Novelizations

There are people who think this way. Who didn’t realize “The Hobbit” (and LOTR) were loosely based on existing books. But now, I’m surprised they didn’t come out with watered-down, simplified novels for the movies. Publishing thinks less and less of it’s readers and is mandating that authors not use compound sentences, keep the paragraphs short, and write everything at an 8th grade level. Are they correct in thinking so low of their audience, or are they trying to make their readers dim?