This has probably been done before, but is there a book that you think should be made into a film?

I really love the Anne McCaffrey dragon stories and think Spielburg could do one of them well. I think there is a ps game based on one of the books though.

I think;

Amanda's wedding
A roll of thunder
George's Marvellous medicine

should make it to the big screen

life of pi!

A short story by Stephen King writing as Richard Bachman called "The Long Walk".

Would make a great movie.

quote:

Originally posted by sphillips03:
A short story by Stephen King writing as Richard Bachman called "The Long Walk".

Would make a great movie.

Isn't that the Green Mile? That was written by King

archangel1.

***SPOILER***

This is not the green mile. It is from a collection of short stories that are known as the Bachman Books. The Running Man is amongst them as is "Thinner".

The basic thread of the story is about 450 academically and physically brilliant teenage boys that are desperate to get into a very long race. They have no idea why they want to do it, or what they will get out of it, other than the accolade and respect of everyone who knows them...and that they will get whatever their hearts desire as a prize for winning.

They have to keep above 4mph and if they go below this or stop for any reason (ie cramp) they receive a warning from the soldiers that line the route. If they do not get more than one warning within an hour, the warning is removed. If they get three warnings within one hour they are shot dead. Obviously they didn't know this before they started the race and its about they boys determination to succeed. I cried when I read the book but the film, handled properly, could be fantastic.

a bit of a sick theme but it IS Stephen King!

There's also a fantasy sci-fi called Little Fuzzy and Fuzzy Sapiens, which could be good. Trouble is they might end up looking like ewoks

Nobody does wacky like Stephen King, thinner is the story I dislike the most. I read Hearts in Alantis - I'm glad the director only stuck with the boy's tale, really must rent that at some point

The one Stephen King film that I was very disappointed with compared to the book was IT. Although Pennywise the clown was as scary in the film as the book, the book was very very much more horrific than the film.

I also thought The Shining was not very true to the book and have since found out That SK hates the adaptation of The Shining as the book was just about alcoholism and not madness. He tried to stop the film apparantly.

I agree the book (It) was a lot scarier than the film. One of my fave Stephen King books that, although alot of people don't like the ending.

I like both The Shining film and the book.

Books I want to see made into a film?
The Dark Tower Series by King....although how they would do that I don't know.

Artemis Fowl ... although that would probably turn into a kids film since it is a kids book. Harry Potter was in some ways ruined for me by the films being so cheesey. ()

That's all I can think of for now, but I'm sure there are more!

Catcher in the Rye. I could see it as a movie
when I read it. The Electric Kool-Aid Acid
Test by Tom Wolfe. The Sandman by ETA Hoffman.
I'd also love to see a movie of the life of William Blake or (since he was a poet also)
Leonardo Da Vinci.

I could never get into Catcher in the Rye Well Wisher ...I've tried to read it countless times and just can never really love it. As much as I want to. Think it's to do with me reading it at quite a late age.

I always end up really disappointed when i watch a film that has been made from a book i have read. I have yet to see a film that has done the book justice, give me a book to read over a film anyday.

I would love to see the 'His Dark Materials' trilogy by philip pullman made into films. I dont know if they could do it though. I would be annoyed if they did make them and they were done poorly.

American Psycho and A Clockwork Orange where done quite well, I thought.

Just thought of another one actually...

There is a great Author around at the moment. He is British and his name is Mark Billingham. He has written five books and they are all great, very real and some very sick! He is trying to turn it in to TV (kind of Prime Suspect) He wants a certain actor but can't pin him down I think!

Anyway, as well as great TV they would all make great films.

There have been plenty of old movies that
were great adaptations of books. Gone With
The Wind. The Big Sleep. Moby Dick. Blade Runner. Alot of the Disney Movies. 2001:A
Space Odyssey. All the James Bonde Movies
up until "Goldeneye". The best
adaptations,I think,aren't highbrow literature
but good entertainment like John Grisham or
Agatha Christie or Tom Clancy novels.

quote:

would love to see the 'His Dark Materials' trilogy by philip pullman made into films. I dont know if they could do it though. I would be annoyed if they did make them and they were done poorly.

i believe its currwently in development
if this article is anything to go by, doesnt seem to be much pont if they're gonna cut one of the main themes!

info here

A two-part response:

(1)

Ones I'd like to see:

*The Magus, John Fowles- was appallingly done in the 1960s and is one of the few Michael Caine films that required a remake! I see an Anthony Mingella style film a la 'The Talented Mr Ripley', though someone like David Cronenberg could deal with the psychology & sexual collision...

*The Bridge, Iain Banks - surprised no one's done this - imagine Kafka colliding with 'The Singing Detective' as a man lurks between coma, memories, and a mysterious world centred on 'The Bridge.' It would probably be more 'Dark City' than 'The Matrix'; later ripped off by Irvine Welsh for 'Marabou Stork Nightmares.' & why someone hasn't adapted 'The Wasp Factory' I don't know!

*Ask the Dust, John Fante - apparently Robert Towne is doing it, which might make up for him writing rubbish like the 'Mission Impossible' movies rather than something like 'Chinatown'! I'd love to see Fante's 'The Brotherhood of the Grape' made too - it could be beautiful and with the right actors could do serious business, award-feted et al! Sooner or later, films that aren't based around special-effects might come back into vogue!

*High Rise, JG Ballard - a script was written by Bruce Robinson (The Killing Fields, Withnail & I) - but sadly never made. Several other Ballard-works would make fine films in the right hands: The Drought, The Unlimited Dream Company, Super-Cannes, Concrete Island, The Crystal World, The Drowned World etc. Cronenberg's 'Crash' would be the correct approach, whereas Spielberg's not that bad (but certainly far from great) 'Empire of the Sun' would be the incorrect approach...

*Garden State, Rick Moody

*The Way of Wyrd, Brian Bates (though perhaps a TV series for BBC4 would be better?)

*The Black Dahlia, James Ellroy (rumour is that David Fincher has been writing a screenplay)

*Girlfriend in a Coma, Douglas Coupland - though I doubt this author would let anyone adapt his novels. Heck, he apologised for that awful Winona Ryder/Ethan Hawke movie which tried to imitate 'Generation X' !

*Three Soldiers, John Dos Passos

*Already Dead, Denis Johnson ('Jesus' Son' more than worked - this one's much weirder!)

*The Sea of Fertility, Yukio Mishima- faithful good looking adaptations of these four novels would make great films. Think the look of films like 'Shanghai Triad' or older Ozu-films. Paul Schrader should script them and Scorsese direct maybe?

*The Plot Against America, Philip Roth - alternate histories always work, another good one would be 'Bring the Jubilee'

*Cities of the Red Night, William S. Burroughs

*The Town & the City, Jack Kerouac

*another attempt at Slaughterhouse-5, though the 1970s one isn't that bad?

*A Confederacy of Dunces, John Kennedy Toole

*Time Out of Joint, Philip K Dick (though arguably 'The Truman Show' is close to an adaptation of this already!)

*Martin Eden, Jack London

*London Fields, Martin Amis (rumoured to be Cronenberg's next film...)

*We, Yevgeny Zamyatin

*Blood Meridian, Cormac McCarthy

*Light in August, William Faulkner

*The Killer Inside Me, Jim Thompson

...and so on into infinity & beyond...

(2)

Most Stephen King adaptations are rubbish - I hope he does a book like 'On Writing' in relation to his film-collaborations/adaptations (David Cronenberg loathed King's screenplay to 'The Dead Zone', for example). The ones that did work were - 'Carrie', 'The Shining' (which King loathed & even did his own dire TV movie adaptation of!), 'The Dead Zone', 'Misery', 'Stand By Me (The Body)', 'The Shawshank Redemption' & 'The Green Mile' (though TGM was far too long!). The rest has been pretty awful - the TV-movie/series versions of 'Carrie', 'The Stand' & 'It', to 'The Dark Half', 'Christine', 'Cujo', 'Apt Pupil', 'Dolores Claiborne' (which was dull beyond words), 'The Running Man', 'Salems Lot' etc. I grew up on Stephen King and everyone has always said most of the adaptations are rubbish= & they're mostly correct! I always liked 'Pet Semetary' lots, but the film of that...was almost as bad as 'Hearts of Atlantis' or 'The Tommyknockers'!! No doubt, with the success of 'The Lord of the Rings' and the vogue for fantasy, someone should think about adapting 'The Dark Tower'-sequence, as well as precursor 'Eyes of the Dragon' - they'd make great films, IN THE RIGHT HANDS!

I don't think the elusive JD Salinger would let 'Catcher in the Rye' become a movie - he was at one point about to sue the BBC over an episode of 'The Big Read' in which Ruby Wax discussed 'Catcher' between scenes that could be argued as adaptation without permission.

It's often down to opinion - more often than not you watch an adaptation of a book you've read and feel disappointed. This might be down to the way you connect and make the images - far more potent than most cinema. There are plenty of poor adaptations, but they are just an interpretation I suppose and might turn people onto that novel/that writer, or shift a few more copies, so it's not all bad!

Some films are better than the books from which they come from - Gone with the Wind, Jaws, The Godfather/Godfather Part II, The Innocents (Turn of the Screw), Jules et Jim, Goodfellas (Wiseguys), The Silence of the Lambs, Once Upon a Time in America, The Conformist, Barry Lyndon, The Exorcist etc - I'd rather watch those than read the source texts! I would dispute with well wisher about "great adaptations" of 'Moby Dick' & 'Blade Runner' - the former is entertaining (the Peck one I take it?), but gets nowhere near one of the greatest novels (probably impossible to though...). The latter, adapted from 'Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?' , looks great - but leaves me cold in either original or director's cut versions. Scott's film is a great case of cinematography, design, soundtrack etc with much that is iconic, but it still makes little sense to me and chucks out masses of Philip K. Dick's novel. Scott removed the hippy-drug inflected sensibilities of PKD, so I think it doesn't work that wonderfully! Anyway, more list-based stuff, the first being adaptations that I thought worked, and the second those that did not:

(i) The Good:

*Short Cuts (several Raymond Carver stories)
*Dog Soldiers (aka Who'll Stop the Rain)
*Cutter's Way
*The Conformist
*Manhunter (much better than the awful 'Red Dragon')
*The Man with the Golden Arm
*One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest
*Jesus' Son
*Carrie
*Crash
*Jules et Jim
*Dr Strangelove
*The Last Temptation of Christ
*Ossessione (The Postman Always Rings Twice)
*Accattone (basically an adaptation of Pasolini's own novel 'A Violent Life')
*The Quiet American (the recent one)
*The End of the Affair (Neil Jordan)
*Brighton Rock
*LA Confidential
*Solaris (Tarkovsky's version)
*Billy Liar
*A Clockwork Orange
*Kes
*The Right Stuff
*The Exorcist
*Jaws
*The Godfather I/II
*First Blood (though not the film it could have been with Pacino, who was attached at one point!)
*The Thin Red Line (Malick's version)
*Wonder Boys
*Billy Budd
*The Age of Innocence
*Beau Travail (Billy Budd relocated)
*Orlando
*The Tempest - either Jarman or Greenaway
*Ran (King Lear)
*The Wings of the Dove
*Birdy
*The French Lieutenant's Woman
*The Leopard
*From Here to Eternity
*Barry Lyndon
*Manon des Sources/Jean de...
*Affliction
*The Sweet Hereafter
*The Last Picture Show
*The Tin Drum
*Hiroshima Mon Amour
*My Summer of Love
*Ghost World
*The Big Sleep (Hawks)
*Double Indemnity (or Body Heat, which was basically an update!)
*Grapes of Wrath
*A Room with a View
*Querelle
*Picnic at Hanging Rock
*Schindler's List (Schindler's Ark)
*The Man Who Fell to Earth
*Battle Royale
*Vertigo, Psycho....etc

(ii) The Not So good:

*Bright Lights, Big City
*Frankenstein (Branagh)
*Dead-Babies
*The Rachel Papers
*The Bonfire of the Vanities
*Complicity
*The Sheltering Sky
*Solaris (Soderbergh)
*Be Cool (actually the source novel is rubbish!)
*A Home at the End of the World
*The Hours
*1984
*Communion
*The Trial (the one with Kyle McLachlan)
*Cat Chaser
*The Thin Red Line (60s)
*Eyes Wide Shut (Dream Story)
*Germinal
*Jackie Brown
*The Plague
*most Stephen King adaptations
*Hannibal (though the book was well written rubbish itself!)
*Absolute Beginners
*The World According to Garp
*The Big Sleep (Michael Winner)
*Breakfast of Champions
*Total Recall (We Can Remember It For You Wholesale)
*Empire of the Sun
*Time Regained (sadly not from enduring this, though 'Swann in Love' wasn't bad...)
*Catch 22
*The Day of the Locust
...and probably turns more, but best stop now as it only depresses me how many average/poor adaptations there have been! & I wonder how many decent adaptations I've forgotten? oh well...

A two-part response:

(1)

Ones I'd like to see:

*The Magus, John Fowles- was appallingly done in the 1960s and is one of the few Michael Caine films that required a remake! I see an Anthony Mingella style film a la 'The Talented Mr Ripley', though someone like David Cronenberg could deal with the psychology & sex

I'd like to see Clive Barker's Weaveworld or Imajica as films. With today's CGI, it would be possible, and might just redeem the whole CGI thing for me.

Proust has been elusive for film makers. Visconti wanted to do a film but couldn't get the company interested(he would have been perfect)However he did refer to Time Regained in the ball sequence of The Leopard. Joseph Losey planned a film and Harold Pinter wrote a screenplay but I think Losey died before the production. Maybe it's just too cerebral a novel for film, Swann In Love and Time Regained were average.However I would like to see a production,perhaps in the style of a mini series like Heimat. Michael Haneke,who made Funny Games and the recent Hidden to much acclaim might do it justice,and I suggest a script by Alan Bennet(whose loose adaptation of The Trial,The Insurance Man was wonderful)It would have to be in the French language of course. I did like Boulevard Hausmann,the BBC play with Alan Bates, which was about Proust's final days, and I always felt The Singing Detective was influenced by the novel;it certainly had similar ideas. Speaking of The Trial, Terry Gilliam's film Brazil combined it with 1984 and was excellent. I liked the Welles version and Anthony Perkins was perfect for the role but I preferred Alan Bennett's tv adaptation The Insurance Man.

I'd like to see a movie of Wisebloods post.