There are a lot of comic books outside of mainstream superheroes that could potentially make good movies.
Watchmen by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons V for Vendetta by Alan Moore and David Lloyd Ronin by Frank Miller
Colonel Sun by Kingsley Amis is the best James Bond book that hasn’t been used for one of the movies. Moonraker is a very good Bond book that shares only its title with the movie, so it could safely be adapted without conflict.
Some children’s books that, in the right hands*, could make good movies:
Holes by Louis Sachar Maniac Magee by Jerry Spinelli Lyddie by Katherine Patersen Esperanza Rising by Pam Munoz Ryan was the best children’s book of 2000, yet was ignored by all the major awards. The View From Saturday is E. L. Konigsburg’s best book, better even than From the Mixed Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankwiler.
*Like Tim Burton (James and the Giant Peach) or Danny Devito (Matilda), but not whoever was responsible for that awful adaptation of Harriet the Spy.
Mother Night, starring Nick Nolte was pretty good and captured the spirit of the novel; Breakfast of Champions was made into a movie starring Bruce Willis, it sucked mainly because the source novel is pretty much unfilmable; Harrison Burgeron was made into a made for cable movie I haven’t seen (I have a feeling it blew); Most infamously, Slapstick was made into a movie with a latter day Jerry Lewis- it blew and sucked.
I’d love to see Asimov’s “FOUNDATION” series turned into a movie…however, adapting such a long, complex story would be difficult. Hollywood would almost certainly screw it up! I can just imagine what Hari Seldon would look like-and, the metal-covered world of TRANTOR!
So many books don’t translate well into movies due to time contrainsts (Clan of the Cave Bear comes to mind.) The Green Mile and The Shawshank Redemption were excellent, but they were fairly short works (Green Mile was a serialized novel, Shawshank was a novelette) that turned into fairly long films.
I would like to see Outlander by Diana Gabaldon as a 6-8 hour miniseries, or The First Man of Rome by Colleen McCullogh, also as a 6-8 hour miniseries. The godawful butchering of Mists of Avalon by TNT should make it evident that miniseries based on novels should be shorter than six hours.
I’m pretty sure there was an Afterschool Special made of From the Mixed Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankwiler. I’m guessing that doesn’t count as a “film,” though.
I blame the awful adaptation of Harriet the Spy on Rosie O’Donnell. Yeah, it’s all her fault, that’s it.
Actually, though, my kids liked it.
I know several of his books have been made into Made-For-TV movies. Watchers, Sole Survivor and Intensity spring to mind off the top of my head. They are probably available on video. Watchers was really bad, didn’t follow the book at all.
‘Three Men In a Boat’ by Jerome K. Jerome.
‘Good As Gold’ by Joseph Heller.
‘The Gun Seller’ by Hugh Laurie.
I think there are plenty of non-fiction books which contain some great raw material that could be adapated for movies.
It would be strangely parasitic, but ‘Final Cut’ by Stephen Bach would make a wonderfully funny film. It’s about the making of ‘Heaven’s Gate’, the Michael Cimino movie which made such a loss it bankrupted an entire movie studio. A good adapater/screenwriter could make a terrific movie out of this raw material.
Another vote for The Foundation (first three books) but not as a movie but as a miniseries.
My favourite though would be “Tunnel in the sky” by Heinleim. They could make a blockbuster with it.
I assume you don’t count the ABC mini-series that aired in the early nineties as a movie then, do you? I saw the first couple parts of it when it re-aired on the sci-fi channel and it seemed good, but my memory is foggy and I really am bad when it comes to reviewing movies. But seeing as that was a five or six part mini-series, that is easily over 6 hours worth (each part was two hours.) A LOT would be cut to make a (at most) three-hour movie.
Anyways, I always thought that the Chronicles Trilogy by Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman would make an excellent screen trilogy. This, of course, depends on who Wizards of the Coast got to do it (since I do believe they own the rights.) It could turn out like the Dungeons and Dragons Movie (shudder)…but then again, it could also turn out to be a lot like Lord of the Rings, so who knows…
Jennie (aka The Abandoned) by Paul Gallico. A Fine and Private Place by Peter Beagle.
The Fafhrd and Grey Mouser stories by Fritz Leiber.
“Red Nails” by Robert E. Howard. A Free Man of Color or A Stranger at the Wedding by Barbara Hambly.
