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I don't think so: to my mind, you are comparing apples and oranges.
Try equating "Movie" with "short story" rather than "novel" and they work well. But they have to throw so much background in that can be covered in a couple of pages in a novel that they run out of space for the story... 
Those who fail to learn history are doomed to repeat it. --- George Santayana (December 16, 1863 – September 26, 1952)
Those who fail to clear history are doomed to explain it. --- OriginalGriff (February 24, 1959 – ∞)
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"Book of the movie" or "movie of the book" are not certainly different in my opinion. Two versions/views of the same thing.
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I disagree.
You can take an excellent movie (or even a good one) and produce a "book of the movie" - they nearly always stink! Normally because there isn't enough in the movie to make a novel, but they aren't allowed to invent material by the studio, so you do a "Dan Brown" and pad, pad, pad!
There are exceptions: but you need a good director who will work with a good author to produce a good book, and that's rare (the only example I can think of is James Cameron and Orson Scott Card on The Abyss)
"Movie of the book" goes the other way and throws out too much because the film would be a week long if they didn't! (A recent example is Enders Game: excellent book, hacked to death to fit in a film, and ends up poorer as a result)
Those who fail to learn history are doomed to repeat it. --- George Santayana (December 16, 1863 – September 26, 1952)
Those who fail to clear history are doomed to explain it. --- OriginalGriff (February 24, 1959 – ∞)
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 I agree here, although I did give in in the end and watched Enders Game, and perhaps since I didn't expect much of the movy, was sortof pleasantly surprised.
"Chess, like Love, like Music, has the power to make men happy" (TARRASCH).
Love is like a Game of Chess: One False Move and You're Mated ~ Anonymous~
"A computer programmer is someone who, when told to "Go to Hell", sees the "Go to", rather than the destination, as harmful."
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Nah, the answer is BACON.
PS: probably the answer would have been another thing but this is The Lounge...
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Books, most definitely. You can pack an awful lot of plot in a 500 page novel, and no special effects budget can match what a reader can imagine. The trick of turning a novel into a movie involves taking a hatchet to the story and cutting it down to fit two hours or less.
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and my mind tells the same. This was my point when posting this question. 
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I've read all of the Reacher novels other than the last 2 or 3 as they are not as good. I also made myself watch "Reacher" with Tiny Cruise. Reacher is 6'5" and Cruise is 5'6". However, it wasn't that bad. It wasn't that good. But it wasn't that bad. 
"If you think it's expensive to hire a professional to do the job, wait until you hire an amateur." Red Adair.
Those who seek perfection will only find imperfection
nils illegitimus carborundum
me, me, me
me, in pictures
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mark merrens wrote: I've read all of the Reacher novels other than the last 2 or 3 as they are not as good.
How do you know if you haven't read them? (I only ask as I am in the process of going through them now).
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Good point. I started to read a couple of them and think that they should not have been written: he had already taken the character as far as he should have. The last one I read felt like it was really stretching to tell the story. That's just my feeling: I may well be wrong. I really liked the earlier novels: Reacher is a very likable character.
"If you think it's expensive to hire a professional to do the job, wait until you hire an amateur." Red Adair.
Those who seek perfection will only find imperfection
nils illegitimus carborundum
me, me, me
me, in pictures
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mark merrens wrote: I really liked the earlier novels: Reacher is a very likable character.
I agree, though I'm starting to find the love interest in nearly every story a bit repetitive and obvious. Although at least Child doesn't go into to much detail about the love-making which I can find a bit cringe-worthy in other peoples books.
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After reading the reply I "SHRUGGED", again and again......
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I prefer books to movies, especially when I've read the book before.
I find the movie usually disappointing, there are exceptions to that rule, but these are few.
But I have to admit, sometimes you just want to put your mind in buzz-mode and be entertained.
That's when movies come in handy, don't think just watch.
Oh, and you've picked a great book, I read that 6 months ago. And kept on reading the "Jack Reacher"-series. There were one or two I didn't like that much but I'm currently reading "Bad Luck and Trouble", book 11. So have fun and happy reading.
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No matter what the genre, 95% of the time the book is a far better choice. I was tempted to say 100%, but then remembered a few books that were written after the movie, and those are uniformly disappointing. Not only do movies always omit details in order to meet a run time goal, they skip such critical steps as background development and character depth. Sometimes - all of the Jack Ryan movies except "... Red October" for instance - appear to have been made by people who have never read the book, nor had it read to them. These movies aren't even the same story as the book of the same title.
Will Rogers never met me.
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Good point(s). 
Did you happen to waste any time with the Stephen King / CBS TV series "Under the Dome"? Not even close to the book. Bad enough that important story lines were dropped but they added new ones for no apparent reason. 
BTW - I happen to be in the middle of reading all of Clancy's "Jack Ryan" novels in chronological order. Just started "Debt of Honor".
Government is not reason; it is not eloquent; it is force. Like fire, it is a dangerous servant and a fearful master. ~ George Washington
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Mike Mullikin wrote: I happen to be in the middle of reading all of Clancy's "Jack Ryan" novels in chronological order.
Good move! Every few years I have to do the same; they never get old, even as I do.
I've never understood the attraction of Stephen King, having read one or two of his early works and not being interested by them. I just don't "get" horror stories, I guess. Reading the newspaper is all the fright and psychotic delusions I can process. 
Will Rogers never met me.
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Roger Wright wrote: I've never understood the attraction of Stephen King
I actually like most of King's stuff... its the newspaper that I stay away from.
Government is not reason; it is not eloquent; it is force. Like fire, it is a dangerous servant and a fearful master. ~ George Washington
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Will Rogers never met me.
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In my experience when the movie based on a book the book always better, and that - IMHO - because of the lack of details you can have in a book. However it does not mean no for movies - there are very good movies based on good stories that you never get in books...
I'm not questioning your powers of observation; I'm merely remarking upon the paradox of asking a masked man who he is. (V)
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definately books are more interesting than movies but only when you read the book first and may be watch movie later. what happen with me recently that i have already watched movie "life of PI" and now i am reading the book..but now i do not feel like reading book as i can only imagine actors when i read the book. so i quit reading this book and now will go with some other option.
Ravi Khoda
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When you say book I am assuming you mean fiction type.
I actually feel guilty if I spend hours reading a "story" compared to a book on self-growth or something I could use in life or business, with the amount of books that could do an impact in life plus work plus family, there is no time for fiction. I also enjoy the visual effects like in Lord of The Rings and Thor.
So definitely a movie.
Make it simple, as simple as possible, but not simpler.
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Adam Tibi wrote: I also enjoy the visual effects like in Lord of The Rings and Thor
I bet you have far better visual effects in your imagination than the one that you see in the movie.
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I free my imagination for other fantasies
(code fantasies, if you are wondering!)
Make it simple, as simple as possible, but not simpler.
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Well then fictional books are not for you 
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I'm with you on book being better in all genres (at least those genres I like to watch / read). There are exceptions, but they're rare. I'm also a bit against JRR Tolkien's sagas - LotR is not a "quick" read - you need a vacation to enjoy it at "leisure" otherwise you're going to hate its verbosity. Similar examples exist, but I'd say they are the chicken teeth between the feathers!
One example where it varied between sequels. I liked the Dune movie better than the first set of Dune books they were based on (not the original 1984 version, but the one which came out in 2000's). This was because IMO Frank Herbert had a very rambling writing style, sometimes I found it torture to read through the book. The movie did however amputate much of the story. Some of the later books however were written at a much better pace, and the latest are actually written by his son in conjunction with Kevin J. Anderson (the writer of XFiles) - these I REALLY liked (gobbled them up over a year to the expense of not watching a single movie / TV show the entire year).
The 2nd "set" of movies (Children of Dune) was al-right, but by then I've wrestled through the first books and have found the jewels at the end - which meant the movies were just snippets from the books, and badly thought out imagery as compared to what my brain could render. When I re-watched the Dune movie, I didn't like it as much as before. I could actually see scenes my mind made up from the book which was not in the movie - and to me that had a detrimental effect on the movie.
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