Topic: What's left to be adapted?

Since CG began with T2 the early 90s and especially with LOTR, where basically anything the writer/director wants to realize can be done if you throw enough money and digital artistry at it, what are the great works of literature yet to be adapted?

Obviously DUNE needs a modern epic treatment, but what else?

What about Homer? Troy (Directors Cut) was a decent start, but it could have been a trilogy with The Odyssey starring Sean Bean as Ulysses and ending with Virgil's The Aeneid and the foundation of Rome.

Greek myths e.g. Jason & the Argonauts? Hercules was done last year, although all the 12 labours were quickly dealt with in the prologue. There's Ovid that could be mined and some plays such as Oedipus.

The Bible is slowly being given the modern epic CG treatment with Noah and Exodus and The Passion. What else? Jonah and the Whale? Book of Revelation?

Science Fiction: Asimov's Foundation series (too cerebral)? Robot series? Lensman? Rendezvous with Rama?
Fantasy: Belgariad? Majipoor? Dragonriders of Pern? Earth's Children? Saga of the Pliocene Exile by Julian May (& Galactic Mileu), Stephen Donaldson's Thomas Covenant series?

History: What about great events in history? Anson's 1740-44 voyage around the world. The French Revolution. Pizarro's conquering of the Incas (or Cortez and the Anztecs). The great Haitian Revolution slave revolt. Alexander the Great was too much to digest for one Oliver Stone movie, so needs to be redone at some stage. The great voyages of exploration (Polo, Magellan, Drake, Cook, Franklin, etc) would be interesting as tales of survival. Great wars? Great revolutions?

not long to go now...

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Re: What's left to be adapted?

HBO are currently adapting Foundation so that's a start smile

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Re: What's left to be adapted?

There is a lot out there. I agree with most of the list, though I usually lean towards science fiction adaptations.

Sci-fi: Dune definitely needs a treatment, though I think more of a LOTR style treatment would be appropriate.
Also, would not mind another retelling of Starship Troopers, with the powered armor.

Speaking of powered armor, I think that Halo should get a treatment of some kind too.

For fantasy, I have enjoy many of Brandon Sanderson's work, and think that any one of his series could work well. The Mistborn series could work the best, as it is far more character focused, though the world building could take a while.

Historical-isn't Hannibal supposed to be getting a treatment soon?

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Re: What's left to be adapted?

Can we ask for adaptations that don't suck? I enjoyed Battlefield Earth and think if someone reasonable got a hold of it, they'd chuck the correct half of the source material and we'd have a good political thriller on our hands.

I'd like to see a film adaptation of Diablo, in the vein of the novels - other stories in the world of Sanctuary. I don't know how well it'd work but the idea may have merit.

Allan Steele's Coyote trilogy is a television series waiting to happen, AMC or HBO. Especially the first book/season wouldn't need a ton of sci-fi production value, as most of it takes place in a virgin planet's wilderness. CG animals (particularly the boids) are a must, but it's not a constant thing.

Boter, formerly of TF.N as Boter and DarthArjuna. I like making movies and playing games, in one order or another.

Re: What's left to be adapted?

This is assuming best-case scenario, because let's be honest, there are a thousand more ways to do these wrong than do them right:

For Sci-Fi: Iain M. Banks books set in the 'The Culture' universe would be interesting.

History/real events: if they ever make the documents openly available, you could make an amazing, say, 6-part series on the 90s RAMPART scandal (absurdly corrupt L.A. cops, inspiration for The Shield).

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Re: What's left to be adapted?

I look forward to Rendezvous with Rama, which I think is in production with Morgan Freeman involved. And surely there's a Pern series in our future, not that I'm terribly excited about that.

I'd like more sword-and-sorcery stuff. There's plenty of those Robert Asprin books (Thieves' World and MYTH Inc) and of course Elric. I just watched Desolation of Smaug and liked it quite a bit more than Hobbit, and didn't remember hardly anything from the books. So I could watch a "Silmarillion" adaptation that borrowed little from the book. Who would know? Who has finished it apart from Christopher Lee and Stephen Colbert?

I'd love to see another go at Master & Commander, this time starting out properly with Aubrey and Maturin meeting, then getting a better ship, then getting involved in spying and dueling and whatnot. (Instead of squashing three middle books into one movie.)

Warning: I'm probably rewriting this post as you read it.

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Re: What's left to be adapted?

And I'll throw in the Hardy Boys. The books are not great. They were written in the 1920s and updated by hacks in the 1950s. I rejected them in favor of Alfred Hitchcock's Three Investigators. But the Hardy Boys property has the name recognition and could be a fun series of period mystery adventures, with the right casting.

Warning: I'm probably rewriting this post as you read it.

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Re: What's left to be adapted?

Zarban wrote:

I look forward to Rendezvous with Rama, which I think is in production with Morgan Freeman involved.

I did not know that and am now intrigued.

Last edited by Boter (2015-02-16 21:12:59)

Boter, formerly of TF.N as Boter and DarthArjuna. I like making movies and playing games, in one order or another.

Re: What's left to be adapted?

Rendezvous with Rama is dead in the water by all accounts. They were trying to make it with Fincher for years and couldn't get it off the ground. Maybe post-Interstellar doing well and if Foundations is a hit on HBO it could happen one day.

A lot of these are more likely to end up as premium cable adaptations, I really think that's going to be the next big wave we see. Game of Thrones has shown epic budget fantasy can be done on TV, Westworld is coming this year and has a great chance of being amazing, Foundations will be next. If those work, it wouldn't shock me to see HBO doing a massive-scale adaptation of Dune in a couple years.

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Re: What's left to be adapted?

Most of what I'd like to see adapted could have been adapted at any point. You could easily do The Belgariad on a 1980's BBC budget, for example. It would look cheap, but it would work. If nothing else it would be forced to focus on the characters.

What I'd like to see are more historical/war films. The kind they stopped making in the 70's. A remake of Midway, for example. Or just a good American Revolution film. Actually, what I'd love to see is a film about Taffy 3's heroics in the Battle of Leyte Gulf. The bulk of the Japanese surface fleet, including the Yamato, was driven off by 6 escort carriers and 7 destroyers and escorts. The Japanese assumed they were facing the main US fleet, acting accordingly, and with suicidal torpedo runs the US managed to send them fleeing.

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Re: What's left to be adapted?

On that front, I still dream of someone making a mega-budget movie about the Battle of Kursk, the largest armored tank battle in history. 3 million soldiers, 8000 tanks, 35000 artillery guns, and 5000 airplanes. Pure madness.

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Re: What's left to be adapted?

avatar wrote:

The Bible is slowly being given the modern epic CG treatment with Noah and Exodus and The Passion. What else? Jonah and the Whale? Book of Revelation?

If you adapted Revelation as it is described (as opposed to how it should be interpreted) it would be one hell of an acid trip.  Multi-headed dragons, beasts, and all other manner of weird creatures.  Billions of people dying and lots of other apocalyptic madness.  It would be very strange i think.

As for other bible stories, the prophet Ezekiel (i think?) has a pretty epic story with huge battle victories etc.

As for books:

Virtual Reality is really starting to become mature now.  Perhaps someone would try to adapt Snow Crash, or Neromancer.  I know that the 2010 book Ready Player One is being adapted as a movie and that's about virtual reality (ridiculously awesome book BTW).  I also hear that's they're doing another adaption of Ben-Hur. 

I would also love love love to see another Stephen Hunter adaption.  Shooter was an adaption of Hunter's first book Point of Impact.  I really think they should adapt I, Sniper which is a later book in the same series.

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Re: What's left to be adapted?

Hastings wrote:
avatar wrote:

The Bible is slowly being given the modern epic CG treatment with Noah and Exodus and The Passion. What else? Jonah and the Whale? Book of Revelation?

If you adapted Revelation as it is described (as opposed to how it should be interpreted) it would be one hell of an acid trip.  Multi-headed dragons, beasts, and all other manner of weird creatures.  Billions of people dying and lots of other apocalyptic madness.  It would be very strange i think.

Bible scholar Richard Price once wrote that he thought TOHO should do a Revelations movie, as their experience with Godzilla would come in handy. Plus, given how the Japanese usually interpret Christian theology, few in the US would know it had anything to do with their faith smile

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Re: What's left to be adapted?

George Roy Hill did a noble but unsatisfying adaptation of Slaughterhouse Five in the 70s. There's that and a couple other Vonnegut works I'd like to see done by someone competent. (There's a KV doc that's been in the works forever and is on the way as well.)

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Re: What's left to be adapted?

Hastings wrote:

Virtual Reality is really starting to become mature now.  Perhaps someone would try to adapt Snow Crash, or Neromancer.

I know that Snow Crash was in talks for a while. Haven't heard anything on it lately so that may have fallen through, though.

Boter, formerly of TF.N as Boter and DarthArjuna. I like making movies and playing games, in one order or another.

Re: What's left to be adapted?

Bump for funsies.

Teague Chrystie

I have a tendency to fix your typos.

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Re: What's left to be adapted?

Redwall. PG-13. This is a great story with badass visual potential. Especially with the current animal vfx. The main villain is described as a huge rat with scars, one eye, a stag-beetle-horn helmet, batwing cloak, and a tail long enough to use as a whip with a poisonous barb attached to the tip.

Witness me!

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Re: What's left to be adapted?

Looks like Snowcrash is going to be an Amazon series produced by Attack The Block's / The Adam and Joe Show's Joe Cornish.

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Re: What's left to be adapted?

I think the obvious one for the last few years (post Game of Thrones) was Roger Zelazny's Chronicles of Amber series.  I googled it a couple of weeks ago thinking "Geez, how can nobody have ever even tried to make this?" and saw an announcement from more than a year ago that the Walking Dead guy was doing it for TV, but nary a peep since then.

For the next hour, everything in this post is strictly based on the available facts.

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Re: What's left to be adapted?

Deus Ex. A lot of potential there (although, as Ghost In The Shell proved, it's possible to totally screw these things up; hopefully Blade Runner 2049 will explore some of this territory better).

But the more important question is: who should do it? Existing video game movies leave much to be desired (even Duncan Jones blew his shot).

So honor the valiant who die 'neath your sword
But pity the warrior who slays all his foes...

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Re: What's left to be adapted?

Faldor wrote:

Looks like Snowcrash is going to be an Amazon series produced by Attack The Block's / The Adam and Joe Show's Joe Cornish.

https://media.giphy.com/media/1009wQ2WcsEmBO/giphy.gif

Teague Chrystie

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Re: What's left to be adapted?

I desperately need to see Philip K. Dick's Ubik adapted the way he intended.

To set up why it would be so cool without spoiling too much: in the book's first act, a group of psychic "precogs" who work for the Runciter Corporation are caught in a bomb blast that was set up by a rival company. Initially, it appears that Runciter, their boss, died while everyone else made it out alive. But then Runciter's face starts showing up on coins, strange messages start appearing, and reality starts coming unglued. The precogs start to realize: Runciter is in fact the only one left alive, and they were all killed in the bomb blast.

You're familiar with Plato's idea of forms, right? He theorized that for every imperfect object or concept that exists in physical form, there is a perfect, immaterial Ideal somewhere off in the heavens. For instance, there's one perfect, ideal Chair from which all earthly chairs take their form; one perfect ideal of Justice from which earthly justice flows; a perfect Fruit from which all our imperfect fruit comes, etc.

Well, as death starts to catch up with the precogs, the forms of their world start reverting around them. Cars become horses and buggies. Newspapers begin to be printed in Old English. Televisions go from color to black and white, then become radios, etc. Only a mysterious substance called Ubik, which comes in a spray can, can undo this reversion, though why and how are unknown.

Dick's vision for the film was that, as reality reverts, the movie itself begins to degenerate. The film stock gets cheaper and cheaper, the sound starts to distort, the colors jerk into black and white. Eventually, we would be watching a silent film straight from the 20s, until even that starts to revert and the projector begins to eat the movie.

It's such a fucking cool idea for a cinematic translation of the novel, and with how many movies have been made from Dick's books I'm honestly baffled that no one has tried it yet.

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Re: What's left to be adapted?

I'd be interested in that. I remember A Scanner Darkly playing around with the craft of film, I could see it being done here.

Frankly my favorite part of the film would probably be when it's using high-quality film stock but not overly graded.

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Boter, formerly of TF.N as Boter and DarthArjuna. I like making movies and playing games, in one order or another.

Re: What's left to be adapted?

Distracted thought: "there must be better A/B demonstrations of crappy grading."

Teague Chrystie

I have a tendency to fix your typos.

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Re: What's left to be adapted?

A pretty good demonstration is the terrible color grading in the Special Editions. Star Wars in particular turns its skin tones magenta. (Comparison images within spoiler.)

SPOILER Show
http://fd.noneinc.com/savestarwarscom/savestarwars.com/images/sefail/greenfalconcomparison.jpg
https://i.ytimg.com/vi/Wdaw_CMj96U/maxresdefault.jpg
http://oi60.tinypic.com/b5isdw.jpg
http://oi62.tinypic.com/5o7ck7.jpg

Last edited by Abbie (2017-10-04 18:33:08)

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