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"Queen" director Michael Rymer tells Cinescape.com that the film, which includes the final screen performance of the late Aaliyah, actually uses material from both novels.
"The two books have about a third in common anyway, they cover the same story parts. We've had to do a lot of compressing," he told Cinescape.
"Sort of the story about how Lestat becomes a vampire is much more elaborate, and the story of Jesse and her aunt and the aunt's relationship with Akasha is very much diminished (in the film)," Rymer told Cinescape.
Reports had suggested the film received negative reactions when it was test-screened, but the director says the harshest criticism came from hardcore fans with a very strict interpretation of Rice's original material.
"People who know the books backward have a real problem with the film because they have a problem with everything. They have a problem with the fact that Lestat doesn't have blond hair, that Akasha's black, all the things that I've done as a filmmaker that I thought were good for the film," he told Cinescape.
Rymer said some of the criticism of the first "Harry Potter" film has centred on director Chris Columbus's strict adherence to author J.K. Rowling's text, without enough cinematic interpretation, and that's an error he consciously tried to avoid.
"The book is the book. It's a beautiful thing and exists in your imagination. You don't want to see it blow-by-blow in a movie because that destroys the book. The movie ought to be its own thing." (More on Aaliyah)