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At first, The Perfect Storm didn't seem so perfect to Hollywood.

The book's journey from page to big screen wasn't as tempestuous as the violent sea storm depicted in Sebastian Junger's best seller, but it wasn't smooth sailing, either.

In early 1996, the true story of a group of New England fishermen caught in a "perfect" storm was shopped to studios before the book was finished. No takers. Then agents started circulating the manuscript of the gripping tale. But again, they couldn't find a buyer.

It wasn't until Junger took the unusual step of traveling to Hollywood from New York nearly a year later to pitch the book that Warner Bros. and producer Paula Weinstein secured film rights in a six-figure deal. The studio then approached Wolfgang Petersen to direct the movie -- but only after The Perfect Storm became a best seller.

Despite its cloudy beginnings, The Perfect Storm hits theaters Friday. And with stunning special effects and a dramatic story line, it would seem to have the ingredients to be a hit. But if the filmmakers are feeling a little queasy about how their $125 million movie will do, there's a good reason: A number of recent movies made from books -- particularly literary fiction titles and quality non- fiction works -- have been battered at the box office.

With the exception of a few films, including The Talented Mr. Ripley and The Green Mile, many of last year's book adaptations were, at best, modest performers. Combined, Snow Falling on Cedars, Angela's Ashes and Girl, Interrupted grossed less than $60 million. Recent films based on more obscure novels, such as The Beach and Fight Club, fared no better.

Hollywood will always turn to books for ideas, but with the recent poor box office results and with Hollywood slashing development budgets, their role is being scrutinized.

"Studios are giving a tougher read to books than they would a few years ago," says literary agent Richard Green, who sold The Perfect Storm with his partner, Howard Sanders. "In the past, we used to sell from galleys (early print copies). Then we started selling from manuscripts. Nowadays, the trend has reversed itself, and many executives wait to see whether books hit the best-seller list" before they start bidding.

Even Oprah Winfrey, whose book club selections become automatic best sellers, can't guarantee box office success for book-to-film adaptations. Moviegoers shunned Beloved, the 1998 film adaptation of Toni Morrison's Pulitzer Prize-winning novel that starred Winfrey as a former slave. And the Oprah Book Club picks that have been made into movies -- including The Deep End of the Ocean, A Map of the World and Where the Heart Is -- have hardly been blockbusters.

Oprah-anointed novels and acclaimed non-fiction best sellers such as the Frank McCourt memoir Angela's Ashes share traits -- they are intricate, dark -- that make them good books but questionable commercial film ventures. Many of them have dealt with difficult topics, including child abuse (A Map of the World), mental illness (Girl, Interrupted) and abject poverty (Angela's Ashes), making them hard sells as mass-appeal films.

Explains John Baker, editorial director at Publishers Weekly, trade publication of the book industry:

"Books with a distinctive literary quality can't be easily translated into a movie. Movies are terribly literal. It is very difficult to achieve poetry in the adaptation of a literary novel. Movies that are really going to have any type of popular audience are going to have a strong narrative line and characters people can relate to."

Many of the box office disappointments "were complex books that became complex movies," says Perfect Storm producer Weinstein. "You have to be careful when you have a complex book."

And then there is the temptation to Hollywoodize books by making them more upbeat. Although the idea was dismissed, some Warner Bros. executives suggested giving The Perfect Storm a happier ending.

That happened with the film adaptation of the best-selling The Horse Whisperer. The sage "horse whisperer," played by Robert Redford, dies in the book but lives in the movie.

"If the book is very popular, one of the difficult things is overcoming the panic of disappointing the fans of the book," says screenwriter/director Richard LaGravenese, who adapted The Horse Whisperer.

But a book's fan base isn't necessarily vital to its success as a movie. Even books that have sold huge numbers by publishing standards (The Perfect Storm, Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil, The Deep End of the Ocean) would wither at the box office if only readers showed up. An Oprah Book Club selection may sell more than 1 million copies, but 1 million moviegoers won't land a film on top of the weekend's box office.

"You have to keep in mind that when you're talking about books, a best seller can sell 100,000 copies," says David Rosenthal, publisher of Simon & Schuster. "For a movie, that is maybe a few hours of business on a single day."

The producers of The Perfect Storm learned that lesson when they screened their film for an audience of 500. Although Junger's book has spent three years on various best-seller lists, only a couple of people at the screening said they had read the book, and fewer than 10 had heard of it.

Aside from fickle audiences, Hollywood faces another issue in filming books: time. There is an extra step because a screenplay must be adapted from the book. Many best sellers that were sold a few years ago are still waiting for their film close-ups, including Michael Crichton's Airframe, Arthur Golden's Memoirs of a Geisha and Charles Frazier's Cold Mountain.

And because these prestige projects tend to attract big-name directors, scheduling becomes even more of a challenge. Steven Spielberg, for example, plans to direct Geisha but has put it on the back burner for now.

Those factors have left frustrated studios wary about spending big bucks on a book. While film rights to Cold Mountain, Message in a Bottle and How Stella Got Her Groove Back all sold for more than $1 million, executives are more circumspect now. Crichton, for example, didn't receive his normal hefty upfront fee for the rights to his most recent book, Timeline. Instead, he'll receive a sizable fee when the book becomes a film.

Still, don't expect Hollywood to give up on books. They have yielded so many all-time movie greats, from Gone With the Wind to The Godfather. Even in today's marketplace, books make up an estimated 30% of the projects that studios are actively developing, says David Alpert, president of 4filmmakers.com, a site that tracks moviemaking for film professionals.

Historically, novels have been a source for a number of Hollywood's biggest moneymakers, including Jurassic Park, Forrest Gump and Jaws. More serious books also are important to studios because they attract high-profile talent.

"Most of the original screenplays right now are not very good," says The Perfect Storm director Petersen. "If somebody writes a great book -- novel or non-fiction -- very often it has taken years of work from a serious writer." The result, he says, is a story with more layers and depth than the common script.

On a financial level, studios key in on books of high literary quality because they tend to get serious Oscar consideration, which can translate to a box office boom.

At the past 12 Academy Awards, at least one of the best-picture nominees has been based on a book. Last year, The Cider House Rules' gross, which topped out at $57.5 million, jumped 61% after its nomination, elevating the John Irving adaptation from a mild disappointment to a success. In 1997, The English Patient's take increased 46% after it received 12 Oscar nominations and won best picture.

"Books suggest a certain highbrow quality or an educational imprint on material," says Oscar-winning producer Mark Johnson, who has worked on such adaptations as A Little Princess and The Natural.

Because books are an essential part of "serious" filmmaking, industry types who champion books are not worried about Hollywood's current cautious approach.

"The (novel) and non-fiction book-to-film business waxes and wanes like all things," says literary agent Ron Bernstein, who has sold the feature rights to numerous books. "What is in vogue at this moment is merchandising -- toys, games, rides. It is tough to get all that out of books."

But if upcoming films such as All the Pretty Horses, Bridget Jones's Diary and The Perfect Storm succeed at the box office, good books could easily become central characters in the next chapter in moviemaking.