Anybody ever find a story that was so friggin’ awesome, you had to make a movie about it? Tell the universe! What style would you use, how would you adapt it… and, most importantly, who would you cast?
Me, I’d love to do a movie version of Final Fantasy 6, live-action. I’d definitely cast Johnny Depp as Kefka, maybe Nicole Kidman as Celes, and Haley Joel Osmond as Relm (teehee). I’d adapt it to be similar in style to the recent LOTR movies, of course…
I’d also love to do the first film version of Iain M. Banks’ Consider Phlebas…
This isn’t going to be that impressive, but I like “Guys and Dolls” a lot, but I hate the 1950’s movie with singing Marlon Brando, so I plan on producing a remake with a better cast if I become a billionaire.
Also, I’d like to see a film about the Roman Republic in the era of Sulla.
There are about 50,000 or more ideas that I would like to make into movies, none more deserving than my favorite book, Stranger in a Strange Land by Robert Heinlein. I would like to make it a straight, true to the book adaptation. The only way I see of doing this would be to make it a made for Cable TV movie on HBO or Showtime.
As for casting, the only role set in stone would be that of Jubal Harshaw: Rip Torn is the only actor I would even consider.
I’ve always fancied myself an armchair director and I think Wildseed by Octavia Butler would present a directorial/acting challenge.
One of the main characters is a spirit that jumps from body to body during the novel. To have several actors convincingly play the same character would be interesting.
Halle Berry as Anwyu and possibly Orlando Bloom as Isaac.
I played this game on another movie forum. My opinion hasn’t changed a bit.
My movie idea isn’t big and flashy, but it’s an interesting human interest story with great music. It’d be perfect for Will Smith, but he doesn’t know it yet.
I want Smith to play Thomas A. Dorsey, a legend in the Gospel community (not that I’m a part of it, I’m an atheist) and is known as the “father of Gospel music.” That’s interesting, but before he found Jesus, he was a blues guy who worked with people like Ma Rainey’s Wild Cat Jazz Band, Kansas City Kitty and Tampa Red (if these names are unfamiliar, you’ve missed out on some great music). He played piano and wrote songs that focused on double-entendres, with his biggest hit being “It’s Tight Like That.”
Anyone who’s seen the wonderful documentary Say Amen, Somebody likely has vivid recollections of Rev. Thomas A. Dorsey in their heads.
From his obituary:
Dorsey was very successful as a blues musician and writer, but something happened that changed his life.
The result was the song “Take My Hand, Precious Lord” and his gospel career was born. He incorporated aspects of blues and jazz into his gospel songs and they were quite controversial. His genius in his new genre was soon recognized and his songs launched the careers of several name gospel singers, including Mahalia Jackson and Sister Rosetta Tharpe. Thomas Andrew Dorsey died in Chicago on January 23, 1993 at the age of 93.
Dorsey was featured in the fascinating documentary about gospel music, Say Amen Somebody, which is how I first heard of him. Say Amen, as great as it is, doesn’t focus specifically on Dorsey. His part in it is important, for sure, but he’s just one part. I’ve always wanted a movie that was just about Dorsey and that would hopefully focus on his early years. That’s the movie I’d love to see.
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(My Production Wish List)
Title: It’s Tight Like That
Directed by: The Coen Brothers
Screenwriter: John Ridley
Cinematographer: Roger Deakins
Composer/Music Supervisior: Carter Burwell
Lead Actor to play Rev. Thomas A. Dorsey: Will Smith
Supporting Actor to play “Tampa Red” Whitaker: Taye Diggs
Lead Actress to play Gertrude “Ma” Rainey: Queen Latifah
Supporting Actress to play Nettie Dorsey: Joy Bryant
Character Actress to play Mahalia Jackson: Viola Davis
Genre: Drama (with much music and humor)
Synopsis: The life of influential bluesman and “father of gospel music” Thomas A. Dorsey, focusing on the years between his heading Ma Rainey’s Wild Cats Jazz Band in about 1925, and the year after the death of his wife Nettie in 1932, when he turned away from secular blues and wholeheartedly embraced gospel music, going on to redefine that genre by adding blues and jazz musical elements.
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Would somebody PLEASE make this movie! I wanna go see it!
I’ve heard that some sort of treatment is in the works, but I’ll bet they won’t focus on his sin-swamped early years.
Anyway, I want to do a remake (or shall we say improvement) on the Dungeons and Dragons movie. I had some nifty ideas that might make the movie worth watching, such as not hiring complete fools for actors. Excepting Profion, who was perfect. Heh heh heh.
I’d love to see a true to book adaptation of Boy’s Life. It’s my favorite book, and I think there could be some absolutely great imagery moments when the imagination of the kids is involved. I’d love someone like Jean-Pierre Jeunet to direct it, because watching Amelie, I know he’s got what it takes to combine reality and imagination into something incredible. I’m a little concerned that he wouldn’t be able to get the good ol’ down home American feel of it, so he’d have to be teamed up with someone else to help with that, but I still think he’d be great for the imagery.
I’d also love to see a full Japanese cast mini-series of Akira. The anime is pretty damn sweet, but so condenced and confusing, it just doesn’t do the story justice. I think a full scale, all out miniseries that dedicates a lot of time to getting the story right would be absolutely great. Assuming it was done for HBO or Showtime, or some station where graphic violence and profanity are allowed.
Another mini-series I’d love to see are adaptations of Terry Pratchett’s Discworld series. More specifically, Guards, Guards and the other Night Watchmen books. I’ve never been good with casting, so I can’t really pick who’d I’d like to be who, but again, in a mini-series format, I think it would be great.
I always thought Roger Zelazy’s Lord of Light would make a dazzling film if it had the right director and cast that could combine the pageantry of ancient India with far future technology. Nicole Kidman would make an interesting Kali (which would necessitate downplaying the traditional depictions of the goddess), The death god Yama could be played by Haley Joe Osment (since Yama is described in the book as being a super-intelligent old man in a very young man’s body). Sam would be a difficult role to cast because he goes through so many changes in the book that the actor who plays him would have to be protean–Hugh Jackman, maybe.
Remember that e-trade commercial with the fake movie “Blow’d Up”? Well, I’d make that real. No script. No starring actors. It would be 2 hours of special-effect sequences. You know how some action movies pay lip service to a plot, character development, that type stuff? This film will not bother with any of that. It will be like playing Grand Theft Auto, except it will be on the big screen.
I “film” books in my head. I’ve wanted to do some good SF for a long time now. I’d like to see Fredric Brown’s Arena done right, or Alfred Bester’s The Demolished Man – the teleparthy sequences could be beautiful, if done properly. Or Bester’s The Stars my Destination, which has one of the best openings ever.
In late 1941, a large America First Committee convention was held in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Most of the leading isolationist leaders in America attended.
Surrounded by tributes to the war dead of Allegheny County in Soldiers and Sailors Hall, speaker after speaker denounced the Roosevelt administration, and declared that no more soldiers and sailors would be sent to die in another foreign war.
Senator Gerald Nye, the leading isolationist of the day, was halfway through his speech when an Army officer interrupted him with news of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. The officer was shouted down by the crowd gathered that Sunday, and Senator Nye finished his speech, which had savaged Roosevelt for creating hostile relations with the Japanese and called the British cowards, unwilling to endure casualties. When asked afterward about the Japanese declaration of war, Nye answered, “It sounds terribly fishy to me.”
It would prove to be the last major meeting of the America Firsters. Their movement evaporated in that Pittsburgh auditorium in one afternoon. The delegates and leaders gathered had to feel embarassed, shocked, and betrayed.
I always thought it would make a great documentary.
I’ve always wanted to make I, Robot.
I hear they’re doing it now with Will Smith, so really it’s still not been made because I’m sure the Will, Robot movie will be nothing like the book (maybe I’ll be surprised…but why make the main character male? WTF?)
Second would be Rama, as a television series. LOTS of material for that!
Third would be Gravity’s Rainbow, directed by David Cronenberg (sic?)
I posted a thread about Somebody, a short script that I wrote about an artist who finds a corpse. I plan to film that eventually, as soon as I get to know the local film crowd a little better. It will be B&W, sound, about 10 minutes.
But my “dream film” would be to do a biodrama about Manfred von Richtofen, “The Red Baron”. Everybody knows that he was WWI’s highest-scoring fighter pilot, and that he was shot down in 1918. For a long time, credit for shooting him down went to a Canadian pilot by the name of Brown; but I read a book (I think it was called The Red Baron’s Final Flight, or something like that) that uses forensic analysis to prove (within reasonable doubt) that he was shot down by Australian ground troops. And very few people know Richtofen’s “back story”. He wasn’t always a fighter pilot! He was wounded in the head during a dogfight, too.
The film has an interesting, well known character; airplanes (always a good thing in a movie! ); action, drama, and is about a time about which there weren’t that many films made. (Gallipoli and The Blue Max come to mind. And Biggles. But most modern war dramas are about WWII.)
The other film I’d like to make would be an adaptation of H.P. Lovecraft’s At The Mountains Of Madness. I’d like to do that one as a period piece, complete with the bad science and everything. Wonderful story, and great scenic possibilities.
I wrote an adaptation of The Tresure of the Sierra Madre set in the asteroid belt called The Bright and Hollow Sky. Billy Bob Thornton would be the ideal Fred C. Dobbs in space.
How about the definitive Martin Luther King, Jr. biopic? Who could play him? (I think you’d almost have to audition an unkown).
The classic time travel novel The Man Who Folded Himself could be really, really cool on screen, and the sexual content would be acceptable now. Spike Jonez could handle it.
I’m still clinging to the idea of an anime Childhood’s End.
Dude! David Lynch is the only person who could begin to pull that off. Him or Terry Gilliam. No, Lynch is the man.
); action, drama, and is about a time about which there weren’t that many films made. (Gallipoli and The Blue Max come to mind. And Biggles. But most modern war dramas are about WWII.)