Movies = Books?

My husband and I recently rented and watched the latest Cameron Diaz flop, Bad Teacher.  In it she plays an awful teacher who is pretty much only at school for a paycheck.  As a result she never does any real teaching in her class but instead just shows movies every day.  When her school principal calls her out on it, she tells him, "Movies are the new books."  This got me thinking - ARE movies becoming the new books?  I know there are numerous books where I've said, "I'll just wait and see the movie instead of taking the time to read the book."  It is a whole lot less time-consuming to sit and watch a 2 hour movie to experience a story that might otherwise take a couple of days to experience if you sat and actually read it.  And with so many books now being made into movies it's just a lot easier to do that.  Some movies I'm guilty of watching in lieu of the books?

The Harry Potter series

The Twilight Saga (which I've been told I need to actually read to understand the significance of the cover items)

The Lord of the Rings Trilogy (I actually HAVE read The Hobbit believe it or not)

















Aside from the whole convenience/instant gratification movies are also a lot easier to understand.  They take away a lot of the processes our brain goes through when we are reading.  We no longer have to use inference or context clues to figure out what is going on.  We don't get to use our imaginations to create the characters.  Instead we are given a picture on a screen to tell us exactly what we are supposed the think.

So, is this phenomenon taking away from our literacy? (or at the very least our comprehension skills?)
Here is an article discussing whether or not some think it is.

Or are movies a good thing where literature is concerned?

Or are they just a part of life now that we need to learn to adapt to and change our teaching methods to reach the new generations who are being raised to be pro-media and suggested here?

I think that movies and media in general has its pros and cons (just like everything else) but if we are willing to be open-minded to it, accept that it's the way the world is going and take steps to remedy its shortcomings (such as using forms of media that encourage literacy or supplementing media with things that improve literacy) that media can be a very good thing and that our future generations will be able to learn the same things we've learned (but in a better way more suited to their upbringing) and then some.