Got so busy seconding Banks that I forgot to add my own personal nominee: Tim Powers’ “Declare.” The mixture of a spy thriller set in the Middle East, Russian and Europe with Powers’ mind-blowing concept of what djinni are would make for a VERY different story, especially as Powers did a brilliant job of mixing it all together with the historic record of Kim Philby’s adventures. It’s the sort of story Hollywood can do well, which does not describe a lot of the best science fiction and fantasy novels out there.
Syfy made two attempts at a Riverworld mini-series. Both were awful, although the second one less so.
If they hadn’t screwed with the story wholesale they might have made something worthwhile. The hero of To Your Scattered Bodies Go is Sir Richard Burton, but for the first Riverworld TV movie they took him out altogether and made the central character an American astronaut, I suspect on the theory that Americans would rather watch a story with an American as the central character. The plot was not derived from any of Farmer’s Riverworld books or short stories. The second one put Burton back, but not as the main character, and in a nebulous role. It contained more stuff from the books, but not enough, IMHO.
Why do this? Why buy a property that people like so you can slap that name on your product, only to throw out the contents, use only the basic idea, and write a completely different story to fill the time?
I think that a good series could be made out of the Riverworld books. They just haven’t done it yet.
Point taken.
Not sure the world is ready for a series that has an ultimately sympathetic Hermann Göring as a character…
I’d love to see David Brin’s stuff done well - maybe start with Startide Rising as the most action-y, although I’m not sure the dolphins can carry a film. Then The Uplift War, because the new Apes movies have given me hope that the Uplifted Chimps can be done properly now.
Of course, actually I’d be hoping for a Jijo trilogy…
It ain’t a major point. That they could easily take out and not affect the story. And it wouldn’t bother me.
Ken Grimwood’s Replay is a great quasi-time travel story and journey of personal discovery, with a bit of alternative history thrown in. Love to see a movie made of it someday.
Tim Powers writes great stuff. Not sure if it would make a great film, tho.
I don’t keep up with much Sci-Fi, but its been a hundred years and no one has done a blockbuster Cthulhu Mythos movie. Set it as a period piece with giant monsters and people going insane. It would certainly be better than Cloverfield
Since I already mentioned one of my current series, I’ll go ahead and mention the other (albeit it is altered-history as much as SF, but you’ll find it on the SF shelves).
The Ring of Fire series by Eric Flint (and a host of co-authors) sends a small West Virgina town to Germany in May 1631. Hillbilles meet 17th century Europe, complete with kings, counts, Cardinals, and other interesting folks. You get a bit of SF mixed in with 17th century Europe (where our stuff like computers and airplanes seem like SF to the locals.
It’s been optioned for a mini-series in England, but like so many SF projects, it’s in Development Hell.
OK. But, you really should avoid waiting any longer than that.
J/K 
You are a high-paid studio executive. You have to Express your Creativity, and make a Contribution to the project.
I am quite certain that my grandmother’s dog thought he was making a creative contribution to the neighborhood, when he marked fire hydrants.
'Cause that’s what SyFy does. :(:mad:
Not any more. They seem to have turned over a new leaf of late and are treating adaptations of books very well. Not always successfully, but damn, they’re trying. And sometimes they are very successful. See: The Expanse.
Actually, I was just thinking that Use of Weapons’ story would be the easiest to present on film. It’s basically just Memento over a longer time scale and… you know, in space and stuff.
You’d just add more explanatory dialogue between Diziet and the drone in order to explain the stuff that’s going on in his head in the book.
Having said that, Consider Phlebas probably makes more sense because it’s the most “conventional” Culture story.
Something out of Niven’s Man-Kzin Wars milieu might work. Only downside would be how much Known Space backstory you’d have to work in.
I think Matter would make a good film; the story is basically a ‘Mummy’s Tomb’ melodrama, with all the interesting Culture trappings.
I’m in on this. I was frightened when I heard Gondry was set to do this, then relieved when he passed, then disappointed it wasn’t going anywhere.
Also, Rendezvous With Rama gets my vote.
Some Harlan Ellison material would make good cores for screenplays, just like PKD (great ideas, not overly long)
-Oh, and I’d love to see an attempt at Startide Rising, but just fail to see how the dolphins could be done without some half-ass CGI. And the translating, how could that work?
My favorite John Scalzi is not actually Old Man’s War, but Redshirts, a humorous meta novel about a bunch of Star Trek (well, a non-copyrighted equivalent of Star Trek) disposable crew members who start suspecting something’s very odd with the so-dramatically convenient deaths of their comrades.
Not a blockbuster but still very much worth seeing: The Call of Cthulhu - DVD – The HPLHS Store