How to crush LotR and SW Trilogies!

[Nebulous]

So it might, but to have a chance, it'd need the budget and the talent to execute it right.

If Tom Cruise was Tanis Half-Elven I'd go see it. But only if that happened.

 

[Nebulous]

Now, I admittedly don't make a habit of reading D&D novels, but I can't have been the only one who thought the original DL Trilogy, well, was kinda lame. It felt like a retread of LotR with D&D conventions, but written by people who just couldn't touch most of fantasy's modern greats in terms of writing quality, let alone Tolkien. And Raistlin, well, I can't stop you from thinking he's awesome, but he really felt like another Drizzt in terms of the 'I exist to speak to lonely socially challenged adolescents" quality he seems to have.

I read DL when i was very young, and loved it. I loved the sequel too. Maybe if i was a more jaded fantasy fan at the time the conventions would have seemed cliche, but they sure weren't then. If anything, i wanted MORE of stories that reminded me of Tolkien. When I think about it, the Shannarra books were pretty cliche, but at that age i didn't mind then either.

 

[Desdichado]

You sound like a studio suit. The truth is, such things can usually never be predicted in advance. Never. N-e-v-e-r.

So it might, but to have a chance, it'd need the budget and the talent to execute it right.

No, he doesn't; he sounds like a reasonable normal person. You, on the other hand, sound like a fanboy. :\

 

[Altalazar]

No, he doesn't; he sounds like a reasonable normal person. You, on the other hand, sound like a fanboy. :\

I read them and thought they were decent books. I went to film school. I know how studio suits sound. They are not artists. They are about marketing and focus groups and money. And they are almost always wrong, in the positive or negative direction. Because no one can predict how well a movie will do.

How many times have you heard stories about authors who have shopped around books to hundreds of publishers, always told that it will never sell, only to finally publish it and find out it is a best seller? It is the same sort of thing. You NEVER know in advance.

 

[Altalazar]

There are not enough gamers in the world to crush LotR or SW box office sales on their own. And there's nothing in DL that's so compelling to the broad audience to suggest that it'd runaway like that. As Henry notes, most of the tropes have already appeared on teh big screen recently.



The IMDB doesn't list Hickman as having any screen writing experience, and screenwriting is a different animal than novel writing. Maybe Hickman would do a good job, or maybe he'd stink. As a first project, the odds are that he'd be mediocre. Do you want a mediocre DL movie?

You need A-list talent, and that includes a screenwriter. Or a team of them, actually. Because a book and a movie are two different things (which is why it is always so silly to compare the two).

And a good movie would obviously reach beyond the audience of just gamers. I'm sure plenty of non-gamers even saw the original D&D movie, much to their sorrow.

 

[Altalazar]

If Tom Cruise was Tanis Half-Elven I'd go see it. But only if that happened.

I could almost see that image when you mentioned it.

 

[Desdichado]

I read them and thought they were decent books. I went to film school. I know how studio suits sound. They are not artists. They are about marketing and focus groups and money. And they are almost always wrong, in the positive or negative direction. Because no one can predict how well a movie will do.

How many times have you heard stories about authors who have shopped around books to hundreds of publishers, always told that it will never sell, only to finally publish it and find out it is a best seller? It is the same sort of thing. You NEVER know in advance.

Yes, technically you do never know. Still you can usually eliminate the extremely unlikely.

 

[Altalazar]

Yes, technically you do never know. Still you can usually eliminate the extremely unlikely.

Yes, and you'd be right most of the time - until you were wrong.

Of course, one shouldn't make a trilogy like this with the goal of making that much money. Though you might need to have that carrot out there to convince a studio to spend the 1/3 of a billion dollars necessary to do it right.

 

[Dark Jezter]

You sound like a studio suit. The truth is, such things can usually never be predicted in advance. Never. N-e-v-e-r.

So it might, but to have a chance, it'd need the budget and the talent to execute it right.

Well, true. Technically, it is possible that a Dragonlance or Forgotten Realms film trilogy could make more money than SW or LotR, just like it's possible that I could accidentally discover the cure for cancer, make a billion dollars, and begin dating Jessica Alba. However, I'm not gonna bet on it happening.

 

[Gruns]

How about...

Out of curiosity, who would you cast in the rolls...

Tanis: Viggo Mortenson
Flint: John Rhys-Davies
Tasslehoff: Elijah Wood
Caramon: Orlando Bloom
Raistlin: Ian McKellen
Sturm: Sean Bean
Goldmoon: Cate Blanchett
Riverwind: Hugo Weaving

This could be big...