I had the experience. When I see the movie first, it is alright, but when I have read the novel first, the movie is usually disappointing.

(So far, I have had one exception: No Country For Old Men - I think the movie captures the book just perfectly.)

One I remember rather well was the last Harry Potter movie. I had read the book a few years earlier when it was released. I was it a first time in a cinema and was rather disappointed, compared to the experience of reading this part of the book. But then I saw it again one month later and, expecting the movie instead of the book, had a much better time.

The book was brilliantly written and really captured a time and place. The movie was just meh.

Maybe, absent a book, the movie was just mostly forgettable. There were better films involving 80s financial types like Wall Street. But we’d probably remember Bonfire as a minor film that largely wasted star power through miscasting etc. rather than a bomb.