I dunno, Candy had great personal charisma and stature. Colon’s probably the easiest role to fill; any comfortably doughy actor who could be tapped to play a stereotypical Irish cop would do the trick. Or go the other way and capitalize on Colon’s freewheeling with facts when talking to Nobby and hire John Ratzenberger.
Though to be honest, if the series is portraying the events of Night Watch specifically, Colon’s pretty young for most of it.
For Vimes/Keel, I think in the end they’ll need a British actor who looks more like Peter Falk than anything, but I’ve always liked Nathan Fillion for him. Especially lately, he’s begun to show signs of aging comfortably.
On preview:
I think Brendan Fraser is about the best you could possibly do for Carrot, too.
Michael Hogan is far too old. Vimes is in his 30s as of Night Watch, early 40s at latest.
Jeremy Irons is utterly perfect for Vetinari.
Nick Frost would work well for a young Colon, absolutely. Of course, then you’d have to squeeze Simon Pegg in somewhere, which I wouldn’t mind at all. Coates, possibly?
It isn’t. It’s not an adaptation of one of the books. It’s a weekly series with all new stories.
My guess, though, is that it’ll spend years in development hell, and never get made.
Huh? Vimes is a deeply cynical character, as is Jack Dee (not sarcastic), and there is no description anywhere of Vimes’s height.
The Patrician, on the other hand, is nothing like Jack Dee, neither sarcastic nor depressive, and was perfectly played by Charles Dance in Going Postal, despite being ginger.
How much input, if any, will Pratchett have on those stories? Is he going to personally write any of them, or hand-pick his own stable of writers he thinks are up to it, or act as a creative consultant, or anything? Or will it just be hacks writing “with characters created by Terry Pratchett”?
I haven’t seen “Colour of Magic,” so can’t comment on that, but Pratchett had a lot of input in Hogfather, and even appeared in it. A great deal of the dialog is straight from the book. And the Halmis treated the material with respect. Unfortunately, with all this, the movie fell wide of the mark. Point being, if they can get a director, writer, and actors who can capture the spirit and humor of Pratchett’s writing, I don’t care if they mess up on the particulars. I always have the books when I need the real thing.
No, it’s because he’s such a genetic throwback he looks like a badly shaved, poorly educated ape with appalling manners and an assortment of disfiguring ailments, and makes anywhere he’s stood or sat look like it needs a good scrub down as soon as he’s gone.
There is also the issue of when they are going to set the series. Guards! Guards!? With only 4 characters? Men-at-arms when they are still getting no respect from the world at large? Or later when they can use a larger supporting cast but Vimes is the Duke?
Seems the Men-At-Arms time period would likely give the writers the most amount of material to work with. No respect to the police, a solid cast of characters, a city not-yet cleaned up, and they can play up the love interest of Vimes and Cybil.
Though I’d still prefer they just make a miniseries based on Night Watch.
Unless I’m wrong, in the books Carrot is stated as having that name because his broad shoulders make him carrot-shaped, not because his hair is orange.
