Like the works of Shakespeare, Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes, Rudyard Kipling’s Mowgli & Co., and Edgar Rice Burroughs’ Tarzan, the older, legendary tale of Robin Hood will return (sometimes many times) in a newly realized form for each new generation. Long, long before Oliver Queen and Clint Barton, there was that wielder of bow and arrow, the original superhero, Robin of Loxley, or Robin Hood. Lionsgate Films released its first preview trailer for its version of Robin Hood, coming late this year to theaters. Starring Kingsman’s Taron Egerton as Robin, Jamie Foxx as Little John (with some very Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves-styled Morgan Freeman makeup), Ben Mendelsohn (today’s go-to bad guy) as the Sheriff of Nottingham, Eve Hewson as Marian, Tim Minchin as Friar Tuck, and Jamie Dornan as Will Scarlet, the next Robin Hood feature looks to be the least like its predecessors.
As much as prior incarnations attempted to provide a historically accurate look–for better or worse–for their films, usually targeting the story anywhere from the 14th to the 16th centuries, director Otto Bathurst’s version offers up some modern designs. Costume designer Julian Day, known for some nicely realized, historically inspired designs in Pride and Prejudice and Zombies and the 1970s racing film Rush, seems to have avoided any historicity in designing costumes for his latest film. When does it take place? Apparently not in any real-time or location.
The classic adventure and romance seems to be weighted this toward action and more action, with much CGI and slow motion fight scenes, and if the first trailer is any indication, it’s going to be light on the fairy tale romance of past versions. Take a look for yourself at the first trailer for this year’s Robin Hood:
When pondering what I want to see in the movie theater that hasn’t arrived yet I think a lot about several Philip K. Dick short stories, or TV series that I’d love to see continued on the big screen, like a big screen Magnum, P.I.,orSimon & Simon or Chuck—although if it is as underwhelming as the last X-Files movie then maybe not. I’d love to see some early twentieth century biopics of Bix Beiderbecke or Karl King (who, among other things, composed the circus themes for Ringling Brothers and played in Sousa’s band). And it would be fun to take a bunch of Herb Alpert & the Tijuana Brass songs from South Of The Border and The Lonely Bull and make them the soundtrack to a modern spaghetti Western, sort of like Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers with She’s The One. A good Green Arrow or Bionic Man movie, or a good sequel to Return of the Jedi would all be fun. And some things have been done already, but not quite right. Space Ghost had his own cartton then interview show, but how about an adaptation of the serious origin series by Joe Kelly? A big budget movie based on Jon Krakauer’s Into Thin Aircould be awesome (the TV version suffered a bit despite a good cast). The Russian story of Lieutenant Kijewas filmed more than half a century ago with music by Prokofiev, but it needs a good updating. We’ve seen four Tom Clancy novels about Jack Ryan, but the creepiest of the series, Debt of Honor, has yet to be made.
A lot of films have been made, and in coming up with this list one of my ideas–a film featuring Super Grover and the cast of Sesame Street–seemed long overdue. I figured Sesame Street got bypassed for the Muppets, as shown in a funny scene from The Muppet Movie where Fozzie the Bear offers Big Bird a ride to the west coast to break into movies, and Big Bird says no thanks, he’s trying to break into public television back in New York. Well, apparently they made that movie back in 1985 and I missed it, Sesame Street Presents: Follow That Bird. You can’t know everything.
For me this list was tough until I moved away from books as source material. I think the movies I see in my head are better than how some of my ideas would likely turn out produced by the studios. But let’s get on with it–with a nod to Art Schmidt for his idea with DC Comics and Jason McClain for mentioning Connie Willis.
From the comic books: DC Comics’ Dark Knight Returns and Hard-Traveling Heroes
At lunch in high school my friends and I fantasy-cast Batman: The Dark Knight Returns over and over. Ultimately we arrived at (the now late) Paul Newman as the ideal retired Batman, in the graphic novel another wealthy race car driver type. In real life Newman was very much the Bruce Wayne interpreted in Frank Miller’s four-issue series-turned required-reading—as suave guy, well-liked, a wealthy philanthropist. In a different universe Clint Eastwood would be great fun as a superhero coming out of retirement to have that last hoorah with the Batman cowl. Probably too late now. Of all the Batman stories, The Dark Knight Returns is #1–it is so well-established as more than a cult favorite, even beyond Watchmen, you just have to ask DC Comics and the Hollywood machine: Why can’t someone just put it on the big screen?
I’ve said over and over here at borg.com that the best Green Lantern story ever is his team up with Green Arrow and Black Canary in Neal Adams’ and Dennis O’Neil’s classic Green Lantern Issues #76-87 and 89, the so-called “Hard Traveling Heroes.” Imagine Black Canary pulling up on her motorcycle. Imagine Green Arrow defending the kid robbing the slumlord. Imagine Green Arrow catching Speedy. Imagine Hal, Ollie and Dinah driving across America in their pick-up truck. And harpies. And encountering a religious cult. And more harpies.
I’ll echo Art Schmidt: DC Comics needs to catch up with Marvel Comics movies, with Iron Man (the first one), Captain America: The First Avenger, and with Fantastic Four’s brilliant realization of Human Torch and The Thing, maybe my favorite heroes to screen so far. OK, they nailed it with Christopher Reeve’s Superman and Michael Keaton and Jack Nicholson in Batman. Hopefully with The Avengers, Marvel Comics sets a new bar that DC Comics will have to work toward with a multi-hero story, maybe even with the Justice League or Superfriends. Art’s recommended Cry for Justice, which we have discussed here before, is a great choice for this.
From the sci-fi novel: Remake, by Connie Willis
If you haven’t read Hugo and Nebula award-winning author Connie Willis’s books then you are in for a great ride through one of several fun and varied works. For me, the concepts and Hollywood prophesies in her novel Remake are too cool to pass up and I have no doubt represent a foreshadowing of the future of film only slightly touched on in the Ralph Fiennes film Strange Days. Remake is science fiction at its best, and was nominated for a Hugo Award in 1996.
In our near future, Hollywood no longer needs to make new productions. A film technician rearranges classic films via computer manipulation, so that the viewer can select who he wants to watch the next time he watches Raiders of the Lost Ark. How about John Wayne? How about Humphrey Bogart? Why not edit out all the cigarettes so we no longer encourage smoking for future viewers? What other movies would be fun to manipulate? This is the world of our future where Viacom and Paramount are now Viamount, where actors are reduced to stand-ins. OK, so it probably won’t really be our future as totally envisioned by Willis.
The technician falls for a strange woman who wants to dance in a musical and he is continually sidetracked as he pursues her through the novel. The love story is well done—but it’s the world of our future that would be fun to see, finally, on the big screen. And you would not need to film an entire movie, simply clips, like the old soda pop ads that blended dead celebrities with living ones, and that allowed Nat King Cole to star in a modern music video with his grown daughter, the singer Natalie Cole. Hollywood has the technology today—so why not see how far CGI can go?
I’d frankly love to see any Willis book adapted to film, and in addition those mentioned by others in this series, Bellwetherand To Say Nothing of the Dog would be great picks.
From the sci-fi novel: Fantastic Voyage 2: Destination Brain, by Isaac Asimov
When the original Fantastic Voyage was in theaters in 1966, Isaac Asimov created the novelization. He was not happy with it because he was adapting someone else’s work (it was based on a Jerome Bixby story). The original film reflected Hollywood basically at its infancy with special effects related to the future of medicine. In its day it was a good effort. With the 1987 novel Fantastic Voyage II: Destination Brain, which was not a sequel but an entirely new story, Asimov created the world inside a microscope that only he could envision. The book is like Dennis Quaid in Innerspace, but with a serious mission and tone. A group of scientists, such as you would find in the typical multi-disciplined problem solving team from a Michael Crichton novel, shrink themselves down to microscopic size to enter into the brain and try to diagnose the condition of a colleague, Dr. Pyotor Shapirov, the creator of the very technology that finally allows man to transport to such a miniscule size.
In 2001 Imax theaters featured a documentary on its giant-sized screens called The Human Body. Audiences were able to see (and sometimes be grossed out by) the inner workings of the body. Filmmakers would hardly need much by way of CGI to show a voyage through the cells. Maybe this would be fun to attempt for some creative producer, and a project showing yet another frontier of science to science fiction fans.
From the art gallery: the cinematic paintings of Edward Hopper
How about a story for stage or screen where each scene begins or ends as an Edward Hopper painting? And the focal character is the girl from his Automat, maybe also the same girl from his Chop Suey painting? New York Movie, First Row Orchestra, Summertime, Cape Cod Evening—they all tell some secret story. Or at least they all could, in the right filmmaker’s hands.
Hopper’s cinematic compositions and use of light and shadow has caused filmmakers to mimic his style before. House by the Railroad supposedly influenced the house in the Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho and the home in the Terrence Malick film Days of Heaven. Director Wim Wenders’ film The End of Violence incorporates a tableau vivant of Nighthawks. Surrealist horror film director Dario Argento recreated the diner and the patrons in Nighthawks as part of a set for his 1976 film Deep Red. Hopper has inspired both Blade Runner andRoad to Perdition.
Turner Classic Movies uses animated recreations of Hopper paintings as introductions to classic films and in That ’70s Show the producers recreated the diner from Nighthawks. But how about a full-scale movie showing us something about these characters we don’t know? That’s something I’d love to see on the big screen.
From the ancient history books: the world briefly changed by Akhenaten
I could find a non-fiction work for the adaptation, but it’s the story itself I really want to see here. The pharaoh Akhenaten was the leader of Egypt for about 17 years from circa 1353 B.C. to 1335 B.C. He was married to Nefertiti and had six or seven daughters and at least one son–Tutankhamen. In his reign he revamped the religion of his country like never before, moving from a polytheistic pantheon of gods to the worship of a single god, the Aten, or sun-disk. Following his reign the empire was returned to its prior state and for Akhenaten’s blasphemy his name was chiseled out of a significant part of the written record. Art during his reign became more expressive and naturalistic. Images of the pharaoh show a realistic image that hid no flaws, a long face, not the typical glorification and heroic imagery of Egyptian leaders before and after. Akhenaten is so interesting from a number of levels that it would be a great challenge to reflect his reign in film. Certainly a rebel and not a traditionalist. A stunning wife. How do you show all the Egyptian relationships—including accepted inbreeding as a norm–without coming off as judgmental? As pharaoh he was “one with the god Aten.” How do you portray daily life in an interesting way where the ruler is God and what could you show about his family on film? A great pandemic swept across the Middle East during this period, taking out the Hittite ruler Suppiluliuma, and how did they manage through that? But even more interesting, with all the stories of the history of conflict in Egypt, what did life look like during the years of Egypt’s own version of Camelot? This all would be incredible to depict.
From fantasy opera: Richard Wagner’s The Ring of the Nibelung
I have only seen one version of The Ring that comes close to clarifying this odd and complex story composed of four epic operas for a general audience: P. Craig Russell’s two volume graphic novel of The Ring of the Nibelung. A few years ago I discussed The Ring with Russell and he said it was a great effort to produce it and it became a sort of magnum opus for him. But even an adaptation of Russell’s adaptation would need streamlined for mainstream audiences—yet, it would be a great starting point. Predating that other famous fantasy ring series (the one by J.R.R. Tolkien) by decades, Wagner’s opera is epic in scope and length, taking four nights or 15 hours to perform the full opera. We already have a superb soundtrack from Wagner, but can someone make a feature-length, meaningful adaptation in the English language that conveys the energy and power of the original without all the nonlinear bits and pieces? The reward would be a giant vision of gods, heroes, mythical creatures and magic.
Other operas due for a good movie? The Magic Flute, The Barber of Seville, The Marriage of Figaro.
More than any of the above I would love to see our own Elizabeth C. Bunce’s retelling of Rumplestiltskin,A Curse Dark As Gold(maybe a classic PBS/BBC series or Hayao Miyazaki anime film would be fun) or her fantasy noir Thief Errant series on-screen. A Curse Dark As Gold has already been performed superbly in a full-length audio CD version by a Broadway actress so I’ve had a little taste of what it would be like to witness it fully played out. And speaking of ECB, tomorrow she’ll give us her take on stories that should be adapted for the big screen.
For my top five list of stories I’d like to see turned into motion pictures, I have tried to be somewhat realistic. Some of my favorite stories, whether novels or games or comic books, I have left off as just being beyond realization. The wish of their being turned into a movie is, in itself, a fantasy, due to various factors.
For instance, since I was a teenager, I’ve been dying for someone to make a movie from Grand Poobah Dungeon Master Gary Gygax’s original storyline thread from the first D&D modules: “The Village of Hommlet” modules (T1-T4), the Slaver series (modules A1-A4), the “Against the Giants” series (modules G1-G3), and the “Drow of the Underdark” series (modules D1-D3 & module Q1 “Queen of the Demonweb Pits”). Of course, this would be for the die-hard gaming geeks almost exclusively, and at twelve modules (adventures) it would be difficult to pack into a motion picture trilogy or quintology (!), even if anyone would be so crazy as to provide the funding for it.
I’m stoked for a movie adaptation of Ernest Cline’s recent novel, Ready Player One, but I’m not including it because it’s already in pre-production at Warner Bros. No need to wish for that which is likely to already happen. Then there’s the Wheel of Time series, which isn’t quite over. The final book, currently titled A Memory of Light, is scheduled to be published in January of 2013. And as the fifteen-volume series will clock in at an estimated 11,000 pages, it could never conceivably be condensed down to make any real sense in a few motion pictures.
Trivia: A series of three books is called a trilogy. A series of five books is called a quintology. A series of seven books is called a heptalogy. What is a series of fourteen books called?
Answer: Too damned long!
Note: No offense to Robert Jordan, may he rest in peace, the series is great, but it could have probably ended after eight or ten novels. I really enjoyed the first ten Wheel of Time books! And all of your Conan novels were great, too!
So, too, would I love to hear of a big screen adaptation of some of R.A. Salvatore’s Drizzt Do’urden novels, especially the Icewind Dale Trilogy, but alas, it is not to be. I could name some Star Wars and Conan novels that I’d like to see adapted, but those subjects have already been masterfully done on the big screen, so there is no use wasting our time.
Same goes for the less well-known but equally awesome Deathgate Cycle heptalogy from the great fantasy team of Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman. Too many books in the series (few of which really stand entirely on their own), and likely too hardcore (i.e. small) of a fan base. Anyhow, the powers that be (being in power, as they are), would most likely take a run at Dragonlance (ho-hum) before considering Deathgate. Too bad.
In the “slightly unrealistic” column, however, I have included the Elric of Melnibone saga in my list, despite the main character being an anti-hero and thus a difficult win for a motion picture, even with the hard-core fantasy crowd. Strangely enough, this may be the one wish that I am granted (read more in my Elric entry, below).
A lot of fantasy, I know. I’m a fantasy kind of guy. There are a lot of good horror, sci-fi, and other fiction out there crying to be made into films, but really, we get a lot of good stuff from those genres already. But there is a dearth of good fantasy films out there, and they come along so rarely; The Fellowship of the Ring came out over ten years ago, after all.
Man, I’m getting old. Somebody please make a couple of these before I croak.
Other honorable mentions. I’d love to see something done with Gaiman’s Sandman series, but probably too difficult and definitely niche. Same goes for Marvel 1601, one of my favorite graphic novels (also Gaiman). But niche. The books of Michael Crichton have been done (and done, and done) as they are so interesting and have such strong plotlines, but my favorite novel of his is one of his non-fiction works, Travels. He chronicles some of his real-life travels had some great insights into his own life from them. But again, probably too tight of an audience for something like that.
Neuromancer would totally rock, but the conventional wisdom is that cyberpunk is way over. I’m no good at conventional wisdom, though. Maybe it’s so over that it’s ready to be hip again? Disco and bell bottoms keep coming back, after all. On second thought, maybe not.
Anyway, on with the real list.
#5 – The Gaean Trilogy (Titan, Wizard and Demon) from John Varley
A mix of fantasy and sci-fi, this is the first thing I thought of when I saw Avatar. And I wasn’t alone. Space farers explore a foreign planet where magic seems to happen in nature, strange creatures abound, and some of them are intelligent/sentient. Then humans come along and really muck it all up. That’s the Gaean Trilogy’s premise (not the plot) in a nutshell.
Of course, there is much more to it than that. There are far more significant differences between these novels and the movie Avatar than there are broad similarities. The combination of sci-fi and fantasy is what would make this appealing, and the titanides and eventual revelation of the Gaea intelligence (and what follows) would make for a great movie.
#4 – Fallout: New Vegas (video game)
My favorite game in recent years (besides Star Wars: The Old Republic, which I’m itching to play even now while writing this), FNV was a great game because of the amazing, engrossing storyline.
In a nutshell:
In the late twenty-first century, America and China fight a prolonged war over resources that ends with a nuclear exchange. The nuclear warheads and subsequent fallout kills most everyone except a chosen few who retreat to underground ‘vaults’ to ride out the Earth’s recovery from global fallout (hence the title of the series). Life as we know it ends.
Some two hundred years later, people begin to emerge from the vaults, and find some still living humans, along with irradiated creatures, mutants, and all sorts of crazy stuff living in the burnt-out shells of our former civilization. Las Vegas was spared from direct nuclear attack by the defenses of wealthy industrialist and casino owner, as was the nearby Hoover Dam. People died, but the core of the Strip survived (what irony).
A lone traveler enters the area, gets shot in the head and buried, but survives and is nursed back to health, although with amnesia from the wound. He sets about trying to learn about himself and his assailants, and in the process discovers that Las Vegas (dubbed “New Vegas” by the current residents) is being contested over by a growing civilization from California (the New California Republic, or NCR), an army of brutal slave-owning tribals calling themselves Caesar’s Legion, and the wealthy citizen who kept Vegas from annihilation (or is it him?) who runs New Vegas with an army of killer robots and calls himself Mr. House.
The story is compelling, and locations are fantastic, the inhabitants are diverse and interesting, and there are stories aplenty for the traveler to encounter and deal with on his way to the game’s climactic battle between these competing forces over who will control Hoover Dam, the one source of electricity and life-giving water amidst a world of death and dust.
A great movie that would make. We’ve seen shades of this with The Book of Eli (a great movie, but more of a morality tale than a straight-forward action/adventure flick) and The Road (a great example of how really good books can be terrible movies), but nothing like the tale spun in New Vegas.
#3 – The Elric of Melnibone novels by Michael Moorcock
An island of anemic sorcerer kings who rule the world. A savage world of monsters and heroes who strive daily to survive. Magic that allows people to cross into other dimensions and sail through space to other planets. Stormbringer. What an absolutely epic fantasy movie that would make!
Of course, the main problem is that Elric is an anti-hero. In fact, Elric is the very embodiment of the modern-day anti-hero. He’s not a nice guy. He’s not even rough-around-the-edges-but-basically-moral-in-an-immoral-world (like Conan) kind of guy. He’s a self-important, selfish, power-hungry elitist. At times, he’s a murder, though he does begin to show some humanity and regret after a while. But he has a goal, and purpose, and oh, the adventures he has, the places he goes, and the things he sees! All fantastic, and all while wielding what can easily be called the most powerful magical sword in all of fantasy (save perhaps for Shieldbreaker from Fred Saberhagen’s Swords novels, but I digress…)
I would absolutely love to sit in a theatre and watch the albino sorcerer-king travel the planes swinging the Black Sword of legend. Ever since I saw Conan the Barbarian, I have longed for someone to make movies out of the Lord of the Rings trilogy and the Elric saga. One down, one to go.
Apparently, I am a little late to the party on this one. Director/Producer brothers Chris Weitz (About a Boy, The Golden Compass) and Paul Weitz (American Pie, Little Fokkers) were reportedly in “pre-production” on a movie trilogy based on Moorcock’s dark, brooding novels about my second-favorite anti-hero (see #1, below, for my fave), but that project has been side-tracked and is lately talked about by the brothers in wistful terms of ‘someday’.
Here’s hoping that “someday” actually comes.
Side Note: I’m not 100% certain, but I believe “Pre-Production” is a fancy Hollywood term for people emailing and texting back and forth about great ideas for a movie, then meeting in coffee shops and chatting about how great it would be to make said movie, before moving on to work on real movies that are actually being made.
#2 – Justice League / The Dark Knight Returns
DC Comics is sitting on a goldmine, but they have had some trouble translating the shiny stuff in their mine into coin of the realm. The Batman movies of late being the obvious exception, DC Comics has not enjoyed the great success of Marvel in translating their characters to the big screen. Superman was ground-breaking back in the seventies, and the first couple of Batman movies of the late eighties / early nineties paved the way for what was to come. And then there is Batman Begins, The Dark Knight (of course), and this summer’s Dark Knight Rises.
But taking the long view, that’s maybe six or seven hit movies over a thirty year span. Not horrible, but not that great. But compare that with Marvel’s run in just the last twelve years, and you can pick twice that number of successful movies based on their characters. The X-Men movies (at least two of them), the Spiderman trilogy (again, at least two), The Fantastic Four, X-Men: First Class, and the movies leading up to and including this summer’s The Avengers (Ang Lee’s Hulk and Iron Man 2 notwithstanding).
I’m not bashing DC here, don’t get me wrong. Their characters are iconic, to say the least. And maybe they don’t value movies as much as Marvel does, which is fine. There is certainly more money to be made in movies, but money isn’t everything; no movie is better than a bad movie, when the protection of a brand is essential to the company’s success.
But DC has such a wealth of great story that it’s hard to fathom that there hasn’t been more translation from the inked page to the lighted screen. Just imagine this movie trilogy, my friends…
The Justice League – A movie centering on the core of the League, Superman, Batman, Green Lantern, Wonder Woman, Aquaman, Green Arrow and the Flash (possibly also Hawkman and/or the Martian Manhunter, depending on the ability to introduce the movie-going public at large to these characters), coming together to form the group to thwart Prometheus along the lines of Justice League: A Cry for Justice, except using the central characters rather than a competing alliance / ideology, with internal group conflict as to how to deal with the situation as would be natural. Prometheus is murdering foreign superheroes, then planning to destroy cities of the League’s superheroes (maybe limit it to three key cities, rather than the sprawling destruction in the mag). After being defeated he negotiates his escape, proving he’s not bluffing by detonating one bomb as in the book. In this adaptation, Superman is the negotiator and Batman (along with Green Arrow) wanting to make him pay no matter what. End with the Green Arrow scene (no spoiler here), with the barest hint that Batman helped him (but didn’t necessarily know what he was going to do).
The Justice League: Legion of Doom – The League battles the formation of the Legion of Doom. The Legion is forming along the lines of the backstory from the Justice series in 2005-2006, with Brainiac (and Lex Luthor) fooling even his fellow baddies and planning to get the League to wipe out his ‘competitors’ of evil. But unlike in Justice, their motivations are to take over the American government (as depicted in Miller’s The Dark Knight Strikes Again). The League wins the apparent victory against the facade, but Brainiac and Lex succeed behind the scenes with their real master plan. At the very end, the League is disgraced and talks of disbanding. Superman is called away on an emergency he won’t discuss… (Lex has Kandor and is going to blackmail him, but don’t reveal that until the last movie in the trilogy).
The Justice League Returns – The movie everyone wants, Superman vs. Batman, pull out all of the stops. This movie would basically blend The Dark Knight Returns with a little bit of The Dark Knight Strikes Again, blending the emancipation of Batman’s fellow Leaguers a-la DKSA into the main storyline of DKR (yes, it might be sacrilegious, but this is Hollywood we’re talking about). The Justice League disbanded after their failure in The Legion of Doom, and Brainiac and Lex have taken over America and put a computer President in place. With Kandor held hostage, they have forced Superman to help capture or banish the other League members (similar to the backstory of DKSA and DKR both: “Diana returned to her people; Hal left for the stars…” Leave Shazam out, he makes things too complicated). This bit could be the prologue to the movie itself (before credits). Batman is the bitter retiree in DKR and follows that storyline back from retirement to defeat the Mutants gang and/or the return of Two-Face, then sets about freeing his fellow Leaguers (DKSA), which leads to the confrontation with Superman as the puppet of the Braniac/Lex regime (weak not from the DKR nuclear missile but from the faux ‘catastrophes’ that Brainiac/Lex cook up for him in DKSA; the asteroid, the volcano in Hawaii, etc.) along with Batman’s fellow Leaguers (similar to Green Arrow in DKR, but with Hal Jordan and Barry Allen also assisting as in DKSA). No Kara, though, and no Dick Grayson craziness, and take out all of the future media “super babes” hype and whatnots.
Ok, I’m done geeking out. And I realize that the fanboys would cry FOUL (and worse) and this kind of hacked together plot from what may be their favorite series(es). Me? I’m not a purist, I just like good story. Perhaps that’s why I seem to be one of the small minority who absolutely loved both the Watchmen comics and the spectacular movie equally.
Hollywood can ‘just’ make DKR and I’d be ecstatic.
I know there was (is?) a JL movie in the works, announced as being in “pre-production” (oh, boy) last year by Warner Bros., but couldn’t find anything recent on the subject. Anyone have any fairly recent scoop on where that one is at? Still in pre-production? Man, those guys drink a lot of coffee.
#1 – The Chronicles of Amber novels from Roger Zelazny
This would make a great movie trilogy, no question. The great thing about this story and why it would translate to the big screen is the beginning: the hero is a seemingly normal human being on planet Earth in the current day. He awakes in a mental institution, not knowing how he got there, but it’s apparent he’s being kept sedated and held against his will. He escapes but has amnesia (I know, it’s a tired plot device, but here it absolutely works). He finds out he has a sister, goes to her home to investigate, and finds some things that are… weird. He confronts her, and then meets more family. And things get a bit weirder.
As his journey progresses, the audience learns things as the protagonist does; bit at a time, little by little, slowly building up this incredible picture of the hero as a long-lost prince of a magical kingdom in another dimension. Sound like a book for young adults? Hang on to your britches, cause it’s anything but. Don’t let the terms “long-lost prince” and “magical kingdom” fool you. This is hardcore fantasy at its absolute finest.
Once the hero, Corwin, loses his amnesia, he finds that he is a talented swordsman, a gifted military leader, and a cunning strategist. He’s also an able sorcerer and in line for his absent father’s throne. However, his family is currently vying against each other in cabals and alliances for the crown, and there are as many of them as there are books in the Wheel of Time series.
It has the fantasy swordplay of Conan (the original), the magical flair of The Matrix (if you haven’t read the books, it’s hard to explain that reference, but believe me, it’s apropos), the political in-fighting of A Game of Thrones, the gritty war drama of Braveheart and Platoon (again, the reference works, trust me) and the narrative genius of the multiple Hugo and Nebula award-winning author, Zelazny.
Yeah, it’s that good. At least to me. That’s why it makes the top of my list of stories I’d love to see made into movies.
Come back tomorrow, and Jason McClain will give us his take on adaptations and being true to the source material.
It’s like the Canadian band Barenaked Ladies said in their hit song: It’s all been done before.
But of course it hasn’t.
We sometimes tell ourselves that when we run out of ideas. But just as much as there are always going to be millions more stories for writers to tell, there are stories out there already created that are waiting to reach a new audience. Stories we love, but stories that we’d really love to see transformed into another medium– onto the TV or silver screen. These are the film adaptations. And they are a key part of movies of any genre. The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences even has their own Oscar for adapted screenplay that often coincides with the Best Picture winner.
What are your favorite stories? Have they all been made into movies? Do you wish that any of them would be turned into a movie? Do you wish most of them hadn’t been made into movies? What stories would you like to see that have not yet been adapted to film?
You can adapt anything into a movie if you’re creative enough. The biggest source for adaptations are books. The result? Some are good (Jaws, Godfather, To Kill a Mockingbird, Jurassic Park) and some bad (like every live action film based on Dr. Seuss/Theodor Geisel, who must be turning in his grave at what happened to his franchise after his death), or even hopelessly bad (like The da Vinci Code, which should probably not have merited a novel in the first place). A painting by Dutch artist Johannes Vermeer inspired a novel and then a film adaptation—The Girl with a Pearl Earring. The movie Ever After takes a fairy tale and merges it with a painting of Leonardo da Vinci’s Head of Woman to create both a retelling and an alternate history of sorts, placing Leonardo himself in the middle of the fairy tale.
The Phantom of the Opera was turned from a theatrical musical into a movie (and even the reverse happens, as Sunset Boulevard went from film to musical). The video games Tron, Doom, Resident Evil, and Tomb Raider all have been adapted into movies (how about Pitfall?). Even the Parker Brothers games Clue and the Milton Bradley game Battleship have been adapted into film (wouldn’t it be great to try again with the characters in Clue?).
Wait long enough and even classic TV gets made into movies, like The Dukes of Hazzard, The Addams Family, The Brady Bunch, and the new Johnny Depp adaptation of Dark Shadows. Last week the BBC reported that Bob Dylan’s album Blood on the Tracks is currently being made into a movie (and the album itself was even inspired by the short stories of Anton Chekhov), and the story of the song Amazing Grace (with Ioan Gruffudd and Benedict Cumberbatch) hit theaters only a few years ago. Then there are adaptations of a writer’s angle on some famous or infamous figure in real life, like Schindler’s List—the biopic or historical adaptation is everywhere–but usually starts with the novel. And even newspaper articles can end up as the original source for an award winning film, like All the President’s Men. Certainly last but not least, comic books and graphic novels are the current rage, with movies adapted from Road to Perdition to Cowboys & Aliens to the soon to be released Avengers.
Source material for film adaptations is virtually unlimited.
We’ve asked our four borg.com writers not what the best adaptations are, but instead what are their picks for what should be the next adaptation from Hollywood. What are the top 5-10 books, comic books, video games, or characters, etc. you’d like to see adapted into a movie—that haven’t been adapted yet? We’ll start with Art Schmidt’s take on would-be adaptations tomorrow.
and 
and make them the soundtrack to a modern spaghetti Western, sort of like Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers with 
. A good 
had his own cartton then interview show, but how about an adaptation of the serious origin series by Joe Kelly? A big budget movie based on Jon Krakauer’s 
could be awesome (the TV version suffered a bit despite a good cast). The Russian story of 
was filmed more than half a century ago with music by Prokofiev, but it needs a good updating. We’ve seen four Tom Clancy novels about Jack Ryan, but the creepiest of the series, 
, has yet to be made.
where Fozzie the Bear offers Big Bird a ride to the west coast to break into movies, and Big Bird says no thanks, he’s trying to break into public television back in New York. Well, apparently they made that movie back in 1985 and I missed it, 
. You can’t know everything.
over and over. Ultimately we arrived at (the now late) Paul Newman as the ideal retired Batman, in the graphic novel another wealthy race car driver type. In real life Newman was very much the Bruce Wayne interpreted in Frank Miller’s four-issue series-turned required-reading—as suave guy, well-liked, a wealthy philanthropist. In a different universe Clint Eastwood would be great fun as a superhero coming out of retirement to have that last hoorah with the Batman cowl. Probably too late now. Of all the Batman stories, 
, you just have to ask DC Comics and the Hollywood machine: Why can’t someone just put it on the big screen?
.” Imagine Black Canary pulling up on her motorcycle. Imagine Green Arrow defending the kid robbing the slumlord. Imagine Green Arrow catching Speedy. Imagine Hal, Ollie and Dinah driving across America in their pick-up truck. And harpies. And encountering a religious cult. And more harpies.
(the first one), 
, and with Fantastic Four’s brilliant realization of Human Torch and The Thing, maybe my favorite heroes to screen so far. OK, they nailed it with Christopher Reeve’s 
and Michael Keaton and Jack Nicholson in 
. Hopefully with The Avengers, Marvel Comics sets a new bar that DC Comics will have to work toward with a multi-hero story, maybe even with the Justice League or Superfriends. Art’s recommended 
, which we have 
are too cool to pass up and I have no doubt represent a foreshadowing of the future of film only slightly touched on in the Ralph Fiennes film Strange Days. 
and 
would be great picks.
, which was not a sequel but an entirely new story, Asimov created the world inside a microscope that only he could envision. The book is like Dennis Quaid in Innerspace, but with a serious mission and tone. A group of scientists, such as you would find in the typical multi-disciplined problem solving team from a Michael Crichton novel, shrink themselves down to microscopic size to enter into the brain and try to diagnose the condition of a colleague, Dr. Pyotor Shapirov, the creator of the very technology that finally allows man to transport to such a miniscule size.
. A few years ago I discussed The Ring with Russell and he said it was a great effort to produce it and it became a sort of magnum opus for him. But even an adaptation of Russell’s adaptation would need streamlined for mainstream audiences—yet, it would be a great starting point. Predating that other famous fantasy ring series (the one by J.R.R. Tolkien) by decades, Wagner’s opera is epic in scope and length, taking four nights or 15 hours to perform the full opera. We already have a superb soundtrack from Wagner, but can someone make a feature-length, meaningful adaptation in the English language that conveys the energy and power of the original without all the nonlinear bits and pieces? The reward would be a giant vision of gods, heroes, mythical creatures and magic.
(maybe a classic PBS/BBC series or Hayao Miyazaki anime film would be fun) or her fantasy noir Thief Errant series on-screen. 
has already been performed superbly in a full-length 
