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Location: Lakewood NJ/Murrells Inlet SC/ N. Naples FL/Swainton NJ
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The current series "Trader's Tails" by Nathan Lowell I am reading would make an excellent movie, or better yet, a HBO/Netflix/Amazon series. The six part book series has great characters, a realistic story and a basic realistic science fiction plot that would be easy to create. I invasion the main character, Ishmial Wang, as being played by someone who is a combination of Tom Cruise (who I don't like off screen) and Robin Williams (RIP).
Most novels really require a series to do right. You just can't successfully cram a novel's depth and complexity into 120 minutes. I would love to see:
DUNE done right. Yes, I know it's been done. But not with a great deal of success.
C.J. Box's Joe Pickett books would make a great TV series. Justified was a huge hit. Now is the time for Joe Pickett to rule the small screen. But you couldn't shoot it in southern California. That would be a sin.
William Kent Krueger's books would also make a great TV series. But again, you couldn't shoot them in southern California. The setting is half the charm, and northern Minnesota looks nothing like San Bernadino.
Most novels really require a series to do right. You just can't successfully cram a novel's depth and complexity into 120 minutes. I would love to see:
DUNE done right. Yes, I know it's been done. But not with a great deal of success.
C.J. Box's Joe Pickett books would make a great TV series. Justified was a huge hit. Now is the time for Joe Pickett to rule the small screen. But you couldn't shoot it in southern California. That would be a sin.
William Kent Krueger's books would also make a great TV series. But again, you couldn't shoot them in southern California. The setting is half the charm, and northern Minnesota looks nothing like San Bernadino.
The mistake people make is to think that to do it right, you need to include all of the novel. And that could not be more wrong.
Examples: The Wizard of Oz
Apocalypse Now
The Shining
No Country for Old Men
Just four that spring immediately to mind. All are brilliant films, and all leave out parts - including very substantial parts - of the source novel. They add new elements, change the themes in some cases... and are films done right.
The idea that a novel needs to be replicated in a films is what results in bad films. Films need to take what works from a novel, discard what doesn't, add what they need to add - and they they might be a great film.
My offering: City of Thieves could make a very good film. Trevanian's Incident at Twenty-Mile is little known, but it could be a very good film.
Location: Lakewood NJ/Murrells Inlet SC/ N. Naples FL/Swainton NJ
4,031 posts, read 6,547,614 times
Reputation: 3531
Two recent examples of how not to turn a book into a movie or mini-series is "Maze Runners: The Scorch" and J.K. Rowling's "The Casual Vacancy". The first 20 minutes of The Scorch was so different from the book that I stopped watching. Key features of The Casual Vacancy's plot was changed for reasons I cannot figure out and the whole story lost the impact that the book has!
Daemon by Daniel Suarez is perfectly paced to be an action movie.
One of my favorite authors! Daemon would be amazing and so would Kill Decision, also by Mr. Suarez.
I agree with Mark S...Dune done right. But it'll never happen. I reread Dune a couple weeks ago and IMHO it's impossible to catch the essence of that book in a movie.
I would love to see someone take another stab at the Dresden Files
Also the Virgil Flowers books by John Sandford would be wonderful. Start with Dark of the Moon
The mistake people make is to think that to do it right, you need to include all of the novel. And that could not be more wrong.
Examples: The Wizard of Oz
Apocalypse Now
The Shining
No Country for Old Men
Novels and films are two different media, so there have to be changes. It's just the nature of the storytelling. The problem with the nature of film is that most studios insist that movies have to be in the range of 2 hours. If you have a vast plot with multiple characters, there's just no way to do that justice in 2 hours.
I've never read The Wizard of Oz, so I can't comment on that.
Apocalypse Now is a brilliant re-imagining of Conrad's novel. I'd love to see more movies take this approach. Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan did the same thing with Melville. Both were great.
But for the last two on your list, I could not possible disagree more.
The Shining is a brilliant mood piece. But as a story it doesn't work. There is no character development at all. The characters are paper thin, and the story goes from Point A to Point B without a single surprise, twist, or any depth at all. Jack looks crazy in scene 1. He stays crazy in all other scenes. He dies. In between, he types. Kubrick completely missed the point of the novel.
No Country for Old Men was a good movie, but it's a GREAT novel, and the film failed to capture its greatness. And the movie completely misunderstood the nature of the villain. The movie really did need another 40 minutes of story and a rewrite of Chigurrh's character.
There are some movies that are actually waaaaaay better than the books they are based on. Just off the top of my head:
JAWS. Classic movie. Really bad book. I mean really bad.
THE GODFATHER. One of the greatest movies ever made. One of the most blandly mediocre books I have ever managed to finish.
PSYCHO. Classic movie. Good book. The movie is better.
BLADE RUNNER. The best science fiction movie ever made. The novella on which it is based is a borderline incoherent exercise in boredom.
L.A. CONFIDENTIAL. Great movie. Not a very good book.
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