Well, there’s a pretty good text biography of him available, not sure how a film adaptation would work though. If you’re interested it’s called House of Leaves.
I personally want to see a King Kull (huh? 1997? Nothing about him was produced that year) and a Bran Mak Morn film done well. I think there’s also another Conan movie in production and I hope they do this one a little closer to Howard’s Conan. It’s not that Arnie wasn’t great and all but the book Conan is a little more agile and cunning (also, Mamoths and pirates!).
A Flashman movie would be great- I know they made one in the '70s starring Malcolm McDowell as Flashman, but it’s not available on DVD or VHS and appears to have basically vanished off the face of the Earth. That and it had very little to do with the Flashman concept, apparently being more like a Carry On film than a historical docu-comedy the way the books are.
I’ve seen it. It’s not totally awful, but it isn’t really Flashman as we know and love him, more a kind of historical slapstick from one of the weaker, more stand-alone novels, where Flashy ain’t busy shirking from Empire-building, but dabbling in European politics: it sticks fairly closely to the book, but plays it strictly for laughs. Malcolm McDowell usually gives great villain, but Flashy he ain’t, and he’s wasted in the movie: he’s just a comic trousers-down lecher stumbling in panic from one bed to another in an early 70’s sex farce.
Given the current political and military situation in Afgnanistan a film of the original Flashman is probably currently - if ever - an impossibility, but by God if it isn’t necessary: somewhere the shade of Flashy is puffing on a cheroot and leering sardonically down at us
There are 2 Stephen King novels I would love to see made into movies, IF they were done well (And judging by the rest of his movies, that’s a mighty big if…)
“Gerald’s Game” creeped me right the hell out and could be a great phychological thriller, with plenty of gore for the horror fan. And the much over-looked “The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon” is one of my all time favorite books, very, very creepy, and something everyone could identify with, being lost in the woods.
… but also kind of sad and frustrating. And show that Thomas Edison, someone American schoolchildren grow up thinking of as a hero, was a major jerk.
My choice would be Glenn Hammond Curtiss. Being repeatedly sued into bankruptcy by the Wright Brothers who thought they had a patent on the airplane, and how none of their inventions are in the modern plane, while virtually all of Curtiss’s are. There is even an amazing scene for the trailer of Curtiss’s flight down the Hudson River from Albany to New York City, landing on Vanderbildt’s (?) estate in Harlem, then taking off again to fly the length of Manhattan, circling the Statue of Liberty and landing in Battery Park.
I’d like to see Holly Black’s **Modern Faerie Tales **trilogy (Tithe, Valiant, Ironside) translated into films. The stories aren’t as good as Emma Bull’s War For The Oaks, but they’re probably the best YA urban fantasy out there. Need by Carrie Jones is the only other thing that comes close.
I’d heard years ago that Tom Cruise bought the rights to Erik Larson’s The Devil in the White City, but then nothing happened. It’s a fascinating non-fiction book about a serial killer stalking the 1893 World’s Fair in Chicago, and would probably make one hell of a good movie.
Also, I’d like to see Nathaniel Philbrick’s In the Heart of the Sea adapted for the big screen. It’s a harrowing true story about a whaling ship attacked and sunk by a whale, and the gruesome aftermath experienced by the survivors. Cannibalism still equals boffo box office, right?
Another vote for a really good Heinlein movie. I’d be happy with either Glory Road, The Moon is a Harsh Mistress, Starship Troopers, Have Spacesuit Will Travel, or Time for the Stars.
Arthur C. Clarke’s The Fountains of Paradise, about the design and construction of a space elevator, would make a great movie. Ditto Childhood’s End, which has been stuck in Development Hell forever (at one time Hillary Swank was attached to the project, but no more, IIRC).
Gary Jennings’s huge, fun, sprawling, sex- and violence-filled historical novel Aztec deserves a big-budget Hollywood epic. I love that book.
George Washington deserves a big, well-produced biopic. A fascinating life and a genuine hero.
The story of the uber-packrat Collyer Brothers would make a great dramatic movie. There’d be Oscars for the two leads, if it’s done right. Now that E.L. Doctorow has written a book about them, it may finally happen: Collyer brothers - Wikipedia
William Cushing, “Lincoln’s Commando,” a brave and uncannily lucky Navy officer during the Civil War, definitely deserves a biopic: William B. Cushing - Wikipedia
For as many bad virtual reality, game driven movies, as there have been made. I’m surprised that nobody has tackled the Barsoom Project (Dream Park Series) and adapted it. I think it is much more worthy than this new and gratuitous, hyperviolent, right wing Gamer Movie.