Yeah, That Might've Had Something To Do With It

[filkertom]

The Tolkien Estate has settled with New Line Cinema regarding unpaid royalties. Beyond insane is this quote from the statement of Alan Horn, Warner Bros. president and CEO:

We deeply value the contributions of the Tolkien novels to the success of our films....

Gee, good to know that you deeply value the contributions of the fucking novels you adapted, without which your movies wouldn't exist.

Which fantasy epics would you like to see properly adapted? I'm for The Chronicles of Prydain by Lloyd Alexander, The Sharing Knife by Lois McMaster Bujold, The Stepsister Scheme by jimhines, Temeraire by naominovik, and Eyes of the Dragon by Stephen King.

Comments

[ororo]

Guy Gavriel Kay's A Song for Arbonne. Or Tigana. The Lions of Al-Rassan was supposedly in production, but I haven't heard anything.

[peachtales.livejournal.com]

Oooh, definitely the Stepsistesr Scheme! Can't think of anything else right now.

[lizziecrowe.livejournal.com]

The Chronicles of Prydain, definitely!

[lapislaz.livejournal.com]

If I recall correctly, the Temeraire novels have already been optioned - by Peter Jackson.

[lariss.livejournal.com]

I, for one, would still like to see the Tolkien work correctly done. I can't ask for better cinematography than Peter did, but they effed the storyline almost completely from the 2nd book onward.

[twfarlan.livejournal.com]

Well, "properly" adapted, the first two Dragonlance trilogies will always be wishful thinking on my part. I haven't heard good things about the animated adaption from a couple of years ago, so I am not heartened.

Aside from that, Robert Asprin's Myth series could make for a grand animated film or even series, while Thieves' World could make an excellent series of live-action films.

I would be greatly amiss if I neglected to mention the tales of a certain pair who found themselves in Lankhmar, or even a rogue who began as a beggar behind the walls in Greyhawk...

[sdelmonte]

Eyes of the Dragon, definitely.

Maybe the Mistborn books, since the writing is very much cinematic to begin with.

[ellyssian.livejournal.com]

Yes.

I still want to see Michael Wincott in the role of Aragorn.

I'd also like to see the Prydain stories done right, but I think anyone redoing those would either make it too sappy or too dark. They'd always try to improve the story without realizing that it worked right the first time.

[filkertom.livejournal.com]

I could really get behind an animated adaptation of MythAdventures, Phil Foglio's adaptation of Another Fine Myth.

[jimhines.livejournal.com]

E. E. Knight's Vampire Earth series could make kick-ass movies if done right. Same thing for Tobias Buckell's series (Crystal Rain et al.)

[fair-witness.livejournal.com]

The Deed of Paksenarrion.

[ravenclaw-eric.livejournal.com]

The Chronicles of Prydain, for sure. Lois Bujold's first two Chalion books. I'm looking forward to HBO's Song of Ice and Fire series, although I'll probably have to wait for it on DVD.

[mdyesowitch.livejournal.com]

I'd like to see The Three Musketeers chronicles done as a mini-series and same again for the James Bond stories. LOVE the stories.

[smoooom.livejournal.com]

I'm so tired of Book Adaptations that I could throw up.

[cathain.livejournal.com]

PROPERLY adapted? Susan Cooper's series. What they did to that was beyond butchery.

[twfarlan.livejournal.com]

I was thinking the same thing in terms of the look and feel to use for the animation. For that matter, I'd jump at the chance to see Phil and Kaja's work on Girl Genius animated. I can see it ruling a time slot on [adult swim], you know?

[trektone.livejournal.com]

I'd settle for a properly adapted non-epic fantasy, actually. Anyway ...


Patricia McKillip's Riddle-Master sequence

John Crowley's Little, Big

Tanith Lee's Flat Earth sequence

Samuel Delany's Neveryon sequence

Clive Barker's Imajica

[technoshaman.livejournal.com]

it's not precisely fantasy, but I'd love to see'em start doing to Dave Weber's Honorverse what the BBC did to the whole Horatio Hornblower series. Excellent stuff. And with modern FX, doing a multi-hundred-element space battle wouldn't be all that expensive; Netter Digital already did the groundbreaking.

Oh, and if you *really* want to go first class with it? Get JMS.

The real trick will be editing them down....

Could also go with the Elizabeth Moon books on the Serranos and friends....

[redaxe.livejournal.com]

Amen. You took the words right out of my mouth.

[wildcard9.livejournal.com]

I would love to see the first Riftwar series by Raymond E. Feist made into a series of movies. It was written as a trilogy of sequential stories, so it can be filmed and released that way as well.

[misterseth.livejournal.com]

I'd lik to see Ushurak, by the Hildebrandt bros, and Elfquest, by Wendy and Richard Pini.

[r-caton.livejournal.com]

Wasn't The Black Cauldron good enough? ;)

[redaxe.livejournal.com]

Susan Cooper's The Dark is Rising. Yes, I know there was the abomination that claimed to be an adaptation; it was almost as much of one as I, Robot was of its original.

It's not an epic, but a series, but Glen Cook's Garrett, PI, books, would be awesome if done right.

And I'm looking forward to Rick Riordan's Percy Jackson and the Olympians being done (starting with next year's The Lightning Thief), though with great trepidation over Chris Dammit Columbus directing.

[allandaros.livejournal.com]

I would say the Malazan Book of the Fallen, but I don't think anything could do justice to that.

I will instead nominate Steven Brust's Jhereg series, Jim Butcher's Dresden Files (proper adaptation, mind you!), and Scott Lynch's Lies of Locke Lamora.

[allandaros.livejournal.com]

Riftwar would make a good miniseries, I think.