Seems like every book I’ve read that was eventually made into a movie turned out to be a ‘love story’ whether or not there was one in the book.
Some movies even left me wondering if the producers and directors had even read the book or just used its title as a come-on.
‘Contact’ comes to mind, in that the movie had practically nothing in common with the book other than a female lead and a sci-fi setting..................
To be sure, though, the kind of subjects that “Contact” (the book) delved into would probably make a rather dry movie that not many average people would have found very entertaining.
When I see a movie based on some book that I know, I tend to keep my expectations pretty low. For example, “I, Robot” with Will Smith: it was only loosely inspired by Asimov’s stories, but it was actually a pretty good sci-fi action (more emphasis on the “action” than the “sci-fi” part, as is usual for Hollywood) flick in its own right. Or the “Bourne” movies with Matt Damon - not very close to the book , which to be sure were written during the cold war era and needed some changes to be brought up to date. But pretty decent action movies in and of themselves.