Will fans Crowe over ‘Master and Commander’?

Peter Weir’s adaptation of the late Patrick O’Brian ’s novel “Master and Commander” won’t come out in theaters until Nov. 14. But the O’Brian Web sites are already full of O’Brian fans wondering whether the movie will live up to the book’s quality.

They have reason to be concerned. In the Oct. 13 New York Times, Russell Crowe , the Australian actor who plays O’Brian’s protagonist Jack Aubrey, said, “The way I figure it, Patrick O’Brian is dead, and although the books will still be here, there won’t be any new ones; but O’Brian’s world and the characters he created can live on in films. However, why should a filmmaker shoot the exact same stories you can get in the books, these are fictional characters, and after all, we are making a movie.”

At least one Web commentator took all of this in stride: “Suppose ‘they’ do a terrible job — as with ‘King Solomon’s Mines,’ for example, or an infinite number of other appalling adaptations. Well, what’s the worst that can happen? The movie doesn’t do very well. Those who HAVE read the book go away disappointed — but not in the book itself; they know who to blame.”