You're approached by a Hollywood exec...

[Umbran]

I think it's time to nerd out in a different direction: theatre.

Let's start a movie series dedicated to Broadway and off-Broadway plays, adapted to the screen for the first time.

I think I'd prefer someone throwing money at getting the pro-shot versions of the stage shows released, but I understand the desire, and expect that getting adaptations made would be strangely easier.

My preference is because frequently the performances of those stage shows won't be equaled by an adaptation.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

I think I'd prefer someone throwing money at getting the pro-shot versions of the stage shows released, but I understand the desire, and expect that getting adaptations made would be strangely easier.

My preference is because frequently the performances of those stage shows won't be equaled by an adaptation.

Yeah absolutely this.

It's very hard to think of Broadway/off-Broadway musicals which were improved by Hollywood adaption, and very easy to think of ones changed beyond recognition, reduced to mediocrity by terrible casting (especially of non-singers or somehow worse, talented singers who inexplicably weren't singing well), or just absolutely nuked from orbit. My precious darling Into The Woods got that latter "nuked from orbit" treatment, just absolutely bombarded by a director who fundamentally didn't understand really anything about Into The Woods, focused on some of the least important elements, cut some of the best bits, and who did a Mortal Kombat finishing move on the whole thing by casting James Corden in it (honestly why not just cast a rickety wheelbarrow full of very fresh horse dung whilst you're at it! What the hell was going on in Hollywood that he kept getting cast in stuff? He can't act, he's super-smug and 'orrible-looking, and not in a fun way, and he's a charmless oik and real serial jerk towards service workers to boot, I hear). I worry about what state Sondheim was in that he "approved" the changes. I sincerely hope it was "Sorry I am too busy rolling around in these $100 notes to care".

 

[payn]

Image one gets with me yelling, "pew pew...boom...crash..."

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Image one gets with me yelling, "pew pew...boom...crash..."

I do genuinely feel like if you got BattleTech in front of the right Hollywood exec right now, with as I've said before, a melodramatic script with shades of Game of Thrones and Top Gun and so on you could absolutely get this made.

Add the right soundtrack (Pacific Rim had the right idea) and CGI approach and you'd have a classic.

 

[payn]

I do genuinely feel like if you got BattleTech in front of the right Hollywood exec right now, with as I've said before, a melodramatic script with shades of Game of Thrones and Top Gun and so on you could absolutely get this made.

Add the right soundtrack (Pacific Rim had the right idea) and CGI approach and you'd have a classic.

Its got mad potential even beyond the mechs. Picture a room full of feudal bureaucrats talking about how they have to let worlds go becaus they dont have the troops or it would cost too much to defend them. Suddenly a door gets ripped off its hinges and a mutant clanner in body armor just tears them apart limb from limb as they impotently fire pistols at them. Ahh, thats the stuff.

 

[Desdichado]

Gor, just to troll them.

Either that or Thundarr the Barbarian.

 

[Ralif Redhammer]

If someone asked me, I'd put forward Walter Jon Williams' Hardwired. The story already practically screams off of the page.

A good cyberpunk film. Maybe a Snow Crash adaptation (there was a series in development at one point, but it's been stuck in development hell for a while).

[Edit: A Headlopper animated series would also be very, very, fun.]

It seems wild that Snow Crash hasn't gotten an adaptation yet...unless you count Ready Player One, which cribbed a whole lot from it.

The real question on that would be which/how many EC incarnations. I mean, Elric is the obvious choice, followed by Hawkmoon & Corum.

I think Elric would have to be the starting point, though Dorian Hawkmoon would probably be more straightforward to bring to life. But at least the early part of Elric's stories could be done quite tidily as a fall-from-grace/revenge arc.

But a Jerry Cornelius series could be wild. It would probably HAVE to be on one of the pay channels.

Definitely. I have the Final Programme, but have yet to work up to watching it.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

I think Elric would have to be the starting point, though Dorian Hawkmoon would probably be more straightforward to bring to life. But at least the early part of Elric's stories could be done quite tidily as a fall-from-grace/revenge arc.

Agree 100%. If you're going to do Moorcock, especially as live-action, Elric arranged as fall-from-grace into revenge is the way to go. Especially as the Melniboneans are very hate-able.

It seems wild that Snow Crash hasn't gotten an adaptation yet...unless you count Ready Player One, which cribbed a whole lot from it.

I mean, I guess the issue is it was basically half-satire at the time in 1993, because cyberpunk as a genre was (prematurely, as it turned out) on the way out, and honestly as every day passes it just gets closer to real life but not in a very legible way.

It would be very funny to see the anti-woke chuds struggle with Hiro Protagonist though. I don't think cyberpunk or post-cyberpunk really envisioned the level of outright racism and ethno-nationalism the demonologists of the internet would be able to (very intentionally) summon.

 

[trappedslider]

Gor, just to troll them.

Gor

Gor is a two-parter film series based upon the Gor book series. The films are Gor (1987) and Outlaw of Gor (1989; aka Gor II). Very loosely adapted from the first two books, the films depict professor Tarl Cabot's adventures after being magically …

tvtropes.org

 

[billd91]

I'd enjoy (or at least think I'd enjoy) more classic literature adaptations done with Muppets.