I just watched "Preacher" on AMC. This is a show based on one of the most popular cult graphic novels (read: Grown up Comics) ever. I first picked it up in high school and was immediately in love with it. This is the first major property (aside from 300) that was a story so near and dear to me that's being developed. It's been really awesome seeing this brought to life. Focus: What remnants from your childhood would you want to see re-created? What has been realized very well on-screen? Alt-focus: What adaptations from books, comics, etc. have been terrible? Alt-alt focus: Who would comprise the fantasy cast of your favorite book/series in a live-action movie? Wizard magazine (shut up, I was in middle school) used to do this where they would pick celebrities to portray comic characters. Preacher, if I remember correctly, was cast as Joaquin Phoenix as Jesse Custer, Brittany Murphy as Tulip, Ewan McGregor as Cassidy and Rutger Hauer as the villain. Oh, and my favorite character of all time, the Saint of Killers? Josh Brolin.
I'm a sucker for Stephen King. Supposedly the Dark Tower series will be made into a series of films. For anyone that has read those stories, as much I would like to see an adaptation, I feel like doing it well is almost impossible. Alternatively, even though its one of my favorites, The Shining is a terrible adaptation of the source material.
I agree with the above. I don't feel any of the screen adaptations of a Stephen King book have ever done justice to the actual books. Including the 11/22/63 miniseries. Alt focus:Timeline, by Michael Crichton. I loved this book. The story was so compelling and enjoyable. I couldn't put it down. The movie was a horrid piece of shit that glossed over the most important aspects of the story. Crichton used scientific ideas and made you believe them for the purpose of the story. This movie pretty much deleted that part and made it a shitty time travel story with no character development.
I have to chime in on The Dark Tower, like everyone else. Here is my rant regarding that movie (spoilers in case anyone doesn't care about TDT): Spoiler I totally disagree with the idea of making a DT movie. It would be as absurd as suggesting you make a Game of Thrones movie, or that Lord of the Rings should be one show only. The story itself is huge and so complex, bouncing back and forth in time (in more ways than one). Part of what makes the narrative compelling is that you begin in the middle and work back to the start before you get to proceed to the end. They can't shoot a movie like that. I also HATE the casting. Idris Elba should be the next James Bond. He is not Roland of Gilead. Roland has pretty much only ever been described as: - Tall, with narrow hips and a straight posture. - A steady, relentless walk. - Heavily scarred, eventually losing some fingers. - BLUE BOMBARDIERS EYES That last bit is his defining characteristic. He's so powerful as a weapon because he sees everything, and his eyes convey to the uninformed that he is the descendant of kings. Furthermore, one of his group is a black woman pulled from the 60s in America where she was a champion for civil rights. There is a constant dramatic tension between them because she must submit to taking instructions from a white man. If Roland gets cast as a black actor, there is no tension and Elba does not have those eyes or the build that's described. I've thought about it in depth and if the movie has to get made - and I don't want it made at all - it should be Timothy Olyphant as Roland. He has the build, the posture/gate and he's the exact right age. He can play early 30s or late 50s with ease, and Roland is essentially timeless. On the upside, being so badly cast overall will make it easier to ignore the movie entirely. The Green Mile was a great King adaptation. It's also the only movie I've ever seen that did not deviate one word from the book. I'd be surprised to learn that there was even a screenplay, because the dialogue is verbatim from the text.
The first Sin City was a fantastic adaptation and a beautiful film. The Spirit (2008) tried to emulate it and wasn't bad if you thought of it as Sin City for 8 year olds. The second Sin City was almost like a parody, it was so atrocious. How did they not do ANYTHING better than the first movie is beyond me.
I'm not even going to mess with that Alt Focus, we will be here all day. I'm sure Crown is typing up a dissertation. But I do find it utterly HILARIOUS when some bonehead producer takes some beloved source material and just sodomizes it to the point it is unrecognizable. "Oh, this thing you cherrish? You'll buy a ticket anyway. I piss in your face." Hollywood producers are comic book villains in real life. Focus: The Godfather, Shawshank, and Fight Club are probably the best adaptations. Flawless. They even improved the source material. I'm a Christopher Nolan fanboy; I think he did the impossible in making Batman seem real. Not just brought to life on screen, but brought into the realm of actual possibility. I was entranced watching those flicks; like old school movie magic. Nolan's adaptation of The Prestige is probably the absolute finest movie made in the 2000s; by most accounts the book was a mess (I have not read it). I'll chime in on The Green Mile too. Stunning. If you didn't cry at the end you are a miserable son of a bitch with no soul. I am dying to see a proper telling of Steinbeck's East of Eden. It is screaming for a miniseries by a deft hand. The Elian Kazan version with James Dean does not hold up at all, it's almost laughably bad in parts. Last year there was noise about Jennifer Lawrence playing the antagonist Kate. That would have been f'n awesome. Frank Darabont owns the rights to Stephen King's The Long Walk. *cums like a fire hose* This man knows how to adapt a book. He can do whatever he wants.
Seconded. They must have been high off their asses on airplane glue to cast a black man as Roland. King has gone on record numerous times, stating that Roland is based on Clint Eastwood. Anyway, I thought that Darabont's The Mist actually improved upon the source material, giving us closure at the end. I really want to see Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy get made into a movie, but the book is so horrifically depraved that I don't see how they could do it and still get anything less than an NC-17 rating (making it undistributable). There has been a teaser trailer up for years, but at this point, I'm not holding my breath. Another movie that was "in development" and dropped was At the Mountains of Madness by H.P. Lovecraft. And do you know who was going to direct it? Guillermo Del Toro. Can you imagine how awesome that would have been?! Supposedly Prometheus killed it; the powers that be didn't think audiences would go for two Antarctica/alien movies.
Pat Conroy is one of my favorite authors, with Prince of Tides my favorite of his books. Robert Duvall made The Great Santini so good, that I was hoping for more greatness . . . and instead, had to sit through that God-awful Streisand/Nolte nonsense. Blech. Spoiler But, hey, Susannah is supposedly going to be played by a sexy white Canadian girl, so . . . Katheryn Winnick Here recently, I thought The Martian was very well done for the most part. (The added bits to the "rescue" was dumb, and would've been better if done like the book.) But, overall, having to cut a densely scientific narrative in the book into a feature film length is always a challenge, and I thought that worked well.
Agreed. No one would really want a sequel where they venture to Hartford or something. The end of the movie was so miserably gut wrenching and Thomas Jane was excellent. I think I read that King's favorite adaptation of his books is Stand By Me, with high praise for Shawshank and Green Mile. And on a side note, I've said it before, but the live-action Super Mario Brothers movie is so bad its good. I love that movie.
Can we talk about The Shining miniseries? King's main beef with Kubrick's version is Nicholson entering the movie already crazed. So to remedy this he casts the guy from Wings. Dude was ok, but he taint Jack Nicholson. No, the real problem was the kid they got to play the new Danny. Holy Christ he must have been deformed or his mom choked him in the crib for fun, something. Kid spoke through his nose and NEVER CLOSED HIS FUCKING MOUTH. He looked like a perpetually surprised sucker fish. Constantly whined all nasally. Shit, no wonder his dad tried to kill him. I wish nothing but misery on that kid; may everything awful in the world happen to him all at once. In Kubrick's my main problem was Shelly Duvall. What a completely unpleasant woman in every regard. She looked near death the entire flick. She must have had a piece of cheese tied around he neck in case she felt faint. "Shelly! Shutup and eat your cheese!" I feel completely sorry for Jack Torrence both times. He is the most sympathetic character. No matter where he goes he's got a retard kid or a shit for brains wife. Just get the guy a fucking drink already.
Last time this movie was brought up, for whatever reason, I remember you referring to Shelly Duvall as a "trailer park wraith." I thought that was an apt description. Another point is that Kubrick left the supernatural aspect ambiguous. Is the hotel haunted or are these people losing their minds? It never really gets answered, and things never really add up, purposefully. People probably assumed Jack was already crazy because of Nicholson. This movie came out only 5 years after One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Next, where he also played a (albeit very different) crazy person. Personally I think its one of those situations where I like the movie better, but they are so different a comparison is tough and its easier to take each as it was.
I thought Steven Weber did a decent job, but the TV version had 100% less Scatman, so that was a tough obstacle to overcome.
Stephen King loves the mini-series and hates the Kubrick version. The one thing the mini-series truly nailed was the woman in the bathtub. It wasn't as sick as Kubrick's scene but it was the scariest thing I have EVER seen on TV. I hate the adaption of Starship Troopers. I take a lot of flack for it, but I'm sorry it's an insult to the book. It pisses on the book's corpse and rapes it. On its own, if it wasn't an adaption of one of the best sci-fi novels ever it would be a fun super-stupid exploitation movie. But since it is indeed that, a novel so brilliant in its pro-war narrative that at times it makes sense, I hate the movie. The only source material that has been trashed worse is "The Bonfire Of The Vanities" and "The Lawnmower Man." The Bonfire Of The Vanities is the worst screen adaptation of anything, ever. Nothing is in second place, nothing will come close to it. Blood Meridian currently has Todd Field signed on as director, and I think there isn't a single director who would be better for the movie. Here's the thing: don't hold back, no matter what. I know the book is sickening, even vomit-inducing at times. I don't care. Do NOT fucking hold back. Anything less would no longer be Blood Meridian.
Focus: 1. To throw out a different kind of nerd thing from childhood, I thought the Harry Potter movies were the most perfectly cast movies ever. The movies themselves were fine - nothing compared to the books - but it really was like every character jumped out of my head and looked exactly as I was imagining them on screen, all the way from major to minor roles. These are not from childhood, but I thought Gone Girl and Wild were really well done. There are a lot of adaptations I like, but those were two that I was really nervous/curious about and liked them a lot. I even liked the ending of Gone Girl more when I saw it as a film rather than reading it as a book. 2. What I'd like to see done is a non-animated Christopher Nolan-esque adaptation of Tintin. Like, one that's not really intended for kids and not super comic-book-y.
I'm still disappointed that Gump & Co. was never made. Twice the shenanigans but also mixed with the smart ass/genius son. Story goes that Hanks and Zemeckis were committed to make the sequel but then 9/11 happened and they felt it wasn't the right time. The sequel was definitely not up to par with the original but it advanced the story. I've always been amazed that they never went after just the cash grab a sequel could have produced. I will always second The Shawshank Redemption. That was a great adaptation of a novella/short story. It just sucks for Shawshank that it happened to come out the same year as Forrest. According to the Oscar " Dumbass who lucks into everything and cares for the love of his life who dies of AIDS" beats out "Prison story that also includes butt rape narrated by Morgan Freeman". They were both great movies.
I think certain aspects of Blood Meridian are literally illegal to put on screen. Filming it in a way that does it justice will be borderline impossible. Not just because of the violence, but the fact that there's no plot, and the way the dialogue moves from terse, dry cut minimalist conversations to lengthy speeches. The way the protagonist is at the forefront of the story and then fades almost completely out and back in would be really weird on film as well. That being said I hope someone at least has the balls to take a crack at it. My hope would be the Coen brothers. Don't know much about Todd Field as a director. All the Pretty Horses was a much more filmable McCarthy novel. Had a solid cast and a great director and still turned into a complete disaster. On the subject of Stephen King adaptations, I would like to see someone take another shot at IT. The made for tv version was a total bust, even when you factor in the limited budget. Shawshank Redemption is a classic example that proves movies can be better than the book under the right circumstances. Fight Club is another great adaptation. At this point I don't really have any childhood books left that I would want to see that haven't been done already. IT needs to remade. Lord of the Rings was very well done. Where the Red Fern Grows was one of my favorites, but I barely remember the movie and don't care to watch it again. I couldn't get excited about the stuff I read before that, like Hatchet and Goosebumps (a few made for tv episodes anyway). There's a number of historical characters that are woefully ignored though. Somebody needs to make a real, high budget blockbuster about Hannibal. Ditto for Arminius. A movie, or better yet a tv series set in ancient Athens during its' golden age that was true to history would be awesome. I know there's any number of movies set around or roughly around ancient Athens already, but while some are entertaining not one I can think of off the top of my head gives a fuck about the actual history.
Just curious, and I don't know if this can be explained without spoilers, but what aspects, and in what countries? Unless you're talking about sex with children, pretty much anything goes in the U.S. I'm sure there are other types of violence that would make a movie commercially suicidal (such as animal cruelty, even if it's all special effects). I haven't read Let the Right One In or seen either movie, but I've heard that the book had some graphic child molestation that was toned down in the movies (and/or the characters were made older, pre-pubescent to teenage, a la Game of Thrones making the teenagers young adults). Alt-alt-focus: I've always wanted to see Tom Clancy's Ryanverse turned into a mini-series. Say, spend five episodes on each book, airing three or four a week. I don't exactly have my hopes up of this happening, and the Chris Pine reboot movie(s) is a far better idea commercially.
The sex with children in the book is mainly what I was talking about. Thinking about it though, I only remember that happening once during the direct narrative. Otherwise it's only implied over and over. Several times they find children's corpses that have clearly been violated. Is that legal to show? Other than that there's several scenes where children are murdered en masse and women are tied up naked as sex slaves. That's not illegal, but it breaks a couple of unwritten rules that tend to piss off the rating committees. I wouldn't be too surprised if they gave it an NC-17, or even an X rating. Of course, they don't have to put that stuff in the movie, but the whole 'stealing of innocence' thing actually is pretty relevant to the narrative. Maybe they could have it brought up in the dialogue instead of being so graphic.