Books adapted to film

Well as many of you know... many books, novels, and graphic novels are being adapted to film these days. But at the same time it is not like it is anything new. Books have been adapted for quite some time. However more so now because many of the books that are being adapted were so imaginative that filming them would have been a tremendous effort. And I'm not saying it was not possible by the late 70's all the way to the 80's to film really creative films. Most of the really great films/classics are from that era. Good examples would be " Bladerunner, Alien, Predator, Terminator, Star Wars "especially Empire", and many more blockbusters" But with the newer technology in special effects etc. it is way easier to achieve films of such caliber like "The Lord of The Rings", "Spider-man","Harry Potter", and more recently/notably "Watchmen", which was considered the un-filmable graphic novel. Even mastermind Terry Gilliam pursued the project in the 80's but backed down. But what are we seeing more of now? Sequels and graphic novel adaptations. The truth is this shift is cause of the ability to film more grander-scaled special effects and people are running out of ideas, or at least Hollywood is. You can usually find really great independent films that are original. That is not to say that the films coming out aren't any good. Some are great but usually inspired by something else...Not always but... You catch the drift. But a good demonstration concerning the special effects would be James Camerons original Terminator and the sequel T2 would show flashes of the wars from the apocolyptic future but now in 2009 we are finally getting to see a sequel in which takes place during the apocolyptic war.