I’ve always thought his work was very suited to screen adaptation, being so full of description, colour, music, and lively characters in general. The rampant sexism (typical of his era) would have to be written out of course.
For film I can see The Dragon Masters, The Last Castle, and possibly The Moon Moth working well.
For TV series I suggest the Cugel stories, in particular The Eyes of the Overworld, as being very suitable. Cugel’s series of encounters with wildly different cultures would work well in a per-episode structure I think.
After the heartbreak of LeGuin’s Wizard of Earthsea adaptation, I’m hesitant to subject Vance to such abuse, but I always thought Eyes of the Overworld would be amazing as an animated movie.
The Lyonesse trilogy would make a great Game-of-Thrones-style HBO prestige series (with maybe a teensy bit of re-working) and it has the benefit of being complete. Would be costly to pull off though, much like GoT.
Agreed, Lyonesse would work well with th GoT/LotR treatment. I didn’t think of it because it’s not my favourite of his work, but would love to see it on the screen.
The Demon Princes? I thought of that but judged it to be too hard to pull. off. But I guess they could redo it a la Foundation; I quite like the changes they made to that for the screen!
I like Vance a lot, but there are issues. While he is unsurpassed at creating outre societies and characters, his plotting is no better than routine. That could be a problem in any dramatizations.
Also Cugel is too much of an asshole in his first stories: cruel and with nothing to ameliorate it. I didn’t want to read Cugel’s Saga at first, but discovered Vance had reduced his assholery.
However, Cugel is too episodic to make for compelling TV.
I think Vance would not work well if dramatized. He is a literary treasure.