Genius has always been rare, and is thus all the more precious.
Why is the question that should be asked. That was a terrible book, one of very few that I threw away before finishing.
I think a lot of people considered LA Confidential to be unfilmable because of it’s massive cast of main characters & labyrinthine plot, and yet they ended up creating one of the best movies of the 1990s.
Quote: “the Scourge? A being made of wheels, eyes, and fire, that is constantly changing? What about the Firmament, and the Gyre? Unfilmable, I say.” (Sorry, not sure how to do quotes yet.)
When I read this description (not having read the book it came from) I immediately thought “that sounds like something Guillermo del Toro would have hanging around the house, just for fun”.
Personally, I think that Johnathan Strange and Mr. Norrell could be made into a movie, though I could see them cutting out a lot of Strange’s time in the military. The multiple perspective problem could be solved simply by having the world appear as it does for whoever has the point of view–whoever is talking, even. I wish they weren’t making it into a movie so soon, though. I loved the book, even read it twice for all its length, but I think that it’s too new to have enough people care enough about it to do a really good adaptation of it, which I think it deserves.
Books I consider unfilmable? Um…not many…I’ll just throw Sabriel out there for fun, not for any technical reasons, but because they would put the main character in a metal bra, no doubt, and that would be unforgivable.
Apparently there was some consternation from the producers of the first BBC tv series version about the fact that so much expense had to go into portraying Zaphod (his extra head supposedly cost more than the actor) because of what in the radio series was a briefly mentioned one off gag that took advantage of the medium of radio.
Any Thursday Next novel, by Jasper Fforde. I’ve heard that there is going to be a movie, and I can’t even IMAGINE!
Ender’s Game would be a rather difficult movie to make - mostly because there’s no easy way to film the shower fight scene and no easy way to cut it out of the script. And considering how many times Orson Scott Card has tried to write a viable script, it may never be filmed.
The Call of Cthulhu has been filmed as a 1920s Period Silent Film, and it’s very, very good.
Shower fight’s not a problem, they could easily set up camera angles and use steam to block all that little boy nudity everyone’s so timid about. :rolleyes: The really difficult part would be capturing Ender’s internal monologue – so much of the story takes place inside his head, and that’s impossible to capture on film. (Not to mention casting several different actors for all the children’s roles as they age from 6 to 12, which is why the screenplay condensed the story’s time frame down to a single year.) Unfortunately, Orson Scott Card has pissed off nearly everyone in Hollywood, so it’s very unlikely the movie will ever get made. 
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time would be a challenging adaptation, since the story’s told from the POV of an autistic teenager. Steven Kloves has optioned the book, but so far, there’s little progress on an actual movie being made…