Books made into Movie's/ Series

Joab

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I'd really like to see a movie remake of Without Remorse by Tom Clancy but I doubt it'd do that well.

I also wouldn't mind seeing a Splinter Cell movie.

"Without Remorse" is in preproduction. It is scheduled to be released in 2011. I think it will do very well if done right.
 

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Robert A. Heinlein's "Glory Road" Hopefully they wouldn't screw it all up as they did "Starship Troopers" Tom Cruise might be a good one for the lead, he seemed to do a good job with a sword in "The Last Samurai".
 

jks9199

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I like many of your suggestions, but cringe at the expectation some of you seem to have that the movies be true to book. In my opinion, the best adaptations of books are ones that capture the themes and the broad strokes, but aren't bound to address every detail.

That's a great point. A lot of great novels would make lousy movies -- if translated directly. But they'd be a great movie if made by someone who can translate from the literary to the visual world of movies. It's one thing to be faithful to the source material; it's another to be enslaved by it.

There's a lot stuff that has to move from internal dialog or wordy explication and be shown or otherwise brought out. Think about the opening of Nine Princes in Amber. How do you show the memory flashes, the automatic, instinctive paranoia, and so on that's going on with Corwin? (And, yeah, I'd love to see a movie(s) made of the Chronicles of Amber! To do it decent, I think you'd have to combine a couple of the books, both for reasons of practicality and simple storytelling.)
 

Ken Morgan

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A fantasy series (nine --huge) volumes written by Stephen R. Donaldson. "The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant The Unbeliever." IMO a truly amazing fantasy epic... it was starting out to be a film but it's so complicated and so in depth with it's plot and characters that it was deemed too difficult (read: costly)... so probably if broken down to a mini-series or a direct to DVD set maybe.

One of my all time favorite series of books. I read them several times years ago, and I still hold them in high regard.

There’s books by Raymond Feist, Terry Brooks, Charles De Lint, and countless others that I would love to see, but I don’t think the general public would be willing to pay to see most of them.

Oh, wait, John R. Maxim’s series about Bannerman. Great series about a team of assassins, kinda like a James Bond rolled into Jason Bourne. Those would be some great movies.
 

Big Don

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"Without Remorse" is in preproduction. It is scheduled to be released in 2011. I think it will do very well if done right.
That is sad. Clancy's books have suffered more than most in the transition to film. Come on, John Clark is supposed to be dark haired with a large build, who played him? Will Dafoe...
They started with Hunt for Red October, with Jones and Adm Greer being changed into black men for no good reason. Clancy had black people in his novels, the main character's best friend is black, Jones could be, his race was never mentioned, but, ADM Greer was NOT black, he just could not have been. He was a US Navy officer during WWII, he wasn't black.
What skinny, pasty little blond are they going to have play Clark in Without Remorse? Are they going to leave in the bits where he tortures people in the decompression chamber?
 

Joab

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That is sad. Clancy's books have suffered more than most in the transition to film. Come on, John Clark is supposed to be dark haired with a large build, who played him? Will Dafoe...
They started with Hunt for Red October, with Jones and Adm Greer being changed into black men for no good reason. Clancy had black people in his novels, the main character's best friend is black, Jones could be, his race was never mentioned, but, ADM Greer was NOT black, he just could not have been. He was a US Navy officer during WWII, he wasn't black.
What skinny, pasty little blond are they going to have play Clark in Without Remorse? Are they going to leave in the bits where he tortures people in the decompression chamber?

There are rumors it will be Brandon Routh, the actor who played Superman in "Superman Returns". He only tortured one in a decompression chamber, don't know if it will be included.
 

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Brandon Routh would be a great John Clark. Actually i think the best version of him thus far was Liev Schrieber in The Sum Of All Fears. But yeah, Clancy generally gets butchered. I firmly assert that Rainbow 6 should have been an hour long series, shows like The Unit, Stargate SG1 and Stargate Atlantis proved that military shows can be done well and relativly cheaply. Thow Rainbow 6 on HBO or Showtime.
 

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I wish they'd make The Time Traveller's Wife into a series rather than a movie.

Here's the deal: the book is very complex and has a lot of underlying dark themes, even though on the surface it's a romance of sorts. The hero, Henry, has to become a thief in order to survive as a time traveller. There is also implications that he's an alcoholic, a womanizer, and has rage problems. But with his sweetheart Clare he seems like a perfect gentleman and a dream boyfriend/husband (no that's not a spoiler, it's revealed very early on in the book). Henry and Clare also do some things in the main plot that would not put them in a sympathetic light for the romance-moviegoer audience.

Also, there's a great deal of philosophical exploration into the nature of time travel, the meaning of fate and destiny, and free will.

Although the movie hasn't been released yet I can tell they've botched it. It's being marketed as a sweet romance. Rachel McAdams is cast as Clare-that should tell you loads. Look at the poster--nothing in it hints at the kind of people Clare and Henry are in the book. I am in despair that a major Hollywood version of the Time Traveler's Wife could possibly do justice to the complex and dark themes of this book.

HBO, on the other hand, yes. That would be fitting, I think.
 

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Also from Donaldson, the Gap series would be great Si-Fi and his Mirror series could actually be fantasy that could be handled

The Gap series would definitely be rated "R" (at least!), but would be fantastic with the right screenplay & Ridley Scott directing.

Count me in on Ender's Game as well (go ahead and skip the Speaker for the Dead and Xenocide, but come back with his Ender's Shadow series about Bean).

I really want to see The Fionavar Tapestry by Guy Gavriel Kay made into movies; hands down the best fantasy books I've read. Please get Peter Jackson on board to direct.

Nearly anything by David Gemmell (Druss the Legend, Waylander, etc) could make very good movies... with decent screenplays and actor/director combinations. They could also end up really cheesy if not handled well.
 

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I firmly assert that Rainbow 6 should have been an hour long series, shows like The Unit, Stargate SG1 and Stargate Atlantis proved that military shows can be done well and relativly cheaply. Thow Rainbow 6 on HBO or Showtime.
I could see that. Hell, I'd like to see that. With a three night pilot miniseries, covering the events in the book.
 

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I could see that. Hell, I'd like to see that. With a three night pilot miniseries, covering the events in the book.

I hear you man, there is enough story and action to make 3 episodes at 2 hours each and have lots of action and plot in each. Plus the book ends at the perfect spot with the team fully established and everything in place to work as a well oiled machine.

One thing I loved about Rainbow 6 was the entire time reading it all I had in my head was Larry Hama's run on the GI Joe comics. It felt as if Clancy read those and was doing his version of it. I always thought GI Joe should be heavy on the Clancy vibe.
 

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never been a comics guy, myself, but, I'd love to see Ding and John bag the guys on the plane (before the title credits, night one) and the amusement park, (culminating night two) and the evil hippies in the rain forest (night 3) Damn, that would be cool.
 

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No man, the plane is the opening scene! Remember it starts on the plane then they defuse that situation then land and have the first briefing. I say Plane, first briefing, separating into 2 teams, first training and the next action scene (was it the amusement park or the house with the helicopter in the back?) all interspersed with the kidnappings of the homeless and the testing.
 

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No man, the plane is the opening scene!
YES! Before the Theme song! Like the 10min bit before the themesong in everyh bond movie...
Remember it starts on the plane then they defuse that situation then land and have the first briefing. I say Plane, first briefing, separating into 2 teams, first training and the next action scene (was it the amusement park or the house with the helicopter in the back?) all interspersed with the kidnappings of the homeless and the testing.
Plane, BANK, house, Park, Hospital, Olympics, Jungle, IIRC... The Olympics thing would FREAK people out...
 

Omar B

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Awesome, you got the order right! By the way, the hospital action scene is my favorite, not only a great shootout, but a Michael Bay worthy car chase/helecopter chase and post chase standoff in the hospital. Plus that scene with Ding wanting to make that guy into a girl. That book is so damn sweet.

But yeah man, if you like Clancy you should check out Larry Hama's run on GI Joe. He's the first guy who wrote the title and I swear there's so much stuff I'm sure Clancy lifted right out of GI Joe. By the way, Hama's Japanese/American, a marital artist (perfect for writing Snake Eyes), a marine who served in Nam. The dude's got the cred necessary to write a great war story.
 

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Count me in on Ender's Game as well (go ahead and skip the Speaker for the Dead and Xenocide, but come back with his Ender's Shadow series about Bean).

OSC has been working on a script forever, and he has said that it will encompass the story lines of both Game and Shadow. To get an idea of how long it's been in the works, they were originally talking about getting the boy who played Anakin Skywalker in Ep I. Who is now in his twenties.
 

Big Don

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Awesome, you got the order right! By the way, the hospital action scene is my favorite, not only a great shootout, but a Michael Bay worthy car chase/helecopter chase and post chase standoff in the hospital. Plus that scene with Ding wanting to make that guy into a girl. That book is so damn sweet.
OK. We've done a pretty good rough outline of a Mini Series for Rainbow Six, now, who pays us the big bucks and when do we get them?
 

Omar B

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My question is when's Clancy gonna get off his butt and give us another book actually written by him? It's great to have the ones plotted out by him under the "Tom Clancy's" banner but it does not count.

Nobody's gonna pay money for a Rainbow 6 series. Clancy's a conservative and the book makes the environmentalists look pretty bad, it'll never fly in Hollywood. Maybe if it was an English production with an American cast, but I find it hard to see it happen over here.
 

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Teeth of the Tiger II? Maybe he could explain where the cousins came from...
 

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