Rodrigo Santoro and Chris Rock

A few years back when He’s Just Not That Into You hit theaters, I wasn’t the only one surprised that filmmakers had turned a self-help book into a movie. At the time I joked to a colleague, what next, Dr. Spock’s Baby and Child Care?

No joke: Come May, What to Expect When You’re Expecting (based on Heidi Murkoff’s popular prenatal guide) is scheduled for release. The ensemble  comedy (call it Friends with Kids on the Way) co-stars Chris Rock, Rodrigo Santoro, Jennifer Lopez, Cameron Diaz, Matthew Morrison and Brooklyn Decker.

Due in theaters about a month before What to Expect is Think Like a Man, based on Steve Harvey’s advice book that decodes male behavior for uncomprehending women. This ensemble comedy stars Chris Brown, Morris Chestnut, Taraji P. Henson and Gabrielle Union.

This is what to expect when you base a movie on a self-help book: Studio marketing departments get a presold title and a variety of cast members bound to appeal to  everyone. Screenwriters get anecdotal situations to string together into a plot. Everyone in the ensemble works only a few weeks and is spared the burden of having to carry the picture. (That was the principal lure to actors when it came to making the holiday ensemble movies Valentine’s Day and New Year’s Eve .) All these movies were no doubt inspired by the success of the ensemble comedy Love, Actually. (Santoro, who is in What to Expect, played Laura Linney’s crush in Love, Actually.)

What’s next, Marianne Williamson’s Age of Miracles: Embracing the New Middle Age?

Thoughts? Is there any redeeming aspect to Hollywood’s self-help trend? Any self-help books you’d like to see made into movies?