‘The Adjustment Bureau’ delayed

I'd be more annoyed if this kind of thing were unusual. In fact, this kind of thing happens to *any* story based on a book to a greater or lesser degree.

Someone explained it to me this way:

1) The studio hears a pitch.
2) They like it, and comission a treatment.
3) They like the treatment, so they comission a script.
4) They love the script, so they bring in another writer to re-write it. The original writer *never* gets his script used.
5) They hire the cast.
6) The cast claim to love the script, but they want a few changes made for vanity's sake.
7) The script is re-written, maybe by the 2nd author, maybe by a new one.
8) A director is hired.
9) While claiming to love the material, the director immediately sets about 'putting his own stamp' on the material, which can go from trivial name changes all the way up to hiring a new (Third) writer to completely re-tool the script.
10) In light of this new reality, the stars ask for more re-writes.
11) Production begins.
12) a "Script Doctor" is brought in to 'fix' the script which (allegedly) was flawed from the outset

By the time it's all done, any similarity to the original story is entirely coincidental.

Now, if you're making a movie based on a book, you're substituting the book itself for the pitch, but everything else remains the same.

The best example of how much this process changes the story is that Bert I. Gordon's teen sex comedy adventure "Village of the Giants" claims in the opening credits to be based on HG Wells' "Food of the Gods."