Overlooked franchises you'd like to see movies of...

Well, they could call it The Spectre.

 

Or Wrath of the Spectre after one of the comic-book titles.

Kinda like the way THE AVENGERS had to be AVENGERS ASSEMBLE in the UK to avoid confusion with Steed and Emma . ..

 

Or they could go with a subtitle. The Spectre: Wrath of God or something like that. Or go old-school and make a whole series with titles like The Coming of The Spectre, The Spectre Strikes, Revenge of The Spectre, Haunted by The Spectre, The Spectre Walks at Night, The New Adventures of The Spectre, etc.

 

Whatever you want to call it...I was already on the edge of just shutting it off, and when I hit that scene I was "Ok, I'm done..."

There's a difference between "darker themes" and "twisted and cynical". I hated the Ultimates comic for the same reason.

If I want darker in that genre I'll watch re-watch a Punisher movie or Batman. Hopefully Deadpool will be appropriately dark too.

 

There should have been more Buckaroo Banzai. Or Doc Savage for that matter. Just one movie of each wasn't enough.

 

Buckaroo Banzai, yeah.

 

The Phantom, Doc Savage, The Shadow. I'm a sucker for pulp adventures.

 

^ Buckaroo Banzai basically IS a Doc Savage movie.

And another very Doc-like character is Sam Beckett from QL.

 

^That's one I've never seen, though I've often heard lots about it. I must check it out some time.

 

Except that really the very main things that makes BB memorable are the style, the humor and the cast. The premise is borrowed and unremarkable.

 

Space Academy
StarBlazers

 

One franchise sorely overlooked: the original Ian Fleming James Bond novels. Not the uber-budget, colossal scope films of the same names. These books all take place in the 1950's and are REALLY good. They are relatively short, too. A single book could probably be adapted into a 2-hr tv movie. The public is clamoring for well-done period dramas today. These books could make a terrific 1 or 2 year cable series. EON really should consider this as a "gap years" project between films.
I agree with above about Dune. Huge fan of the original 4 books and thought the minis were about as good as they can do. Wouldn't mind "God Emperor" with James McAvoy at some point, though.
It's been discussed around the boards before, but, Asimov's Foundation series could be many seasons of entertaining cable greatness.
Author as franchise: how about "Arthur C Clarke theatre"? They could adapt many of his various books into cable movies.

 

Well, we're getting "Childhood's End" on Syfy shortly.

 

The Lensman series or get the fuck out.

The Amber series....though I think SyFy still holds the rights so I'll hold off on that one.

The Champion Eternal books....While Elric tends to get the most love, Corum was always my fave.

Fafhrd and The Gray Mouser....just base it off the earlier stuff, the later stuff was "meh".

Land Of The Lost....recently rewatched the original show, and despite budget and time limitations, and being a kids show, it was surprisingly good. Some of the episodes were pretty heady stuff which should come as no surprise given the sci-fi pedigree of some of the writers. It's a shame the movie went the goofy comedy route because one of the producers felt that any movie that had "dinosaurs chasing kids" would've been looked upon as a Jurassic Park rip off.


Zothique or The Dying Earth. The former inspired the latter, and was more of a dark opulent fantasy. The latter devolved into more open comedy, but the first book is a gem.

Silver John....love these stories and would love to see them adapted into live action.

 

I would love to see period Bond movies (if they were doing it in this way, they wouldn't need to have Daniel Craig, they could get less expensive actors to play TV 007). But I don't think there's the remotest chance of Eon taking a chance with their cash cow and doing something like this.

 

The Anime movie boom hasn't happened yet. But when they get around to it, 'Legend of Galactic Heroes'.

 

There was a miniseries about Ian Fleming awhile back. Have you seen that? Pretty much as close as we'd get to Bond on the small screen.

 

I'd love to see "The Scarecrow of Romney Marsh" revived, but I've heard tell that the rights are a tangle.

 

The PERN series is my all time fav fantasy series. I had to stop my Dragonlance reading back in the early 90's because they just couldn't compare to Anne McCaffrey's PERN.

http://i.kinja-img.com/gawker-media...ogressive,q_80,w_636/dipznijrqrub3y3n0ecz.jpg


I am also partial to McCaffrey's trilogy about Killashandra the Crystal Singer...

http://www.ravenoak.net/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/crystalsinger.jpg?797180

... although maybe it was the flying sled she uses to go crystal hunting that I was partial to.

Pretty please.

 

Have you ever seen the DC Showcase short that came with the animated DTV movies?
That's my only experience with the character, and I thought it was really cool.