Wasn’t there a plan to do a movie of Anne McCaffrey’s Dragonflight? Surely the CGI would be good enough by now.
Oh, yeah! That’d be totally cool.
I agree that The Forever War (which Ridley Scott has optioned) would probably make a better movie than Old Man’s War, but it’s really apples and oranges - they’re very different books, despite surface similarities. Either of them, done right, could be an awesome movie, and I’d happily pay to see both.
Aztec by Gary Jennings, with a big budget and enough time to tell the story right, would be simply amazing. An HBO miniseries, maybe? War, sex, human sacrifice, political intrigue, more sex, art, bittersweet romance, revenge, the glories of a lost civilization, etc.
Starship Troopers by Robert Heinlein, truer to the original story and with real powered armor? Mmmm. I’d be all over that.
Several of the tales from Tolkien’s The Silmarillion would lend themselves well to Pixar-style animation, I think - Beren and Luthien’s love story, Ar-Pharazon’s fall from grace, Morgoth’s betrayal, Feanor’s oath, etc.
George R.R. Martin’s Fevre Dream would make a great atmospheric vampire flick (I hear people like those nowadays) set along the antebellum Mississippi, and his Tuf Voyaging would make a very funny, anti-heroic environmental satire. I could easily see Philip Seymour Hoffman as Tuf; his next Oscar is in the bag.
I wouldn’t want SILMARILLION done as a single movie, but I’d love to see THE CHILDREN OF HURIN and BEREN & LUTHIEN done. Hell, make it an epic trilogy, ending with The Valar Get Off Their Asses and Do Something Useful For Once, On Account of Manwe Taking a Smoke Break During a Staff Meeting and Ulmo Taking the Gavel and Giving Non-Stupid Orders.
The former, but, mainly, that since 9/11, Hollywood war movies perforce need to be less Vietnam-era-like in moral tone (which TFW is) – less, “Damn the government!” “The Army is stupid!” “War is pointless!” “Soldiers are victims of history and politics!” – and more patriotic and triumphalist, like WWII movies. Mood of the times. There’s room for individually angst-ridden stuff like The Hurt Locker, but questioning the legitimacy of the war or the state, not so much.
Anything by China Mieville, but especially The City and the City. The idea of ‘unseeing’ might be difficult to convey on film, though.
Good Omens if they can get the right actors for Crowley and Aziraphale.
I’d love to see a good cinematic treatment of P. C. Hodgell’s Godstalk, but I don’t know that it could be done. I mean, it’s got an exotic setting, an ass-kicking heroine with a mysterious past, wacky hijinks, and more intrigue than you can shake a stick at…but it’s also got millenia of history, a huge array of characters, hard-to-portray theological and soul-related stuff, and a rather ambiguous ending. There’s no way you could do it in one movie…and that’s only the first book. There are five now, and the series is still going.
I hadn’t thought about it–while I like it quite a bit, it’s far from my favorite novel–but you’re right. You could make a really fun movie out of it.
The Secret History by Donna Tartt is one of my favorite novels. It’s a first person narrative of a year at a small college in Vermont where one of the students is murdered. I go back and forth over if it would make a good movie. I think with the right script and director and actors, it could be awesome, but I think in actuality, it’d probably just be turned into some c-grade teenage love movie.
Hell, I’d just do it all CGI or cel animation. That’s the kind of situation they were practically designed for.
On the other hand, the only way you’d get an animated version into the theaters is if it’s CGI, or Japanese. If you tried to do it with traditional western animation, you’d either never get funding, get it chopped to hell by the studios, or watch it bomb because no one will go to watch a “kid’s cartoon,” or ONLY try to take kids to see it (even if it has a high rating, and the trailer focuses entirely on grotesque violence).
Another vote for Starship Troopers done right.
Also, Ender’s Game.
The problem with Ender’s Game is that you need a lot of very good, very young actors. You really can’t fudge this more than a few years - the novel derives much of its emotional punch from the struggle and pain of young children. Casting teens - or twentysomethings playing teens - would take away a lot of that.
There was a whole Live Journal community dedicated to casting this movie. I believe Gwyneth Paltrow acquired the rights and was going to star as Camilla, and her brother Jake was going to direct. But Gwyneth now is 37.
Little, Big would be a terrible movie. Slow and way too multi-threaded to track in a 2-hour movie or even a miniseries; the allusions to Lewis Carroll would be either lost or forced; the whole Ariel Hawsquill subplot would be even more “where the hell did that come from?”; the extended discussion of memory palaces would turn into a deadly dull exposition dump; the fairies would not work.
Bridge of Birds could be quite good; probably better actually filmed in China with a Chinese cast. Miniseries might be the way to go since there are a fair number of internal plot pauses in the story.
OSC is working on it right now.
I’m not sure how it would carry over. A lot of the humor is dependent on Ox’s narrative style and perspective. His description of Master Li’s withering torrent of invective at the lake, for example, is hysterical; I don’t see how actually listening to the sage yell obscenities could possibly be as entertaining. A voiceover might work in some instances, but not many, and voiceovers tend to be unpopular.
I think Neil Gaiman’s American Gods could be made into a pretty good movie in the right hands. I was pretty happy with the movie versions of *Stardust * and Coraline and think American Gods has the right elements to make a great movie.
As soon as I read this post, I had a flash of insight: Stephen Fry as Aziraphale and Hugh Laurie as Crowley, although, y’know, the other way might work just as well.
It would be perfect.
I’d love to see Bridge of Birds on screen! Especially of Barry Hughart got paid this time.
The Mote in God’s Eye would make a great miniseries - too much backstory and detail to cram into a single movie. Great space opera, great mystery story, and very alien non-humans.
The Star Trek novel The Final Reflection would make a good movie. It might be a bit “dated” in terms of current ST canon, but it could work. Gives the studio something ST-related to sell between franchise movies. “There is much to teach and little time. You cannot know victory until you can count your losses, and know that some of your enemies do not know how to count!”
Another vote for American Gods!
The Vorkosigan novels would make great movies except… Miles. What do you do about Miles?
My all-time favorite book is probably Gaudy Night, by Dorothy Sayers. It’s been made into a film but it’s just not cinematic material. Way too fusty.
My favorite book of 2009 was The Little Stranger, by Sarah Waters. I love reading a good ghost story, but I probably couldn’t watch a good film made from it. Eek.
Some favorites I think could make great films: Sabriel, by Garth Nix; the Chronicles of Prydain (I don’t count The Black Cauldron); the Septimus Heap books. And if you
could get the casting just right, The Beekeeper’s Apprentice by Laurie King.
ETA: Oh! The President’s Daughter series would be a great fit for film, and very timely.
Someone upthread had mentioned The Talisman, which I would love, but I think what would be even better Stephen King movie would be an animated or stop-motion Eyes of the Dragon. Not make it into a small children’s movie, but I think a PG-13 film in the style of Coraline and The Nightmare before Christmas would be really awesome. I’m picturing the dollhouse or Flagg or the dragon in my head and it would be spooky and enthralling.
Re: A Secret History: I love Gwyneth, but she’s 20 years (eep!) too old for Camilla! That’s exactly why I have reservations about it being a movie!