The book covers look like well-worn paperbacks you’d find on a spinner rack in a secondhand shop, but these aren’t actual novels.

The creased and worn covers for films like “A Quiet Place,” “Do the Right Thing” and “Die Hard” are the work of designer Matt Stevens for his (very real) book, “Good Movies as Old Books: Films Reimagined as Vintage Book Covers,” out this week from Chronicle Books.

Digitally rendered by the North Carolina-based Stevens, these faux editions include “Ghostbusters” with three ominous silhouetted figures; “Speed” with a lit fuse coming out of an odometer; and a range of authentic looking covers for “Get Out,” “Heat,” “Everything Everywhere All at Once,” “Inception” and many more.

But to be clear, this is not a book about books; it’s a book about movies … right?

“It’s a book about movies, for sure,” says Stevens, who admits even he spent time wrestling with the concept. “Movies have been such a big part of my life. I love the feeling they can evoke. I love the connection they create between people who love the same movies.”

An illustrator and brand designer, Stevens says the concept began when he was asked to create an old-style book cover for a client pitch. Enjoying the process, he kept going, eventually producing hundreds of images and two limited-edition volumes via Kickstarter.

“I just was on the lookout for my next project to work on, and this was fun, so I turned it into a series,” says Stevens, who cites Penguin paperbacks and Saul Bass-inspired graphic design as influences. “Even if nobody saw it or nobody else liked it, it would not be a waste of time, because I had such a good time doing it.

“It kind of had a momentum of its own,” he says. “And so I just kept going.”

The following conversation has been edited for length and clarity.

Q: What are some books, covers or designers that inspired you to do this?

A: I love the midcentury stuff in general. I have a Pinterest inspiration board that’s probably 900-1,000 deep. Really solid, simple ideas tend to be what I gravitate towards. Things that are just very iconic; that’s what I strove to do.

“Catcher in the Rye” is probably my favorite cover of all time if I had to pick something — you walk into Barnes & Noble and it’s still the same. “Of Mice and Men” is one that I love, that old cover. “The Great Gatsby” is also one of my favorites, with the floating eyes. It’s things that have stood the test of time.

It’s less about trying to say everything and more about trying to say one important or memorable thing.

Q: Tell us about your cover for “Mad Max: Fury Road.” That one has a strong late-’60s, psychedelia-inspired look.

A: Sometimes, like with “Mad Max,” I would just be doing research and find a style and go — I’m just dying to work in that style. So what marries with that style in a really interesting way? That’s one of my favorite movies, but it’s so gritty and raw. So mixing it with that late-’60s, early-’70s kind of psychedelic stuff is like, oh, that’s an interesting combination I’ve never seen before. So the experimentation is really fun for me.

Q: Can you talk about achieving the look of the covers, from the wear and creases to the stickers and color palettes?

A: First of all, it’s just immersing myself in a ton of research, almost to where it becomes second nature about how you’re going to approach things.

I used a lot of found textures, whether it’s the aging of the book, the actual creases and things like that. It was just finding a lot of stuff, scanning it in and tweaking it a lot so that I could use it.

A lot of the price stickers I would change and kind of make them into little Easter eggs, like “The Matrix” has a red and a blue sticker on it, just as a kind of geeky nod to that. It’s just putting in those fun little touches — if someone notices it, great. If not, I get the satisfaction of doing these little detail things.

Q: You include everything from “Saving Private Ryan” and “Whiplash” to “The Last Starfighter” and “MacGruber.” These are all films you’ve enjoyed, right?

A: The project is very personal. Every movie that’s in there, I like, or I connect with in some way.

I’m much more interested in what people like than what they don’t like. And so the idea that there are all kinds of movies out there, and it’s OK to like things that are really fun and dumb, and also like something deep. I think all kinds of things can move you.

Q: There are a lot of ways you can enjoy a film.

A: “Interstellar” is probably one of my favorite movies of all time, and there are long articles about — or Neil deGrasse Tyson talking about it — why it doesn’t work. It’s like, whatever. I cried a lot, and it was amazing. I had an experience and I’ll never forget it.

I’m not begrudging anyone who wants to approach it that way. But that’s not really how I approach things. It’s really much more of an emotional response for me, for sure.

Q: Since you mentioned “Interstellar,” I noticed you seem to like spacesuits.

A: I do. Spacesuits are fun. You’ve got “Interstellar,” “First Man,” “Ad Astra,” “Moon.” Yeah, spacesuits are fun to draw.

That’s the funny thing. When you start to do enough of something, you start to see your own tendencies, and you’re like, oh, I like to draw hands a lot. I like to draw spacesuits a lot.

Q: Do the concepts come quickly or do you need time for them to develop?

A: I had an illustration professor who was very much like, “The first idea you have is probably the first idea that a lot of people will have.” And so he always encouraged us to push past those.

It’s more about the process. Like with the movie “Network,” I went back and rewatched it and loved it. And so, how do I capture people, elevating this guy, this crazy guy, to like this religious figure? The idea of Moses parting the Red Sea — and the Red Sea is the color bars of a TV — that stuff gets me excited.

It’s that feeling of hitting on an idea. That’s what I really love.

Q: Jared Hess, director of “Napoleon Dynamite” and last month’s box office blockbuster “A Minecraft Movie,” wrote the introduction to the book. How did that happen?

A: I just love Jared Hess. He’d ordered a “Nacho Libre” print, and so on a lark, when it was time to try to find somebody to do the foreword, I sent him an email, and he could not have been nicer.

He’s like, “Oh, I’m in post-production on a film.” And I had no idea he was working on this huge, big-budget movie. And he took time to write a foreword. He was just so kind. It kind of blows me away that people who are busy and that you respect would take time out and do something like that and not ask for anything in return.

When I asked him, I said, “I’ve always loved your films because they’re about weirdos and outsiders, but you never feel like you’re making fun of those people.” As a kid who grew up feeling some of those ways, it was just so cool to have somebody like that do that.