Adapting "Catch Me If You Can"

Translating Catch Me If You Can to the big screen would come with a fair number of challenges. The story takes place over an action packed five years and the main character is only 16 at the start, but passes regularly for 26 to 30 years old. A lot of scenes would have to be cut or combined so that the essence of Frank Abagnale Jr. and his crimes could be shown without taking up too much time.

Scenes Essential to Keep

• His parents breaking up
• In the existing 2002 movie, this is brought out as more prominient in Frank's life than maybe it actually was to set up his motivation for his crimes: pleasing his father. However influential it was in his life of crime, it's still an important point. Frank was only 16 when he left home, and regularly cried himself to sleep over his parent's seperation, even if that morning he had posed as a confident, mature co-pilot of Pan American Airlines.   
• Forging his Pan Am passport, buying his outfit, etc
• A lot of work went into Frank's first crime, and it would be beneficial to show that he really took the effort to make himself look as legitimate as possible. The movie could show him taking apart the model airplane kits to get Pan Am stickers, discreetly copying down phrases that other pilots were using, and faking phone calls as local newspaper reporters. If this process was shown once, the many other times he did it could be implied, saving time within the movie.
• Passing the BAR exam
• Perhaps one of the few things he did completely legally, passing the BAR exam showed not only how dedicated Frank was to his con, but how smart he was.

Scenes to Cut

• Jail time
• Frank spent over a year in French and Sweedish prisons, but including this in the movie would only slow down the amount of time it took him to finally be caught in America by the FBI, whose storyline is of much more importance than those of the European police because it's tied together with Frank's parents' storylines.   
• Explanations of check knowledge
• There is a part in the book where Frank goes into detail about all of the things he knows about checks that no one else bothered to learn. A lot of this section could be cut or implied simply by showing as short scene of Frank researching.