Books you wish were Movies/TV Shows

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I am the Watcher in the Night
So it's quarantine, we're all trying to keep busy and for so many, it involves reading, movies and TV shows...or rather a series, as so little of this is viewed on TV these days. I even went through the trouble of re-watching the Star Wars prequels (my write up is to be completed haha).

So which books do you wish could becomes movies or a series....heck they may have already been done in one format, could they be better in another format?

My initial choices -

Animorphs, I loved these books as a kid and maybe got through about 6 or 7 of the novels before I grew out of them. However, there was a terrific little children's series based on the books which lasted for a couple seasons I think (there are actually 54 books in total). There is still a lot of material left untouched and with streaming services like Netflix, Amazon and Disney all looking for something new to beat their rivals, this could be a great series, aimed at kids and young teens. Netflix and Amazon is really behind the curves in children's programming and both could do a lot worse than this property. it's fun, could use cool effects and pick up a string of future stars.

The Kingkiller Chronicle, I have only read the first book in a supposed 3 part series, but this is perfect for any media entity looking for the next Game of Thrones. Medieval setting, some magic, interesting characters and intrigue. HBO would do well buying the property before the release of the 3rd and final book. Or yet again, it could go to a streaming platform, The Witcher was huge for Netflix and they could strike while the iron is hot. Like Animorphs, this would be better served in episodic format rather than a full blown movie or movies.

AK, is the story of a child soldier, in an African war, trained to use his AK-47 rifle. It's a book I read way back in school and is aimed at a younger audience but deals with very serious topics on child soldiers, violence, abuse and death. I think if it is handled in the right way, by the right director, this could be a beautiful, heartwarming, tear jerking movie. Maybe someone like Ang Lee, who handled Life of Pi so beautifully? Or Kenneth Brannagh who has done some varied and heart felt work? My personal choice would probably be Danny Boyle, who knows how to handle death, violence and relationships in his movies.

Thats all for now. What would you guys recommend?
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Off the top of my head I'd say Geek Love, Blindsight (might be happening) and House of Suns. Blindsight and House of Suns not only offer a great story but the visual effects would be insane. Geek Love, I mostly just want to see those characters come to life.



King Rat by China Mieville is a book I have really enjoyed and thought that would actually work as a movie. Without spoilering too much, and also relying on my bad memory, the book is set in London during '90s. It is about a boy who becomes orphan after the death of his father, and gets a visit from the king of rats, who reveals himself to be his uncle, telling him that his mother was actually a rat. The king starts training the boy on how to live and survive as a rat. Few days into the training, the boy hears of the return of a long lost enemy of the rats, the Ratcatcher and the action starts building from there with the rats preparing for an upcoming war.




Small fun fact: After reading Misery I always thought a movie would be nice to be made...little did I know.



The Institute - Stephen King can do absolutely no wrong in our books, and his newest novel didn't disappoint us. In the middle of the night, Luke's parents get murdered, and Luke wakes up at The Institute in a room that looks exactly like his, sans windows. The rest of the novel is about the Institution and what happens there,



Anything and everything related to Sherlock Holmes, Poirot and Marple. And true adaptations not the pansy Robert Downey Jr stuff.

More Tintin. A true adaptation of King Lear, not any modified whimsical stuff that a director dreams up.
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Welcome to the human race...
A Confederacy of Dunces above all else - it'll probably never happen on account of how cursed it is (seriously, look it up), but it's got a reputation for being one of the funniest novels ever written that could very easily be magic in the hands of the right artists.

Another big one that's still never happened is Neuromancer, which should be a shoo-in considering how in '80s-themed cyberpunk is these days (the same could also be said of Snow Crash).
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I am pilgrim

There was rumours of it a couple of years ago, but little seems to have materialised.
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I am the Watcher in the Night
Anything and everything related to Sherlock Holmes, Poirot and Marple. And true adaptations not the pansy Robert Downey Jr stuff.

More Tintin. A true adaptation of King Lear, not any modified whimsical stuff that a director dreams up.
You don't think they have all been done to death? Plenty of more accurate adaptations of Holmes are around and lots to do with Poirot and Marple.



1. THE FAR CRY by Frederic Brown would make a fantastic movie. The setting of Taos, New Mexico would be brilliant like in the book and the story really has a twist to it. This would give an actor a great opportunity to play a very interesting character with depth. I think the movie if done correctly could be a big hit.

2. MADBALL by Frederic Brown would be a fantastic film. They would have to change the ending which was too dark and depressing for a movie. The main character is a carnival fortune teller named Dr. Magus who has a crystal ball which happens to be nicknamed a "madball" and he tells people's fortunes. However the real story is Dr. Magus investigating the murder of a fellow carnie who he believes robbed a bank before his murder and hid the robbery money somewhere in the carnival and Dr. Magus attempts to solve the murder and most of all find the money. John Carradine would have made a perfect Dr. Magus but since he is dead I would cast his son Robert Carradine as the Dr. Magus character. It is a fascinating book. I really hated the ending that is why I would want a cheerier ending for the movie. It would be a great film because it captures the day to day life of carnies and the challenges they face.



You don't think they have all been done to death? Plenty of more accurate adaptations of Holmes are around and lots to do with Poirot and Marple.

A repeat of these classics is always welcome. Once every 25 years there should be a reboot.



Prince of Persia would be best

There is already one done, pretty recent too.



Honestly, I would like to see a good movie from Fahrenheit 451 .The first time I saw a film made a couple of years ago, I was disappointed, and decided to read the book, because I could not understand how such a **** could be made from such a popular book. The book really interested me, it contains a lot of interesting parallels and discussion questions. I even wrote a little paper on conformity in Fahrenheit 451 studydriver.com/fahrenheit-451/. To summarize, I repeat that I would like to see a decent film, which would be at least 70% as good as the book.



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The Runelords series by David Farland. It could be the next Lord of the Rings.

Gods Behaving Badly by Marie Phillips. This movie was attempted, but it was so bad they decided not to release it. From what I can see, they got the tone and the casting wrong. I think someone should give it another shot.

Hatchet by Gary Paulsen.

Micronauts not a book, but a comic book. The impediment to this one is likely rights, as they were also a toy.
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I could think of a few comic books I could only dream of to be turned into a movie adaptation, because their content is not exactly suitable for the mainstream crowd, and therefore, not profitable and not attractive to your typical Hollywood studio. Comics like Kraven's Last Hunt, for example, featuring a suicidally depressed Kraven who lost meaning to his existence as a hunter who couldn't catch his greatest game, the webslinger himself. That's perhaps just too depressing for the kind of crowd Sony (or even Kevin Feige for that matter) is interested in when branding the webslinger as a product. It's the kind of idealized movie project that could only live in our imagination, such as the likes of a Death Note adaptation by David Fincher. Then again, every now and then, we do get geek directors like Sam Raimi and James Gunn who do justice to the source material, but I feel that's more of a lightning in a bottle situation that comes around every decade or two.

A more practical and realistic adaptation, however, would be The Boy Who Collects Spider-Man, but I imagine that the only way for it to exist is in a short five minute scene in one of the MCU films, maybe not even a full adaptation of it and just a mere reference of the kid.

On the DC side of things (though it's now licensed by "Top Shelf" and "Knockabout Comics"), I would love to see a proper adaptation of The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen. That crossover was just so intriguing to my younger self, who was fascinated by literary legends like The Invisible Man, Dracula and even Dorian Grey. I mean, comic book crossovers have been around long before LEG came along (even in Universal's own movie productions, in fact), but from what I've read, LEG goes beyond just your typical Universal Studios monsters since you also had Captain Nemo, Sherlock and even James Bond (named as "Jimmy Bond") in the mix. Licensing problems aside, it was a geek's wet-dream of having all these iconic characters come together. But again, bringing licensing and copyright back into consideration, it's yet another impossible dream, possibly far more so than the aforementioned Spider-Man comic. But that's what this thread is about; wishes. Having Mina of the Dracula legend having an immortal fight against Dorian Grey was one of my fonder memories as a kid watching the movie... no matter how mediocre the adaptation turned out to be. It's the kind of crossover that most kids my age in my country wouldn't bat an eye at because they were not popular or well-known superheroes or movie characters, at least not among children. But it only made me grow fonder of these literature icons.

Another thing that really attracted me to the comic was also Alan Moore's trademark grey morality, meaning no hero in this tale is truly good or evil (if anything, they lean more towards being outright villains, especially The Invisible Man). Even James Bond was a scum here, but I don't want to spoil too much. I've always been more attracted by characters with ambiguous morality (save a few pure-of-heart exceptions like Captain America), and I think it would be an interesting take indeed to see these classic characters tainted with sinful desires, much as any normal person would.



I am the Watcher in the Night
I could think of a few comic books I could only dream of to be turned into a movie adaptation, because their content is not exactly suitable for the mainstream crowd, and therefore, not profitable and not attractive to your typical Hollywood studio. Comics like Kraven's Last Hunt, for example, featuring a suicidally depressed Kraven who lost meaning to his existence as a hunter who couldn't catch his greatest game, the webslinger himself. That's perhaps just too depressing for the kind of crowd Sony (or even Kevin Feige for that matter) is interested in when branding the webslinger as a product. It's the kind of idealized movie project that could only live in our imagination, such as the likes of a Death Note adaptation by David Fincher. Then again, every now and then, we do get geek directors like Sam Raimi and James Gunn who do justice to the source material, but I feel that's more of a lightning in a bottle situation that comes around every decade or two.

A more practical and realistic adaptation, however, would be The Boy Who Collects Spider-Man, but I imagine that the only way for it to exist is in a short five minute scene in one of the MCU films, maybe not even a full adaptation of it and just a mere reference of the kid.

On the DC side of things (though it's now licensed by "Top Shelf" and "Knockabout Comics"), I would love to see a proper adaptation of The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen. That crossover was just so intriguing to my younger self, who was fascinated by literary legends like The Invisible Man, Dracula and even Dorian Grey. I mean, comic book crossovers have been around long before LEG came along (even in Universal's own movie productions, in fact), but from what I've read, LEG goes beyond just your typical Universal Studios monsters since you also had Captain Nemo, Sherlock and even James Bond (named as "Jimmy Bond") in the mix. Licensing problems aside, it was a geek's wet-dream of having all these iconic characters come together. But again, bringing licensing and copyright back into consideration, it's yet another impossible dream, possibly far more so than the aforementioned Spider-Man comic. But that's what this thread is about; wishes. Having Mina of the Dracula legend having an immortal fight against Dorian Grey was one of my fonder memories as a kid watching the movie... no matter how mediocre the adaptation turned out to be. It's the kind of crossover that most kids my age in my country wouldn't bat an eye at because they were not popular or well-known superheroes or movie characters, at least not among children. But it only made me grow fonder of these literature icons.

Another thing that really attracted me to the comic was also Alan Moore's trademark grey morality, meaning no hero in this tale is truly good or evil (if anything, they lean more towards being outright villains, especially The Invisible Man). Even James Bond was a scum here, but I don't want to spoil too much. I've always been more attracted by characters with ambiguous morality (save a few pure-of-heart exceptions like Captain America), and I think it would be an interesting take indeed to see these classic characters tainted with sinful desires, much as any normal person would.
Terrific post man!

I agree with a lot of this and hope some of the darker stories in the Marvel world, especially those relating to Spidey are adapted but the current MCU version of the webslinger probably will not allow it. It doesn't even feel like Spider Man anymore.

I remember that League of Legends movie and it was quite goofy but I liked it. A modern budget, effects, a better cast and the right licensing could definitely help it...or move it into the realm of a Netflix series. By that I mean a series more in line with something serious but heartfelt, rather than the goofy, uneven nature of The Witcher.

Btw, as per all the other posts here, I've actually ended up using them as book recommendations, great stuff everyone!

I'll add to my list of what I'd like to see adapted -

The Great Gatsby
None of that Baz Luhrman malarky (I haven't seen previous adaptations) but a genuine, representative adaptation of Fitzgerald's work. As a movie it would probably work in the right hands, maybe Sam Mendes or Alfonso Cuaran? But I'd be more interested in a TV mini series (HBO, BBC, Showtime etc). Imagine the team behind The Night Of... or Breaking Bad picking it up and working on it. Bradley Cooper as Gats? Domnhall Gleeson and Nick?

A Thousand and One Arabian Nights
I don't know much about these stories from a literary point of view but I understand the basics. A fantasy series loosely based on these would be a welcome respite from all the medieval/western fantasies which populate pop culture these days. Imagine the sets, effects, characters and actors for something like this.



Well the book that i want to read is already a film, 1995s action movie Fair game, based on paula gosling s novel



The Matthew Reilly novels would make for fantastic movies &/or TV series. The Scarecrow series (incl Ice Station, Area 7) would be brilliant as would the Huntsman series (Seven Ancient Wonders, Six Sacred Stones etc) are ready built to lead into sequels which seems to be the model that Hollywood likes at the momeny, but stand alone books such as Contest or Temple would be every bit as good.