Funny, I came in here to mention Lamb’s “I Know This Much is True.” It could be a great movie if done correctly, but I don’t think they would try to fit in all of the grandfather’s autobiography which I think greatly enhances the story of the twin brothers.
TMiaHM needs to be a HBO big-budget mini-series. That way there is time to develop the story. The budget is needed for all the low-G work and space ships.
The novel I’d love to see turned into a big-budget movie is Pratchett’s Guards! Guards!. You’d need good CGI for the dragons, but the story should be relatively straightforward.
It’s not exactly my favorite novel, but Sinclair Lewis’ Kingsblood Royal (in which a 1940s low-level bank executive discovers he has Negro ancestry and hilarity ensues) would make a great period piece. I’m still working on casting, but there’d probably be roles for Leonardo DiCaprio and that guy in the Allstate auto insurance ads. Not sure who’d play the family’s black Labrador (named “Nigger” in the book).
And it’s high time someone took a hint from The Producers and made a musical out of Kafka’s Metamorphosis (“Lordy Mama, I’ve Got Six Legs!”*).
*Or “Legs” by ZZ Top.
No, No. Wyoh was just one. I recall Manny discussing several of the line wives as very attractive. ISTR him being proud of how long his line marriage went back. I can’t recall if Wyoh ever married. TANSTAAFL. (I’m such a nerd)
Wyoh married into the Davis line. In fact, I think she did so before the trip to Earth.
Yes, to two Chinese brothers. It was after she had the damaged baby that she divorced them and started working for a Free Luna.
eta: Just before the trip. That way Manny could spend the night with her before he went off to imitate a load of grain.
Ah, yes, that’s right. But it wasn’t so much that she married him so that she could spend the night with him; rather, the senior husband (who was elderly anyway) gave up his right of priority so that Manny could spend the night with her.
With Mimi’s connivance. Without her being in on the plot, it never would have happened.
Yep. I don’t think it’s even appropriate to say it was connivance; the plan wassurely Mimi’s.
But I’m glad you pointed that out, as otherwise the Davis clan sounds terribly male-dominated.
How do you think people would react to the polygamny in the story? Would the studios reduce the marriage to a Manny-Wyoh love story?
I think the studios would try to avoid it, but it’s integral to the story, to the way thinks work and why. This is another story that would have to have narration to work. I don’t understand why audiences seem to hate voice-over/narration, I always appreciate more info.
Polygamy is ‘controversial’ and studios always going lowest common would either erase it or hand-wave it.
In a movie, probably. But if it’s an HBO miniseries, they seem to be fond of everyone boinking everyone else, so they might just do it.
Still, I don’t think that technology is yet to the point where doing the low-g right would be affordable. It certainly could be done, but to have it in each and every scene would probably kill the budget of anyone other than James Cameron.
Beaten to it twice. I want it directed by Quentin Tarantino and/or Stephen Chow.
I’ve always thought that “Tales From The White Hart” and “Tales From Gavagan’s Bar” would make a great series, akin to “The Outer Limits” and “The Twilight Zone”.
The stories are relatively short - I think each one would fit comfortably into a one hour episode, maybe even 30 minutes. They’re funny and each one is different. You’ve got a few regular characters and a common setting where everything kicks off.
A really good “Conan” movie. CGI and special effects would make all the magic, exotic locations and strange beasts doable, along with some extraordinarily bloody combat. The character has good name recognition. The stories are never complicated - this would be your big-budget summer popcorn flick. The men are Real Manly Men, the women are Voluptuous and Dusky Haired and the villains are pure evil. I think it’d be far better to get back to the spirit of the original stories, in which Conan is quite intelligent (albeit not well-educated) and he’s fast & furious, not a bulked-up mass monster like Arnold was.
A lot of Niven’s Known Space. There have been rumors of a “Ringworld” movie for quite some time; James Cameron’s name was floated about and given what he did with Avatar I think he could get the look right, but the story (and all the backstory that goes with it) would be mighty long - it’d either wind up a multipart saga like LOTR or it’d be a mess. Maybe both.
World Of Ptavvs might be a better place to start. The “Gil Hamilton” stories (scifi detective stories, set in a relatively near future) could make a miniseries, as could the Man-Kzin Wars.
Forgot to mention Alan Dean Foster’s “Icerigger”. Half medieval action movie, half pirate flick. With ice-skating felinoids. The heroes are an out of shape saleman, a nerdy professor, a woman who is more like Roseanne than Megan Fox and a weatherbeaten old giant who reads like a cross between Hulk Hogan and Rutger Hauer. And the love interest is the wrong species.
Now, you’re talking!
Not sure about one of my favorites Gojiro by Mark Jacobson. Here is the description:
While a movie could be made I think it would cannibalize the best parts of the book.
Zelazny’s Lord of Light would be dreadful as a movie, as well as offensive to Hindus, Buddhists, Christians and probably Muslims. Good fight scenes though.
It might work as a cartoon. In a live-action, how in the world do you deal with a movie where the main character goes through about four different bodies?
The best solution might be to just suss it. There are these big warrens full of people, and it’s never clear who lives with whom, and exactly what the relationship is, it just seems like a very extended family. Kind of like when you first visit your girlfriends house at Thanksgiving, except the relationships aren’t explained. At least not enough that anybody can complain.