Watch the 1956 film adaptation of 'Moby Dick,' cowritten by sci-fi legend Ray Bradbury.

'Moby-Dick' was inspired by a real whale named Mocha Dick.

In 1820, a sperm whale sank a ship from Nantucket, MA, events that would later inspire Herman Melville to write 'Moby-Dick.'

Watch an episode of 'Ray Bradbury Theater,' the sci-fi writer's 80s HBO show, starring a young Jeff Goldblum.

Ray Bradbury used the structure of John Steinbeck's 'Grapes of Wrath' to structure his influential science fiction masterpiece, 'The Martian Chronicles.'

An early short story by Ray Bradbury was plucked from an open submission call by 'In Cold Blood' author Truman Capote, who believed he'd found a significant voice.

Sci-fi author Ray Bradbury offered to help aid the Kennedy Administration during the 1960s Space Race.

Francis Ford Coppola spent years trying to adapt Jack Kerouac's Beat Generation novel 'On the Road' but ultimately handed it off to another filmmaker.

Ray Bradbury wrote 'Fahrenheit 451,' his landmark dystopian novel, on a rented typewriter in the basement of a UCLA library.

Watch 'Hearts of Darkness: A Filmmaker's Apocalypse,' the documentary about Francis Ford Coppola's notorious production behind 'Apocalypse Now,' shot by Coppola's wife, Eleanor.

NASA named a rover landing site on Mars after Ray Bradbury, author of 'The Martian Chronicles.'

Ray Bradbury's 'Fahrenheit 451' was originally called 'The Fireman,' but he changed the title after learning the temperature at which paper burns.

B-movie king Roger Corman mentored many of the star directors of 1970s Hollywood, including Francis Ford Coppola, Martin Scorsese, and Ron Howard.

Science-fiction legend Ray Bradbury couldn't afford college, but he spent several days a week in his local library, teaching himself how to become a writer.

Sartre wrote an 8-hour screenplay for a Freud biopic

Sartre was hired to write the screenplay for what would eventually become John Huston's 1962 film "Freud: The Secret Passion," about the life of the psychoanalyst. Sartre, however, had trouble sticking to the parameters of Hollywood. An early draft was estimated to be five hours long. Rather than shortening it, as Huston suggested, Sartre extended it to eight hours and was eventually removed from the production.

Ray Bradbury said Steven Spielberg was 'one of the most incredible young talents that's ever come into the world.'

Explore interactive maps from fictional journeys, including 'The Odyssey,' 'Moby-Dick,' and more.

Mel Brooks served as an uncredited producer on David Lynch's film 'The Elephant Man' because he didn't want people to assume it was a lighthearted comedy.

Watch the 1954 film adaptation of 'Animal Farm'

The animated feature was covertly funded by the CIA in an attempt to spread anti-Soviet media. The film simplified Orwell's beast fable by repackaging it as a family-friendly cartoon about the dangers of communism. It underperformed at the box office, though it is still sometimes shown in schools as students read the original text.

Read the writing advice of science-fiction legend Ray Bradbury.

'Harold and Maude' became a cult classic thanks to a one-screen theater in Minnesota that featured the film for two years straight.

The Coen brothers imagined 'O Brother Where Art Thou?' as a retelling of 'The Odyssey,' though neither had actually read Homer's epic.

'Plan 9 from Outer Space' gained an audience after it was trashed by critics

The science-fiction film went mostly unnoticed in its original theatrical run, often playing in double-features aimed at teenagers. It wasn't until 1980, when film critics Harry and Michael Medved dubbed it the "worst film ever made," that it began to attract a cult following. In 1994, Johnny Depp starred in a biopic about its director, Ed Wood.

'Rear Window' was based on a short story by Cornell Woolrich

Hitchcock's 1954 film, which many consider among the director's greatest, was based on Woolrich's 1942 short story "It Had to Be Murder." The story is characteristic of his dark, claustrophobic work.

Camus was influenced by American culture, especially literature and jazz

He loved the work of writers like William Faulker and Ernest Hemingway, and loved drinking whiskey and listening to jazz. He also admired the actor Humphrey Bogart and his striking performance in the noir classic "The Big Sleep." He was delighted when his wife gave him a Burberry raincoat, thinking it made him look more like Bogart.

Francis Ford Coppola began working on 'The Godfather' to bail his production company out of dire financial straits.

'Jaws' creators regret making sharks the monsters

Both Peter Benchley, the author of the original 1974 novel, and Steven Spielberg, the director of the blockbuster film based on it, acknowledge that the film's popularity has led to the stigmatization of the mostly harmless creatures.

In 1938, 1.7 million people were fooled into believing a Martian invasion was underway because of a radio play

Orson Welles' realistic radio dramatization of a Martian invasion of Earth, called "The War of the Worlds," caused quite a stir with audiences. The broadcast resulted in panic, with some people in the area where the story took place attempting to flee. It also helped Welles secure a contract with a Hollywood studio, leading to the creation of "Citizen Kane."

Spielberg was inspired by Hitchcock, Kubrick, and other visionary directors

The influence of Alfred Hitchcock’s “The Birds” and Stanley Kubrick’s “2001: A Space Odyssey” can be seen in the cinematography and tone of Spielberg classics like “Jaws” and “Close Encounters of the Third Kind.”

Orson Welles' 1938 broadcast of 'War of the Worlds' invoked real panic

The raconteur's teleplay of HG Wells' 1898 science fiction novel presented the plot as a news broadcast, leading some listeners to believe that New Jersey was being invaded by Martians. This retrospective from the National Endowment for the Humanities unpacks how he made it happen, and the media fallout that ensued.

A number of Hitchcock's most celebrated films are based on novels

Hitchcock’s films are often cited as being literary, and with good reason—many of them are based on works of literature. This list from the Los Angeles Public Library not only names the many novels that were adapted for the screen by Hitchcock, like "Rebecca (1940)," but also provides excellent context for how and why Hitchcock came to make his adaptations.

'Dr. Strangelove' is widely considered the best satirical film

Stanley Kubrick’s satire about nuclear war came just two years after the Cuban Missile Crisis and spoke to Americans still coming to terms with the possibility of nuclear annihilation. In 1989, the Library of Congress included it among the first 25 films preserved in the National Film Registry, a repository for the greatest achievements in cinema.