I recently came across this blogpost from Steph in the City and it got me
thinking about how many movies I'd seen without reading the book. I left a comment saying how in some cases I was unaware that a movie was based on a book. Two years ago, from Netflix, I stumbled upon the movie "Fast Food Nation." I don't know what compelled me to add this to my queue, but somehow I did. I was totally unaware that there was a book until someone I know said he'd read the book. Similarly, last year, after I saw the trailers on TV for "Hotel for Dogs," I went to see it and I liked it, but once again, I did not know about the book! 
Here are some others I watched without reading the book first:
In these cases, I did not know about the book either, but in the case of the last two, once I became aware of the book, I decided to seek it out and read it. I glanced at a copy of "The Clique" at my town's library, not feeling too compelled to read it all. And I don't even remember hearing about the film "Zathura" when it came out, let alone that I didn't know about the book. I just came across this film somehow while browsing Netflix one day. Something obviously made me decide to add it to my list of films. I received and watched this one about three weeks ago.
As far as the "Harry Potter" series is concerned, I did go with my mom to see the first two films in 2001 and 2002, but never read the books. But I've not watched the subsequent movies either. And I'm well aware of the books--I've always assumed everyone was. But were these people? I just haven't been able to get into this series.
There are probably others I've seen based on book that I did not know about, that I cannot recall right now.
I did know about the novel on which the recent hit film "Precious" was based when the movie came out. This was evidenced by the film's full title:
In 1996, when the book upon which this movie is based was first published, it was titled "Push: A Novel." The film was likewise originally titled, "Push: Based on the Novel by Sapphire," but in February 2009, the movie title was changed to Precious: Based on the Novel Push by Sapphire (2009) to avoid confusion with the 2009 action film Push (2009). When the novel was republished in 2009, it was as a movie tie-in edition with cover art from the film, a common enough practice regarding books that have been turned into movies. What is unusual about the movie tie-in version of the book is that the book's title had also been changed to the movie's - which means that the book is now called "Precious: Based on the Novel 'Push' by Sapphire," even though it is the novel "Push" by Sapphire.
On the other hand, my mom had the books in the "Twilight" series so I asked to borrow them.
The first film had already come out in the theaters before I started reading the series and she had already seen it. I decided I would read the books before attempting t see the film, which she also bought and I borrowed. I saw the second "Twilight" when it was in theaters last November. And she had the books that were published before the films were made, thus not having covers that were revised with pictures from the actors in the film such as this:
When I first saw the trailers for "Marley and Me," I knew it was a film I wanted to see. Shortly after seeing the previews, I read the newspaper review which made me aware of the novel on which it was based. I never got around to seeing it in the theaters and once it was released on DVD, I added "Marley and Me" to my Netflix queue. It would be almost a year before
I received the DVD, since there were a lot of other films already in my queue. When I saw the book at my place of work, I decided to buy it in hopes of getting to read it before the movie reached the top of my queue. I won a $10 gift card in a drawing work one day and immediately used it to buy the book. I read the book in less than a week in early January, and it was more than a month till I received the DVD in the mail.
And I read "Charlotte's Web" many times as a child before I saw any of the film adaptations.
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