I thought the Green Mile took place over a much longer period of time in the book, but I may be wrong..As for the Actors being kept in the dark about the real meaning and characterizations in the
books, let me remind you that the Peter Jackson Publicity department LOVES to use the quote from PJ saying that he and the actors allways read the section of the book that they are about to film...so there goes THAT theory..hehe
I still say that "The Color Purple" came the closest to being the direct screen adaptation of a story I have ever seen in my life...otherwise you need to go back to the early 60's and before and look there. It seems that when Television came along and started stealing viewers, the film industry decided that they needed to start doing things that Television simply could NOT do, so they started putting more Sex in here and more Violence in there...a bit more action and less real plot, until now if you were to propose making "To Kill a Mocking Bird" into a movie today, it would have two steamy sex scenes, at least one grusome and gore filled murder and a kickass car chase. The problem here is that this is "
Sword and Scorcery" Fantasy so far as Hollywood is concerned, and so steamy sex is out...but beefing up the role of half of the Love Interest would be analogous..and a Car Chase isn't possible, but a
Horse Chase can, and IS, done. As for Violence, well...a nice Wizard's Duel could suffice in the first film quite nicely...are you seeing a pattern here, because you should. Hell, I'm not even certain that New Line didn't TELL PJ to put all that crap into the film to give it mass appeal, but if that was true then he shouldn't be taking credit for doing with this story what Spielburg had little or no trouble with in "The Color Purple"...
As for Christopher Lee...well..We are talking about a guy who was not beneath taking cheap roles in wretched Hammer Films productions of every incarnation of Dracula imaginable, so I can see where the money in his pocket was not problem...how else do you explain why he has said nothing about his character apparently being killed at
Orthanc as an expedience to the fact that the
Scouring of the Shire has been left out?