Novel Adaptations

[punkdeadhead24]

There are of course gaping huge loopholes in my theory.:D

[Roderick Usher]

Originally Posted by punkdeadhead24

One of the reasons there aren't a lot of novel adaptations is because the typical scriptreaders and script buyers at the major film studios aren't too bright.

Now there are a ton of problems in Hollywood, but this is not one of them. The readers tend to be some of the brightest people in Hollywood. But as you pointed out, they are SCRIPTreaders and SCRIPTbuyers...their job isn't to acquire rights to novels, but to read and buy scripts.

Adapting a novel or story to a script requires the acquisition of rights...which costs money.

Producers will buy the rights when they see a story as marketable. And the producers I know are pretty damn smart as well, but they also tend to be rather cynical about what the market will bear.

That said, I'd love to adapt Iain Bank's The Wasp Factory Micheal Louis Calvillo's I Will Rise and Edward Bunker's Education of a Felon for the screen.

[Zero]

brian keene's the rising and city of the dead. . . they would RULE

[Miss Olivia]

I'm a big fan of John Skipp and Craig Spector....I think The Bridge could be HORRIFYING if done correctly, and The Scream is another great splatterpunk book....
Midnight by Dean Koontz would be a good movie.....
I would like to see "In the Hills, the Cities" as a Clive Barker masters of Horror short, it's really a powerful little story.....
Also, the Thief of Always is one of my favorite Barker stories, even though it's kind of a dark children's tale.
I agree with Swan Song, that's a really great book as well, with a lot of fairytale ring to it.

[Zero]

i suspect its also the pre-marketing that either a big best-selling novel or a previous film automatically brings. if you are remaking Halloween you don't have to worry about creating the Halloween brand or figuring out how to create a market buzz. . . same thing if you make a version of Harry Potter. but, picking some -even really cool- novel that has a relatively small readership is a bigger challenge

[Jacked up]

Originally Posted by Zero

brian keene's the rising and city of the dead. . . they would RULE

The Rising is in pre-production right now. I imagine if it does OK, then they would go ahead and make City of the Dead also. Those were two of my favorites.

[Psycom5k]

My problem with screen adaptations of novels is that, in my opinion, they just don't get the story right when they make the movie. And by all means that doesn't mean that is true for everybody, they could be spot on in some peoples minds. But not many people all perseve the book in the same way. I have not once seen a movie based off of a novel that was exactly how I pictured it while I was reading the book. So more often than not, after seeing the movie I get dissapointed at how badly they botched it. Especially since almost everytime knowing that I prolly will be dissapointed, I still get excited hoping that they movie will be awesome, and I am always let down. Which just plain sucks.

So in my opinion, I don't think that they should make adaptations of novels. Just leave them they way they are, they're better as a book.

[The STE]

I wanna see Teratologist get made into a movie.

[Despare]

I would LOVE to see David Wellington's zombie trilogy (Monster Island, Monster Nation, and Monster Planet) turned into a movie or three.

[stygianwitch]

Originally Posted by Psycom5k

My problem with screen adaptations of novels is that, in my opinion, they just don't get the story right when they make the movie. And by all means that doesn't mean that is true for everybody, they could be spot on in some peoples minds. But not many people all perseve the book in the same way. I have not once seen a movie based off of a novel that was exactly how I pictured it while I was reading the book. So more often than not, after seeing the movie I get dissapointed at how badly they botched it. Especially since almost everytime knowing that I prolly will be dissapointed, I still get excited hoping that they movie will be awesome, and I am always let down. Which just plain sucks.

So in my opinion, I don't think that they should make adaptations of novels. Just leave them they way they are, they're better as a book.

You have to bear in mind that a movie is usually going to be 2 hours long at most, there's no way to get an entire novel down to 2 hours without losing a lot of the source material unless you turn it into a mini-series e.g. Stephen King's: The Stand (and even then, there's still a hell of a lot in the book that isn't in the adaptation)

I think for the most part they do a good job of deciding what to keep and what to lose from a novel, and it helps that the author usually has some input in the decision making/writing the screenplay which keeps the story alive

You also have to remember that books and movies, being such completely different mediums, have different requirements from the 'end user', all you really need to enjoy a movie is eyes, ears and an interest in the topic, to enjoy a book you need an imagination, the story has to play out in your mind, and how you imagine something and how others picture it will never really be the same, so there will always be some disappointment

I feel that as long as you can accept the huge differences between a novel and a movie, and think of the movie as an 'outline' to the full story you can still enjoy both, i'll often buy a book after seeing a movie because i know it will be so much better, even if the end results don't bear much resemblance to each other

A couple of novels i'd like to see made into movies:

-Midnight by Dean Koontz, i agree with Miss O on that, it would make a great movie, as would Fear Nothing, and Seize the Night, both by the same author

-The Wyrm, Stephen Laws
-Ghost Train - Stephen Laws