movie by saying that it was the movie Andy saw before Toy Story 1. It is so obviously not. There is no way in hell it was that movie. That statement primed me, and I think many other viewers, for a much different movie, and the actual movie fails miserably. Like you say, if you ignore all associations with Toy Story, it is a much different movie. I really wish Pixar would have just made the movie they wanted to make with original characters instead of trying to shoe horn their existing characters into it.
The Avatar: The Last Airbender and Korra sequel comics are quite good. They nail the shows' tone, pacing, and characters extremely well.
Gungrave is a tight, character-driven crime story anime. It's also an adaptation and prequel of a wildly-stylized, cel-shaded, kinda mindless chuuni PS2 shooter with zombies and helicopter-dudes. The anime forgets this for like 80% of the runtime, and somehow it segues back into anime ridiculousness without losing any of the drive.
Winnie the Pooh's Home Run Derby really captures the gritty hellscape of the Expanded Poohniverse, in interactive baseball form. Abandon hope all ye who enter Christopher Robin's strike zone. /s
You can't mention Avatar and Korra mixed media without mentioning the novels. I've only read the two Kyoshi novels so far, but they were fantastic storylines that expand the world of Avatar, introducing new characters and retaining the same charm as the original shows. I'm very excited to read the Yangchen novels by the same author (F.C. Yee) and the Avatar Roku novel (by Randy Ribay) that was recently released.
Adventure Time from Boom Studios is what got me back into comic books, Ryan North did a fantastic job of getting into the heads of the characters, and can cycle between "lol, random" and profound as easily as any of the show writers.
Not sure this meets the criteria exactly but you said we're not splitting hairs so I'm going for it.. If there are any Bob's Burgers fans out there you may not know they did a crossover episode with Archer (same voice actor for Bob/Archer) which was a lot of fun. Worth a watch!