The Return of Sword & Sorcery Cinema?

[WayneLigon]

This I don't understand. How is it that this book get to have a film adaptation and not Dragonlance.

It's a very popular - and recent - young adult series. With the success of Harry Potter and Narnia, I'd look for Hollywood to do more young adult adaptations before anyone gets the balls or the rep to suggest adult fantasy. We've got this coming, and I thought someone was working on His Dark Materials, though it's probably in development hell.

Now the bad part of Harry or Eregon or Narnia, is that if you have one big ticket fantasy of any stripe, it's unlikely that Hollywood will try to put out another one the same year if it's even remotely the same. And our idea of 'remotely' and Hollywood's is not likely the same. Eregon is about a dragon rider, so that might in their mind kill off any other 'Dragon' properties that year.

Dragonlance would be pretty hard to do in one movie, and I don't look for a deal like LotR got to happen again for a long, long time. If ever. You'd have to have something with LotR's mainstream popularity and I don't think there is anything else comprable.

You could certainly do three or four connected movies with it, each focusing on a different section of the story. That might work out.

I would have thought we'd be seeing more fantasy by now, myself.

 

[James Heard]

I'm quite surprised that Dark Horse is pushing to make a movie of this. Let's hope they can get it done like they did with Hellboy.

I'm surprised it's never come up before really, because essentially Fafhrd & the Grey Mouser is about two buddies and Hollywood LOVES buddy movies. The only thing that's really going to be interesting is how they're going to sell a character named Fafhrd to the public properly. I think maybe it would do better if they dropped the notion of calling it a Fafhrd & the Grey Mouser story by name, and stuck with an easier story title.

 

[Ranger REG]

Dragonlance would be pretty hard to do in one movie, and I don't look for a deal like LotR got to happen again for a long, long time. If ever. You'd have to have something with LotR's mainstream popularity and I don't think there is anything else comprable.

Well, I don't want them to do one movie for Dragonlance. I want three. If that means producing one film at a time -- rather than all three films in a yearlong-span production shooting period -- so be it.

 

[Greyhawk_DM]

* Dungeon Siege - is being made into Uwe Bolls magnus opus.

I'd be interesting in hearing everyone's thoughts.

Well if he makes it like he did Bloodrayne, its going to suck.

 

[mhacdebhandia]

Because Dragonlance isn't a household name and I highly doubt the Chronicles books have ever made the New York Times bestsellers list.

Your doubts are unfounded.

In fact, the last four Weis & Hickman Dragonlance novels - Dragons of Summer Flame, Dragons of a Fallen Sun, Dragons of a Lost Star, and Dragons of a Vanished Moon - all hit the New York Times, Wall Street Journal and Publishers Weekly best-seller lists. The latter debuted at #10 on the New York Times and Publishers Weekly best-seller lists, and #8 on the Wall Street Journal list.

The originals were a pretty major phenomenon; there's a reason Wizards of the Coast still publishes them, and supports Dragonlance in D&D with a core setting book, when the other dead settings are, well, dead: and that reason is spelled "novel sales".

 

[jester47]

I'm surprised it's never come up before really, because essentially Fafhrd & the Grey Mouser is about two buddies and Hollywood LOVES buddy movies. The only thing that's really going to be interesting is how they're going to sell a character named Fafhrd to the public properly. I think maybe it would do better if they dropped the notion of calling it a Fafhrd & the Grey Mouser story by name, and stuck with an easier story title.

How do you introduce Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser to the public properly?

Easy, make a movie about a huge barbarian and his little buddy sidekick. Fafhrd is hard to say so borrow from another sword and sorcery franchise and call him "Conan." But haing Conan and the grey Mouser would piss off all the conan fans and would confuse people, so make some references o ghengis Kahn and use the names of one of his most trusted generals as the name of the sidekick. Borrow the name of a villain from a completely different Robert E. Howard Sword and sorcery property, but make the villian all about snakes. Viola.

Less cynically: A good title for a Fafhrd and Grey Mouser movie would be "Swords Against _________" or The Swords of Lankhmar, or Lankhmar.

 

[barsoomcore]

I conducted <a href="http://barsoomcore.blogspot.com/2006/04/ultimate-coolness.html">some analysis on S&S cinema in my blog</a>. And came to the inescapable conclusion that 1982 is a high-water mark for North American culture.

Should even half the listed productions get theatrical release (been hearing about an Elric movie since the 80's so I'm a little cynical), we could be seeing a new coolness.

The rebirth, even, of cool.

 

[James Heard]

A good title for a Fafhrd and Grey Mouser movie would be "Swords Against _________" or The Swords of Lankhmar, or Lankhmar.

That's what I was saying. They should refer to the stories by name rather than stress that they're F&GM stories. Leiber made good, cool, accessible titles most of the time. They should use 'em, maybe even if they don't match the actual work that's used in the film. "Ill met in Lankhmar", "The Sunken Land", and "The Mouser Goes Below" probably wouldn't be so inaccessible as to confuse consumers as to either tha characters or the content.

As an aside, it's really hard to believe that it's been so long since Leiber's death and since I read the last of those stories. Wow...time flies.

 

[Klaus]

Lahkmar seems a natural title for a Fafhrd & Gray Mouser movie. I'd condense Ill Met in Lankhmar and The Circle Curse into a movie, possibly setting up the thing with Duke Danius and Death plus Lean Times in Lankhmar for the sequel. Bazaar of the Bizzarre could be made into a neat 15-minute segment in either movie.

 

[sniffles]

How do you introduce Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser to the public properly?

Easy, make a movie about a huge barbarian and his little buddy sidekick. Fafhrd is hard to say so borrow from another sword and sorcery franchise and call him "Conan." But haing Conan and the grey Mouser would piss off all the conan fans and would confuse people, so make some references o ghengis Kahn and use the names of one of his most trusted generals as the name of the sidekick. Borrow the name of a villain from a completely different Robert E. Howard Sword and sorcery property, but make the villian all about snakes. Viola.

Less cynically: A good title for a Fafhrd and Grey Mouser movie would be "Swords Against _________" or The Swords of Lankhmar, or Lankhmar.

And then the Robert E. Howard estate sues you.

I know Fafhrd isn't a name that's going to please a lot of Hollywood execs or casual viewers, but do we always have to dumb everything down for those people? In the pitch they should just refer to Fafhrd as "the big guy" and don't let the bigwigs see what his name is until the film's already in the can.

Honestly, though, I'm not very sanguine about a Lankhmar story getting to the screen with any resemblance to the original. They wouldn't just change the character names.