Books: Books, that are screaming for cinematic adaptation

[alko]

Remembrance of Earth's Past trilogy:
The Three-Body Problem
The Dark Forest
Death's End

Hard Sci-Fi. There should be some Chinese 3-D movie. But it should be made into A+ serie. Or at least 3 blockbuster movies.

Click to read more...

 

[Beau Knows]

There were rumours for years about Hyperion getting adapted into a tv show, but nothing came of it. I don't know how anyone other than maybe HBO could pull it off, it'd be amazing if they did though.

Dark Matter by Blake Crouch almost felt like it was written for the purpose of being turned into a movie, I just checked and a movie does appear to be in development.

 

[Acadmus]

The entire depth of fictional history of the BattleTech universe is desperately waiting for adaptation, particularly the Warrior trilogy by Michael Stackpole (Warrior: En Garde, Warrior: Riposte, Warrior: Coupé). The universe the multitude of authors that wrote novels and source material for this classic 80s tabletop miniature game is so rich with Machiavellian intrigue that it could put Game of Thrones to shame, and that one trilogy sets the tone brilliantly.

To set the stage for people, the story begins with the exploration and colonization of space allowed by development of FTL travel. Eventually colonies are tied together under feudal house (after the invention of the walking tank known as the BattleMech) that control regions of space and the houses were tied together under another hereditary hierarchy called the Star League...the Star League was rent asunder by a betrayer named Stefan Amaris, referred to usually as Stefan the Usurper, whose name goes down in history with Judas and Benedict Arnold. The Usurper is overthrown by the general of the Star League armies, Alexander Kerensky, but as Amaris killed the family that led the Star League a power vacuum is left for the seat of First Lord, and the five major houses begin to fight for the right to resume the mantle. Kerensky leads an exile of mankind's best and brightest and their families into unknown space, which leads to a decay of scientific knowledge amongst those left behind as they continue to war for dominance, each house dealing with the intrigues of "lesser houses" that populate them each seeking control of their government. And the main series of stories take place 300 years after Kerensky leaves. War, romance, sex, intrigue within intrigue, assassinations, underhanded schemes...it's full of everything you could want in great TV. Meanwhile various stories could likewise make great films.

 

[Tawnos]

There were rumours for years about Hyperion getting adapted into a tv show, but nothing came of it. I don't know how anyone other than maybe HBO could pull it off, it'd be amazing if they did though.

Dark Matter by Blake Crouch almost felt like it was written for the purpose of being turned into a movie, I just checked and a movie does appear to be in development.

Hyperion would be great. So would Ilium, which would be really interesting to watch on TV.

I would say Dragonriders of Pern could be adapted pretty well to fit modern movies or TV. Of course, I would love to see any of Dragonlance, Forgotten Realms (Drizzt in particular), Death's Gate, Malazan, Fire of Heaven, or Broken Sky done.

And I think Robert Charles Wilson's Spin trilogy would make for a few really great slow burn Sci-Fi movies.

 

[Pranzo Oltranzista]

Well, I'm still waiting for a Rosy Crucifixion adaptation (preferably as a trilogy). An aging Linklater would be the perfect director to do it, would he find the balls to take on the crunchier stuff (I'm sure he'd do it with style and grace).

 

[Spring in Fialta]

Blood Meridian. McCarthty's open to it.

 

[Tawnos]

By the way, Foundation is supposed to be going to TV via Apple and Ringworld via Amazon. We'll see if those ever come to reality.

 

[tacogeoff]

Red Rising series by Pierce Brown.

Sounds like it may be a no go though. would personally prefer a series of movies to a tv series.

“With the Red Rising series, I realized we were truncating so much stuff when we were doing the movie adaptation. I did the first two drafts for Universal Studios. And I noticed so many characters that I loved, that were close to me and close to the readers only had two lines. So, it felt like the natural progression to take it to television, so we’re setting that up right now.”

 

[Osprey]

I was thinking that The Chronicles of Prydain book series could make for a good film series and just stumbled upon this paragraph on Wikipedia:

On March 17, 2016, Variety confirmed that Walt Disney Pictures had re-acquired the film rights to The Chronicles of Prydain, with the intention to adapt the book series into an epic motion picture series, more attuned to Lloyd Alexander's high fantasy world. The project is currently in early development at the Walt Disney Studios with no director, producer, or screenwriter attached yet.

Like The Chronicles of Narnia, which Disney produced film adaptations for, The Chronicles of Prydain is a children's fantasy book series. It centers on a lowly teenage pig farmer who dreams of being a hero and goes on adventures and battles evil forces with the help of several companions. The only adaptation that I'm aware of is Disney's 1985 animated film The Black Cauldron (taken from the name of the second book in the series), which was a flop (though one of my favorites as a kid) and not much like the books. It's interesting that Disney is willing to re-visit the series that they made a flop from, but I suppose that a lot has changed in over 30 years, it wasn't the material's fault and, maybe, there's a little guilt that they wasted a good book series the first time around. I hope that Disney goes ahead with it.

 

[KallioWeHardlyKnewYe]

Blood Meridian. McCarthty's open to it.

Man, this is a tough one. I know the idea has been floating around for decades. It's hard for me to envision it on the screen (not that it can't be done).

I'll use this as an opportunity though to plug the pretty solid Godless miniseries on Netflix from a few years back. Has a lot I like but one of those things is a very distinct Blood Meridian vibe that runs through part of it. Writer Scott Frank knows his stuff. I would find it hard to believe that Blood Meridian wasn't one of the direct influences on the series.

 

[Spring in Fialta]

Man, this is a tough one. I know the idea has been floating around for decades. It's hard for me to envision it on the screen (not that it can't be done).

I'll use this as an opportunity though to plug the pretty solid Godless miniseries on Netflix from a few years back. Has a lot I like but one of those things is a very distinct Blood Meridian vibe that runs through part of it. Writer Scott Frank knows his stuff. I would find it hard to believe that Blood Meridian wasn't one of the direct influences on the series.

I don't see why it can't be adapted. It would probably be rated X, but there's nothing in the narrative that couldn't be filmed and the imagery could give way to some highly rewarding visuals with the right technical abilities. I don't think any run-of-the-mill director could pull it off, and with total creative control, I'd probably avoid hiring any famous actors (in a fantasy life, the actor portraying The Judge would be some sort of transcendant actor who's identity would be hidden and he couldn't play another role for the rest of his life. He'd also have never played in a film before. Blood Meridian would be his only credit ). I'd think you'd probably also need some serious dough to pull it off right. But story/theme wise, I don't see why it can't be done. James Franco shot some footage, but it f***ing sucked. He'd be one of the last ones I'd trust with this.

 

[RandV]

Hyperion would be great. So would Ilium, which would be really interesting to watch on TV.

I would say Dragonriders of Pern could be adapted pretty well to fit modern movies or TV. Of course, I would love to see any of Dragonlance, Forgotten Realms (Drizzt in particular), Death's Gate, Malazan, Fire of Heaven, or Broken Sky done.

And I think Robert Charles Wilson's Spin trilogy would make for a few really great slow burn Sci-Fi movies.

I really enjoyed the books series but I always though the Malazan series would be worst of the good to adapt.

• It's high fantasy with huge clashing armies so would be ridiculously expensive.
  
• In the 10 book series (which I own in paperback) where the first book starts at a reasonable size each subsequent book gets a bit larger - literally. So you start book 1 at about 500 paperback pages and end book 10 at about 1200.
• Book 2 is not the same cast of characters or location as book 1, neither is book 3. The series is really 3 loosely related trilogies that all converge in a final 10th book.
  
• Your standard audience what have a hell of a time following along. The author Eriksson doesn't use any literary devices to ease the reader into the series, he just throws you right in cold turkey in a mid-campaign story with an already established group of characters. The top complaint against the series is that it's confusing.

The best thing it does have going for it is each book is a contained entity with an underlying theme of "convergence" where all the separate threads in the book combine at the end into one big finale. While each book does gets bigger each from 1-10 follows this strict format, so there's no mid-story mess where the author loses control of the plot/characters/etc.

 

[Eisen]

Remembrance of Earth's Past trilogy:
The Three-Body Problem
The Dark Forest
Death's End

Hard Sci-Fi. There should be some Chinese 3-D movie. But it should be made into A+ serie. Or at least 3 blockbuster movies.

Postponed indefinitely unfortunately. I was waiting for the release since I finishef the book. Best sci fi I read in ages.
By the way, Wandering Earth was not horrible but it had little to do with the short story by Liu.

 

[Tawnos]

I really enjoyed the books series but I always though the Malazan series would be worst of the good to adapt.

• It's high fantasy with huge clashing armies so would be ridiculously expensive.
  
• In the 10 book series (which I own in paperback) where the first book starts at a reasonable size each subsequent book gets a bit larger - literally. So you start book 1 at about 500 paperback pages and end book 10 at about 1200.
• Book 2 is not the same cast of characters or location as book 1, neither is book 3. The series is really 3 loosely related trilogies that all converge in a final 10th book.
  
• Your standard audience what have a hell of a time following along. The author Eriksson doesn't use any literary devices to ease the reader into the series, he just throws you right in cold turkey in a mid-campaign story with an already established group of characters. The top complaint against the series is that it's confusing.

The best thing it does have going for it is each book is a contained entity with an underlying theme of "convergence" where all the separate threads in the book combine at the end into one big finale. While each book does gets bigger each from 1-10 follows this strict format, so there's no mid-story mess where the author loses control of the plot/characters/etc.

I wouldn't think that it'd have to be married to the plot structure of the books, but I understand the concern.

Just as an example... in The Magicians, a good part of what happens in the 2nd book happens simultaneously with the events of the 1st book. In the TV show, those simultaneous plot lines are shown linearly, jumping between them until they more or less merge.

It WOULD have to be restructured, whereas any of the others would not. Although the early books in Death Gate really only follow two characters (and one of those two doesn't show up in the 2nd book), though everyone makes appearances in the later ones.

My preference would be to make something around Dragonlance... but as one of the McCaffereys put it: despite GoT, Hollywood as a really awful track record with dragons.

 

[RandV]

Anyways my pick would be Brandon Sanderson's Mistborn trilogy as a movie trilogy. Sanderson's the top 'young' fantasy author now and his property has been picked up by some big Chinese company, but I'm really worried that they're talking about starting with his big epic Stormlight Archives series already when only 3/10 books (and each one being a good 1200) have been completed. Now this is my absolute favourite fantasy series even ahead of a Game of Thrones, but it's just not the place you should start.

That place rather would be the Mistborn Trilogy, wherein Sanderson as a relatively unknown author with only one published book to his name rather than start on the big epic series he'd always dreamed of (Stormlight Archives) and be hindered by editors/publishers because he wasn't a recognized name, he decided to earn that name first with a modestly size contained trilogy - which is exactly why they'd adapt well to the big screen.

 

[brokeu91]

Red Rising series by Pierce Brown.

Sounds like it may be a no go though. would personally prefer a series of movies to a tv series.

“With the Red Rising series, I realized we were truncating so much stuff when we were doing the movie adaptation. I did the first two drafts for Universal Studios. And I noticed so many characters that I loved, that were close to me and close to the readers only had two lines. So, it felt like the natural progression to take it to television, so we’re setting that up right now.”

You beat me to it. That’s exactly what I was going to suggest

 

[expatriatedtexan]

While I selfishly want to see Isaac Asimov's magnum opus Foundation novels made into a seriers, there just aren't many people I think could handle the depth and breadth of it.

That being said, The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant by Stephen Donaldson is ripe for HBO to pick up and turn into their next GOT mega-hit.

 

[Jumptheshark]

Stephen king

eyes of the dragon

 

[End of Line]

 

[KallioWeHardlyKnewYe]

View attachment 246793

In a similar vein, Ben McIntyre's Agent Zigzag is stellar. Kinda shocked it hasn't been a movie yet.

 

[sr edler]

I think the guy who did the Around the World music video for years tried to adapt Ubik to the big screen, the Philip K. Dick book, without ever pulling it off.

 

[RobBrown4PM]

Remembrance of Earth's Past trilogy:
The Three-Body Problem
The Dark Forest
Death's End

Hard Sci-Fi. There should be some Chinese 3-D movie. But it should be made into A+ serie. Or at least 3 blockbuster movies.

Absolutely! I just finished Dark Forest and holy shit what a ride. I guess the Chinese have already tried to do a TBP movie but it failed spectacularly and they nixed it before it ever hit post production. I guess you could say they put it in hibernation

The Wandering Earth film, another Liu Cixin novel, absolutley obliterated the Chinese box office, but I think the story is light years behind RoEP in terms of complexity, scale, themes and litterally everything else. When I first read TBP I had to put it down for a couple of months about a quarter of the way through because of how esoteric the story is. When I finally finished it, it quickly became my second favorite series behind the Expanse novels.

I don't know if there is someone out there that can actually do a film adaptation right. There's a couple of NA directors that might be able to, but I have a feeling a ton of themes ripped from Chinese culture and tradition would be told wrong or sharpied completely out, but I don't think the Chinese would even allow a NA company/team access to it. Amazon tried to buy the film/series rights to it but the Chinese said hell no.

 

[End of Line]

In a similar vein, Ben McIntyre's Agent Zigzag is stellar. Kinda shocked it hasn't been a movie yet.

Donovan’s story is pretty incredible. I’d have Nolan direct it as he seems to have a pretty good grasp about espionage.

 

[KallioWeHardlyKnewYe]

I feel like I said this before, but James Elroy’s Underworld USA trilogy would make for a fantastic limited series but man it’s some heavy and nasty stuff. Another one that I have a hard time imagining it could be adapted accurately.

 

[Ol' Jase]

Any of the Incarnations of Immorality series by Piers Anthony, particularly On A Pale Horse.