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What Books Should Be Made Into Movies?
At the suggestion of @robtgilsdorf I am moving this from the Ricochet Film Society group to the main feed to see if more people are interested.
I was reading a post about the best western films since 2000 and it got me to thinking, as I was writing my response promoting Elmer Kelton, that there are a ton of great books that need to be made into amazing movies.
For example, it would be amazing if Robert Heinlein’s Starship Troopers was made into a movie that actually bore a passing resemblance to his work. I would love to see The Moon is a Harsh Mistress as a movie as well. I heard it was a project that would be called Uprising, Brian Singer was associated with it, and I am not sure how I feel about that.
I would love to see The Dragonriders of Pern made into a film. I doubt that it would survive contact with Hollywood though and the perceived misogyny would make them want to change it entirely. I doubt they could stomach the all-male dragonrider corps, though they might very much like the homosexual nature of the draconic matings that ensues.
I would also like to see John Ringo’s Legacy of the Aldenata books made into a series of films, at least the first four would be awesome.
What are your thoughts?
Published in Entertainment
I want to run the Reign of Winter path, French Zombies in Russia in WWI…whats not to love.
Wrath of The Righteous would make a good animated series, not as sure about live action, but loved the story. I also liked the story in Council of Thieves.
Surface Tension is a great short story and would be a cool twist ending when the protagonists find out they are genetically engineered and super small.
If you enjoy audio dramas (as I do) 18 episodes were made. Looks like the final six were the Crimson Throne storyline. I have all of these, actually, but I’ve only listened to the first three episodes so far.
https://www.bigfinish.com/ranges/v/pathfinder
I would also nominate anything by Desmond Bagley.
Some of his stories were made into movies, some not so good.
My favorite Bagley novel, The Golden Keel, has never been filmed.
One could do the Bob verse as well.
I’m afraid The Matrix is as close as we’ll get . . .
This:
That’s another of my dad’s favorite stories.
Of course, a movie version of “When Worlds Collide” has already been made, but I would like to see maybe a remake of that, along with the sequel “After Worlds Collide.”
Another good possibility from Philip Wylie would be “The End Of The Dream.”
The best part is that it is unabridged. You don’t have to worry about a director’s cut coming out later.
That’s another story that can be an entertaining read – or a “fun romp” in the case of a movie – but doesn’t hold up to any closer inspection. It simply would not be possible to ship enough people to Venus to make a difference to world population. At present, you would have to ship out 83 million people per year – almost a quarter-million per DAY – just to stay even.
One Minute After, about the aftermath of an EMP attack.
but stick with the first novel in the series, not the third where it turns into a government conspiracy.
Snow Crash and The Diamond Age, both by Neal Stephenson, could be made with today’s technology
Also, The Illuminatus! Trilogy of books could make for some weird entertainment.
Brad Thor’s novels – It would make a great series
Is he still a ridiculous NeverTrumper, or did he wise up?
This book would make a great TV Series
Tinseltown: Murder, Morphine, and Madness at the Dawn of Hollywood by William J. Mann | Goodreads
Lots of interesting characters very interesting time
Only if it is an animated comedy.
Stephen Kind wrote an essay on horror that categorized perhaps seven kinds, one of which had to do with dread, and that is what Lovecraft excels in.
And what movie audiences aren’t much into.
Also, Lovecraft’s stuff can easily tip over into camp, and low-budget productions have a hard time avoiding that no matter how much latex they throw at something.
Of note: I didn’t like the LotR movie balrog. It was too ‘formed’ for what is, at root, an angelic (ex-) being. Which is a matter of taste of course. Lovecraft’s monsters are supposed to be mind-breaking, and that is a CGI challenge that would be both hard to meet, and easy to duplicate in lesser films afterwards.
How about An Inconvenient Truth done as a comedy?
Isn’t it?
Musical comedy.
Hockey sticks dancing to “Hide the Decline.”
10 more songs and we have a musical!
Disco version of whatever music An Inconvenient Truth has?
Wikipedia quotes Dave Langford: “a completely unnecessary book.” Pohl might have responded that it was necessary to the Pohl family budget.
After America by Mark Steyn …
This is a non fiction book that describes the events of a US Dollar collapse. I would like to have the events outlined in the book used to construct a world for fictional characters from a major city (say NYC) to struggle against as the city, state and systems collapse around them….
Perhaps after each episode there could be a round table discussion about the events of the episode with Mark Steyn, Doug Casey, Peter Schiff and others who’ll talk it over… I wouldnt want this to discussion to be political – there is plenty of blame to go around – just a discussion of the events of each episode and how it may play out in real life…
I am thinking this could be a modern short series with 10 1 hour episodes in a season – plus an hour for the after episode discussion. (I envision a format like had developed for Walking Dead and Breaking Bad) Just a 1/2 hour is too short to have any real interesting conversation on TV – or perhaps this could be done as a podcast that is released after each episode.
Apocalyptic fiction usually starts after the disaster – there often isnt examination of the disaster as it unfolds – it also helps that this would be largely a financial disaster and plays out over weeks or months.
It could be something really different for TV…
I suspect you’d have a problem with people not believing things could ever get as bad as portrayed.
I feel that you have to hurry this series into production – viewers could just look out the window and see it unfold for free.
The screenplay is available, however:
https://montycasinos.com/montypython/scripts/icelandic.php.html
Caryn found it on dailymotion.