Movie Challenge - $300 Million USD = A new Epic franchise.

[kingpaul]

Honor Harrington (ok, so its probably more than 3 movies because of the number of books in the main series).

Dresden Files

Last Legionary series by Douglas Hill - granted, this series isn't that large, so you could probably get away with two movies.

 

[Ed_Laprade]

Honor Harrington (ok, so its probably more than 3 movies because of the number of books in the main series).

Dresden Files

Last Legionary series by Douglas Hill - granted, this series isn't that large, so you could probably get away with two movies.

HH is too long. But David Weber's Dahak series would work quite well for something like this.

 

[Dire Bare]

My favorite wouldn't work...The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant. He's too much an antihero to make for a good popular movie.

While I think it would be very hard to pull off well, I would DIE to see a good film adaptation of Thomas Covenant! Just the first three books would do me, we could skip the next two series (although I do love them).

Although, having your protagonist rape a young girl towards the beginning of your movie, that would be a hard sell! Dark, dark story . . .

 

[AdmundfortGeographer]

I think Glen Cook's The Tower of Fear would make for excellent material for a film epic.

I also think John Carter of Mars fits the bill.

The Warhammer universe has bundles of options.

 

[Steel_Wind]

While I think it would be very hard to pull off well, I would DIE to see a good film adaptation of Thomas Covenant! Just the first three books would do me, we could skip the next two series (although I do love them).

Although, having your protagonist rape a young girl towards the beginning of your movie, that would be a hard sell! Dark, dark story . . .

The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant the Unbeliever would be interesting. I actually don't have too many problems with "Covenant the rapist". That was very early in his his visit to the land, (his first or second night as I recall) and he had few reasons to believe any of it was real at the time and the restoration of his nerves was messing with his mind. I gave him a situational "moral bye" on that one; indeed, I think Covenant reproached himself more than *almost* everybody else for his actions. But others of course feel differently - and would feel differently were it depicted on camera. (And I don't see how you don't show it - it is a central plot device in the series.)

More to the point, one of the things with The Land that is central to the novels but hard to convey visually is the health and vitality of The Land which was said to be visible to those with the Earthsight. (Essentially everyone in the initial three novels). I don't know how you could convey that convincingly on film. Perhaps you would not have to. *shrug*

Agreed though, it's a tough sell. Gamble $300 million on that? Despite its #1 NYT bestseller status, a hard sell to a studio. I would think the Belgariad, whose later novels in the series also hit #1 on the NYT best seller list would be a far easier sell, and far more PG 13 friendly.

 

[BadMojo]

Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell?

That would be pretty cool, but I don't think it would be necessarily an "epic". I enjoyed the book, but the pace could best be described as glacial.

Maybe it could be sold as a Merchant Ivory meets Lord of the Rings film...starring Dame Judi Dench!

I think a live action version of Lloyd Alexander's "Chronicles of Prydain" might go over pretty well. Family friendly, good stories, still fairly popular (I think).

 

[Steel_Wind]

Note: It seems Thomas Covenant was pitched - and pitched heavily after some pretty big names in Hollywood optioned it in the wake of LotR. They even developed a script (same writer who did Band of Brothers for the screen).

They could not sell it to a studio. The option expired and was not renewed. To quote Stephen R. Donaldson: "The producers who optioned "Lord Foul's Bane" have tried everything they could think of, without success. Now their option has expired, and they have declined to renew it. Bury it now, folks, 'cause it's dead." That was as of 11 months ago.

 

[Bront]

Actually - the Belgariad is not a bad candidate. A tolerable cross between a Harry Potter coming of Age Story and epic quest LotR. You might make be able to sell that one.

Agreed. You could probably condense it down to 3 movies fairly easily too.

Suprised no one's suggested the Wheel of Time. Sure it's long, but it's got a lot of the standard fantasy staples, and shouldn't be too hard to condense by simply removing some of the tertiary character fluff and internal strife.

 

[WhatGravitas]

Suprised no one's suggested the Wheel of Time. Sure it's long, but it's got a lot of the standard fantasy staples, and shouldn't be too hard to condense by simply removing some of the tertiary character fluff and internal strife.

They've also condensed LotR, but Wheel of Time is very long and... I'm not sure how much you can condense - two books per movie? Even then, we'd get five movies.

LotR also succeeded, because it convinced the readers of the book, it captured a lot of the feel. With such a heavy shrinking, I'm not sure how good a WoT movie can get. And the alternative, a semi-series (5+ movies) isn't very appealing as well.

And for next franchise: I'd love Elric, but I don't think it's really appealing enough.

Cheers, LT.

 

[Kunimatyu]

The new epic franchise?

Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser, baby. Epic fantasy buddy movie with comedy and a touch of the sinister. Done right, it could be the James Bond franchise of fantasy.

You'd probably want to stick to use "Swords Agsinst" in all the titles, as i don't think the name "Fafhrd" is really movie gold.