Huh, justchecked wikiand that shows what I know: it’s been adapted three times for the movies. The latest one, “Die Farbe”, pulls if off exactly the way I thought would be the only possible way to be at least approximately true to the story:
The Laundry Files series by Charles Stross.
I’m the Stainless Steel Rat and I approve of all of the above. Probably approve of most of the rest, too.
I’d add Eric Flints’ “1632” series, probably better as a min-series/series, but West Virginians in 1632 Germany, with Richelieu, Wallenstein, and Gustavus Aldophus could be something good. Supposed to be an English company working on it.
Mistborn trilogy from Brandon Sanderson.
John Varley’s “Titan” trilogy should be doable now with CGI.
I’m reading Donna Tartt’s The Goldfinch which reminds me how much I loved The Secret History. It wouldn’t be action-packed, but it could be a good character piece with the right actors and directors. Something arty, but not too far up its own ass.
I’d like to see* Dream Park* by Larry Niven and Steve Barnes get a movie treatment.
Also Tim Power’s The Anubis Gates.
Bridge of Birds, by Hughart. Get the people who did Kubo and the Two Strings to do it.
H. P. Lovecraft could be a great source, but you can’t take it seriously. Yes the hero confronts his fears, but H. P. Lovecraft was afraid of everything! Foreigners. The countryside. Mold. And nobody’s making that sort of comedy these days.
Ooh, I came in here to say “Bridge of Birds”
Stross’s Laundry Files pretty much are Lovecraft with humor, and I’d really like to see that done, too.
Dragonlance. Technically a subset of Dungeons and Dragons, there was an animated movie but that is utterly awful. It could easily be a cheese-fest, rather than a serious effort like GoT or LOTR, though maybe that wouldn’t matter. We really should have more movies made each year, I miss the over-saturation of classic fantasy movies of the 80s.
I would also like to see The Stainless Steel Rat.
And The Ballad of Halo Jones, which is technically not a book.
Second idea, “Elementary, My Dear Groucho” starring Jon Stewart as Groucho Marx. More timely today than ever.
If you did “Decline and Fall of Practically Everybody” would it use the decline and fall of Will Cuppy as the framing device? Sort of “All That Jazz”? Or maybe with Terry Gilliam directing?
Yup. I just found out that’s the reason David Jerrold’s The Man Who Folded Himself hasn’t seen any action. I think this introspective time travel novel with some controversial content could make a really cool indie film or Netflix mini series, especially given how well Orphan Black has done having the same actor multiple times in the same scene, though it might help to star open minded triplets. But despite having three buyers lines up, the same holder keeps renewing but doing nothing with it.
Some other rime travel novels ripe for the making are The Green Futures of Tycho, Replay, and Timefall which is also a rollicking jungle adventure.
At least they finally did By His Bootstraps.
I think Reamde would be lots of fun, too.
Also, Matthew Kneale’s English Passengers and Susan Fromberg Schaeffer’s Madness of a Seduced Woman could both be great films.
I’m a little surprised that Dragonlance nor the Icewind Dale trilogy never got a proper treatment (that animated DL thing… bleagh) though that terrible generic D&D movie couldn’t have helped.
Though if I was picking a Weis-Hickman work for a dream film, I’d go with the Rose of the Prophet trilogy. Not just because I liked the story but, c’mon – Middle Eastern nomads saving the world with a gay cross-dressing Christian wizard? The internet’s head would explode!
Sure, pseudo-Middle Eastern, pseudo-Christian, dressing as a woman under duress, etc. The comments sections and Facebook feeds care not for petty details…
When? What format?
I think he’s mistakenly recalling the 2014 film Predestination, which is based on Heinlein’s All you Zombies…", his other famous time-loop story.
It’s a pretty good film, worth the watching, although not strictly completely faithful to the story.
I’ll second this one- I absolutely love Ariel. Did you ever read The Architect of Sleep, by the same author? Even though it’s the first in a never-to-be-finished series, it’s still one of my favorite books.
I’d love to see *Jumper *by Steven Gould be made into a movie. I heard rumors that a movie was made several years ago, but it clearly had to be based on some other book with the same title, 'cause that ain’t no *Jumper *I’ve ever read.
“Acceptable” is about as far as I’d go. Excellent production values but speaking as someone who hadn’t gotten around to reading the book there was a lot of pointlessness and a lot of questions left unanswered. Deeply disappointing.
Both A Confederacy of Dunces and Dream Park (and sequels) by all reports appear to be perpetually tied up in rights wrangling and development hell. The former could still make a decent movie (you’d probably have to cut the side story about the gay characters for time), but the current economics of Amazon/HBO/Netflix etc miniseries would probably suit Dream Park better than a film. Certainly special effects are more than good enough to make it work. You’d have to get some competent writers in to tidy up the sloppiness in the writing, but it shouldn’t be too hard.
I’m still hoping to see Philip Reeve’s Mortal Engines Quartet books on big screen at some point (although they’d probably have to change it to Infernal Devices to avoid confusion with the “Mortal Instruments” gumph). I mean, come on - entire cities on wheels, chasing each other around a post-apocalyptic landscape? Who doesn’t want to see that?
Also from Reeve: I want to see Here Lies Arthur, although that’s more a BBC TV miniseries than a film.
Yes, or the Chinese.
I love to see the Dark Elf books get some love, but only if it was given the proper treatment. Hey HBO, now that Game of Thrones is drawing to an end…