What stories do you wish someone would adapt as a movie? When I say 'stories,' I mean any kind--fictional, or historical. I've been wishing for years now that somebody would film a faithful adaptation of Dashiell Hammett's great detective novel Red Harvest. Hammett's book has been ripped off--er, re-imagined three times: as a samurai movie (Yojimbo), as a spaghetti western (A Fistful of Dollars) and as a gangster film (Last Man Standing). And the Coen brothers have used elements of Red Harvest in films like Blood Simple and Miller's Crossing. But nobody has ever filmed Hammett's actual novel. And that's a crying shame. I've also thought that, if handled with the necessary sensitivity and intelligence, historian Christopher Browning's Ordinary Men: Reserve Police Battalion 101 and the Final Solution in Poland could be a riveting historical drama. All previous Holocaust films--Schindler's List, The Pianist, etc.--have focused on the experience of the victims, and told the story from their perspective. And it is altogether fitting and proper that they have done so. What Browning did, by contrast, was focus on the perpetrators, and try to understand why they acted the way they did. In particular, he tried to determine how and why a unit of draftee policemen took part in the genocide of Poland's Jews, both directly (by committing massacres) and indirectly (by rounding up Jews and sending them to the death camps). His work was based on interviews that were conducted when this unit's crimes were investigated by the West German government in the 1960s. Perhaps I've seen too many episodes of Homicide: Life on the Street, but it seems to me that the easiest and best way to adapt Browning's work for the screen would be to set it in the 1960s, and make the main characters the investigators who interviewed the killers. The crimes in which the unit took part could then be shown in flashback. Spike Lee's upcoming film Miracle at St. Anna seems to be taking a somewhat similar approach, in dramatizing both the experiences of African-American soldiers in the Italian Campaign, and the events of the Sant'Anna di Stazzema massacre in August 1944. If handled properly, like I said, a film based on Browning's Ordinary Men would have the potential to say something really new and important about this topic, while addressing the changes in German society and culture since the Second World War, and wider themes about the roots of violence.
I'd like to see a movie based on the Asimov novella "The Martian Way". A bunch of Martian colonists go to Saturn to harvest a mile in diamater piece of ice from the rings to combat Earth's embargo on water shipments to Mars. All you have to do it write around the fact that ice doesn't come that big in Saturn's rings (which they didn't know at the time.)
i think the original DOOM novels would make an interesting film other than that, the second half of the never ending story could be properly done now
I sometimes think that a more faithful adaptation of The Neverending Story would be nice, though some here seem to hate that idea.
the first movie was almost a perfect translation of the first half of the book, i understand why they couldn't do SOME of the stuff back then, the second just took a few elements (Xayide, silver city, the memory loss) and cobbled together something they could actually film
Work of Fiction: Bernard Cornwell's Warlord Chronicles trilogy; King Arthur did the "stripped-down Arthurian adventure" badly, a proper adaptation of this would be doing it right. Historical Event: My dream Canadian project would be a film about Isaac Brock's brief, brilliant career in the War of 1812, from the declaration of war to his death at Queenston Heights (basically the content of The Invasion of Canada, but I'd use Flames Across the Border as the title).
Terrell Owens Presents -- The Terrell Owens Story: The Life and Times of Superstar Terrell Owens -- starring Terrell Owens as Terrell Owens But seriously, would Kurt Warner's life story be Invincible-Miracle-Glory Road-Remember the Titans inspirational, or did he not have enough obstacles in his life to go from grocery store clerk to Super Bowl MVP?
For fiction John Kennedy Toole's "A Confederacy of Dunces" and Joseph Conrad's "The Secret Agent" For non-fiction the history of Gen Gordon in the Sudan, especially the history of the Mahdi and the fall of Khartum.
I'd like it if they made 2010 into a movie again. I recently read the novel for the first time, and I feel the Hyams movie version doesn't come across very well in comparison. This includes the dropping of the Chinese storlyline with the 'Tsien', the glimpses of life on Europa that are described in the novel and could be visualized to great effect today as well as a few other points. I know now why there's no movie version of 2061, btw. . However, I think 3001 would make for an interesting, at the very least visually appealing movie. However, whereas I'd like them to be more faithful to 2010, I'd prefer if they took quite a few liberties with 3001 since some parts are great but others are just pretty weak IMHO (the ending, for example).
something from Dale Brown's Maclanahan-verse. most especially Wings of Fire, Air Battle Force and Plan of Attack... but i suspect, post 9/11, no-one would touch the last one, in which Russia nukes US air bases and radar stations... even though it features a kick-ass finale Spoiler: Plan of Attack in which a secret USAF bomber force invades Russia and bombs their command centre...
The Evergence Trilogy by Sean Williams and Shane Dix would make good Sci-fi movies. The alternate history, Weapons of Choice trilogy wouldn't be too bad as action flicks...they are by John Birmingham...I think. Warhammer 40,000 - you could do some good stuff with their material, lots of stuff to choose from. Don't know if it should be live-action or totally CGI.
I wouldn't say an almost perfect translation, but it was certainly more faithful than the sequels. A number of events were either altered or omitted entirely because it was easier for filming purposes. The wound Atreyu receives on his arm is barely even addressed in the movie, since it's a holdover from an unused portion of the book. There's no way he could have gotten it in the film, but it appears nonetheless.
The Phill Nixon story: a tale of one man's darts success over the adversity of work redundancy. Inevitably directed by Richard Curtis, of course.
I'd prefer to see a film about John Macdonnell myself, but I like this idea a lot. I'd like to see a Terry Gilliam-helmed adaptation of The Sirens of Titan. Barring Gilliam, I'd like to see the Coens take a shot at it. Additionally, films about "Crazy Joey" Gallo, Aleister Crowley, Rasputin, John Dee and Edward Kelly, Steve Ditko, and a competent adaptaion of From Hell would be great.
I'd like to see someone do a mvoie about the siege of Khe Sahn during the Viet Nam war. Done right it would be a very compelling movie, IMO.
some other stuff i remember from the book Atreyu was green we first meet Falcor trapped in a giant spider web That wolf actually had a long and interesting back story