Harry Potter! lol
Tender Is The Night.
I guess they should remake it. They did one in the 60s but it wasn’t very good.
Budd Schulberg’s little-known novel, THE DISENCHANTED, was staged as a play with Jason Robards, Jr., as the F. Scott Fitzgerald-like character. Robards won a Tony, but I don’t think it’s ever been made into a film.
The musical version of Les Miserables, but only if its done as a grand scale epic.
Something with robots and time-travelers. With time-warped paradoxes.
Srsly: Anne Savage as Blanche DuBois. #ifonly
How come no-one asks “What films should be turned into books?”?
Serious though, Martin Amis’ books should be turned into films.
Also The 3rd Policeman
And someone with the balls to do it should give Finnegan’s Wake a crack… I haven’t managed to get past the first chapter, but still, someone like David Lynch should do this.
I would like to see more Vonnegut books adapted into film. I personally think that Galapagos by Vonnegut would make a really interesting movie if done correctly.
Oh, I’d agree that Martin Amis would be a great source.
Back when The Matrix came out and people would ask me if I liked it, I’d say of course not, it is merely a one quarter-ass attempt to deal with what Stanislaw Lem wrote about so brilliantly in “The Futurological Congress”, and that is what somebody should make a movie out of. So now I see that Ari Folman is doing exactly that. I’m most interested to see the results.
Marcus-
Be glad that John Huston improbably managed to succeed in his film The Dead and leave the rest of Joyce alone.
@Marcus K: FINNEGANS WAKE (there’s no apostrophe in the book’s title) was made into a film, although not a particularly good one. It was directed and co-written by experimental filmmaker Mary Ellen Bute in 1966.
I’m still waiting for that film about the life of Errol Flynn…BEFORE he landed in Hollywood.
As someone who’s read “My Wicked, Wicked Ways”, I can vouch for Errol’s pre-Hollywood life being potentially more fascinating than his life in Tinseltown.
I’ve read talk of a possible movie detailing “The Tasmanian Devil’s” life up until the time he was 23. Mind you, this would omit the tales of his twilight years being in Cuba around the time of the Revolution.
Errol’s life pre-Hollywood more or less WAS like a Hollywood film.
The biggest challenge would be to find an actor capable of exuding Errol’s spellbinding charisma and emulating a decent Australian accent.
If anyone is interested, I would certainly recommend Errol’s book. It’s a rather amusing and fascinating read.
I don’t think there’s been a biopic of Edgar Allan Poe. That seems like one another with both artistic and popular potential.
Jon, I’ve read a number of films regarding Edgar Allan Poe are in the works.
Sylvester Stallone has wanted to do a Poe movie for some time now.
Brave new World could totally be realized in the right hands—-although I will always think of Kubrick when I think of Huxley’s vision…
Confederacy of the Dunces—-always thought Wes Anderson was tied to make this one but time will tell
I can ALWAYS use a few more Bukowski, Labute, Palinhiuk, Henry Miller adaptations :)
a film on the life of Andrea Dworkin
a filmed version of Kerouac’s Satori in Paris
an anime verison of Bukwoski’s Pulp
another Spencer/Hill Western
Yes, Brave New World and Confederacy of Dunces also seem like naturals.
I would actually like to see some sort of biopic on the musical group TLC. I hear they have an amazing story to tell.
I hope Confederacy of Dunces never gets turned into a film. They tried a few years back with Will Farrell cast as Ignatius and Mos Def as Jones. I almost killed myself.
I’d like to see a film version of Henry Roth’s Call It Sleep, or Frederick Exley’s A Fan’s Notes.
Before George Harrison died, I asked him to make a movie which expose’d the cruise ship industry.
There is so much hokum going on their, a lot of near-slavery of Chinese and Jamaican workers, a lot of illusion and tackiness, pollution of the biosphere.
Ripe atmosphere for a movie to be made. But it would destroy a lot of illusions, and the American bourgeoisie would hate that.
I also wrote to Merchant-Ivory, suggesting that a new version of A TALE OF TWO CITIES needed to be made: I had been substitute teaching in a high school history class… We all had to sit through some horribly bad, color-faded, poorly acted version of the movie made in the mid-70’s. It was clear to me that the story deserved a more modern, lavish, scenic treatment. But then Ismail Merchant died.
John Updike’s novel TOWARD THE END OF TIME would make a bang-up sci-fi film.
Jon Corelis
I know there are a huge number of lists here, but maybe this one hasn’t been done yet and might be interesting to think about:
What films haven’t been made that should be?
A few examples of what I mean:
A film version of Fritz Leiber’s Fafhrd and Gray Mouser series, especially Ill Met in Lankmahr. This seems like a natural, and it’s amazing no one has ever done it, especially since at least some of Leiber’s works have been filmed.
I was going also to list Alfred Bester’s The Stars My Destination, but I’ve just heard a rumor that someone is making a film of it (does anyone know any more about this?)
A biopic of Lord Byron. Talk about a cinematic life! Though Byron appears as a character in various films, so far as I know only one biopic has been made about him, The Bad Lord Byron (1949), which I haven’t seen but is supposed not to be very good. This could be a really sumptuous Barry-Lyndon-like period piece.
A. E. Van Vogt’s Slan, or any of his novels. I think he did some TV work, but have any films been made of his books? (I know some would claim that Star Trek was based on The Voyage of the Space Beagle.)
Any of Peter Dickinson’s books — a wonderful writer, many of whose books seem eminently filmable.
Howard Fast’s Citizen Tom Paine.
No doubt others which I’ll put in another post if I think of them.