What is the validity of this statement? I mean, really.
Think of how many books have been adapted to the big screen. For the contemporary among us, consider the new Harry Potter movie. Most people can read that book in a day, if they're left alone to do it (I know I read it in about 6 hours). It's just a rough guestimate, but I'd say that book has close to 80,000 words in it- maybe 100K. A motion picture, however, has literally thousands of frames (24 frames per second). If the saying "a picture is worth a thousand words" is true, then motion pictures should be significantly less exciting than books.
And yet...
J.K. Rowling's first Harry Potter movie opened in the U.S. with record-breaking screen counts (over 8,000 screens) and lasts roughly 2 hours.
If a picture truly is worth a thousand words, I wonder where the rest of that book went....
Note: While I read all of the Harry Potter books, I don't consider myself a rabid fan. I was merely using it as an example. I could have just as easily picked Hamlet or The Tommyknockers or any other movie adapted from a book.