Books ----> Movies

After recently finishing Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card I read that its potential film is currently living in limbo with a director no longer attached. It could make a compelling film, now that special and visual effects are more sophisticated. It would be a challenge though, to balance the emotion with the action.

This got me thinking...what other books would I like to see turned into movies?

Prey by Michael Crichton. We've already seen Congo, Sphere, Jurassic Park, the Lost World, Disclosure, etc. etc. What's one more? I think it's the best choice for a film compared to State of Fear and Next.

Also, it looks like the Help has been optioned to be turned into a film. It's a colorful, well written story about the lives of maids in the rural South in the 1960s. With the right cast, I can see it as a great drama on screen.

What about Computer Animated films?

A book from the Redwall series! Yes. Come on. Computer Animation has now entertained adult themes (Up), as well as sword fighting and bloodshed (Beowolf), why not the anthropomorphizing world of dueling rodents? The adaptation of the Redwall series was attempted in a short-lived cartoon-animated TV series, and there may be an Austrialian cartoon-animated movie of Redwall(?) But still, it's time to give a big-screen, CGI vision to the children series that focuses on battles and feasts, slavery and freedom, life and death, rats and ferrets versus squirrels and mice. I vote Mossflower first before Redwall.

Eaters of the Dead by Michael Crichton. It is already a live-action movie with Antonio Banderas that I guess I need to see (the Thirteenth Warrior), but after the release of Beowolf, mentioned above, I can't help but think that this would make a similarly good film, maybe too similar, Eaters of the Dead is loosely based on Beowolf, maybe I'm changing my mind as I write this...

I thought I would come up with more...I'll have to start a running list and update as necessary. Stay tuned!

How about one book that I don't need to see on screen as it is now? Rant by Chuck Palahniuk. Fight Club is a great film so it makes sense that it set the stage for future Palahniuk movie adaptions. The adaptation of Choke had a far less impressive run, but it was a smaller scale film. I can't really comment on it because I haven't seen it. So, Rant. I read this book while interning in the entertainment business. It was passed around for possible acquisition. The story of Rant is strange and other-worldly. No huge surprise there. It exists in an alternate present with day-time people and night-time people. The main character, Rant, is a legend for what he did in defiance of the norms in this world. You find out very slowly what that defiance is.

Usually, when I see a film adaptation of a book I think that the more the filmmakers strayed from the original text, the more they messed up. In the case of Rant, however, it would only survive as a film in spite of its original plot. It would need to be re-molded for the screen for a few reasons. As it is now we only get snippets of story, small impressions of this world given out in small doses. There wasn't a compelling action that made me want to keep reading. What made me want to keep reading was the voice and interesting world. Plot was secondary. The ending isn't enough of a pay off either. It didn't strike me the same way the end of Fight Club did. It's not the same kind of ending where all is revealed and explained in a world we can all relate to.

The most cinematic aspect of Rant is the idea of Party Crashing. Party Crashing is the recreational activity of racing and bashing up your car with other cars who are playing the "game." It's a secret club that comes out at night. The people who play want to feel a genuine, raw emotion, very similar to why people fight in Fight Club. Party Crashers signal that they're "in" by tying some identifying feature to their car, for example, a Christmas tree, or something else that wouldn't necessarily seem out of place. The stylistic world, the energy involved in Party Crashing and the character Rant would be unique and visually impressive on screen, but I don't see how the story would translate. The dynamic between party crashers would have to be expanded and become the focus of the film, while a lot of Rant's childhood would have to go, including the emphasis on time travel and Rant's sordid family history. It's complex and it is interesting, but on screen, I don't think it would have the right effect if it was the focus of the film.

Not all books are written to be easily translatable to film and that's fine. Don't get me wrong, I'd probably go see an adaptation of Rant, but I'd hope it would be adapted with care and thought and with a little bit of absurdity, imagination and madness.