Adaptation (film)

Adaptation.
Theatrical release poster
Directed by	Spike Jonze
Produced by	Jonathan Demme Vincent Landay Edward Saxon
Screenplay by	Charlie Kaufman Donald Kaufman
Based on	The Orchid Thief by Susan Orlean
Starring	Nicolas Cage Meryl Streep Chris Cooper
Music by	Carter Burwell
Cinematography	Lance Acord
Edited by	Eric Zumbrunnen
Production company	Good Machine Intermedia Propaganda Films
Distributed by	Columbia Pictures
Release date	December 6, 2002 (2002-12-06)
Running time	114 minutes
Country	United States
Language	English
Budget	$19 million
Box office	$32.8 million

Adaptation (stylized as Adaptation.) is a 2002 American comedy-drama metafilm directed by Spike Jonze and written by Charlie Kaufman. The film is based on Susan Orlean's non-fiction book The Orchid Thief, with numerous self-referential events added. The film stars Nicolas Cage as Charlie and Donald Kaufman, and Meryl Streep as Susan Orlean, Chris Cooper as John Laroche, with Cara Seymour, Brian Cox, Tilda Swinton, Ron Livingston, and Maggie Gyllenhaal in supporting roles.

Adaptation had been in development as far back as 1994. Jonathan Demme brought the project to Columbia Pictures with Kaufman writing the script. Kaufman experienced writer's block and did not know what to think of The Orchid Thief. Finally he wrote a script based on his experience of adapting the book into a screenplay. Jonze signed to direct, and filming was finished in June 2001. Though the film is billed as an adaptation of The Orchid Thief, its primary narrative focus is Charlie Kaufman's struggle to adapt The Orchid Thief into a film, while dramatizing the events of the book in parallel. Adaptation also adds a number of fictitious elements, including Kaufman's twin brother (also credited as a writer for the film) and a romance between Orlean and Laroche, and culminates in completely invented events including fictional versions of Orlean and Laroche three years after the events related in The Orchid Thief, Kaufman and his fictional twin brother.