io9: adaptations

Want To Know How The Neuromancer Movie Ends? So Does William Gibson

Charlie Jane Anders — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 10:30:00 PST

It's been quite some time since we've heard any news about the Neuromancer, but director Joseph Kahn is apparently still working on it. He tweeted about it over the weekend — and William Gibson tweeted back.

Kahn wrote on his Twitter feed:

Epiphany. I finally figured out how to end the movie.

To which Gibson responded:

Scroll, or voiceover?

Kahn responded:

LOL. Freeze frame.

So that probably doesn't really give any insight into how Kahn will end the movie — unless he really does plan to end it with a freeze frame, possibly complete with cheesy grins and 1970s "Starsky And Hutch" style music.

Douglas Adams to Return to TV, No Hitchhiking Involved

Lauren Davis — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 08:20:00 PDT

While Eoin Colfer tries to extend The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy series past its expiration date, the BBC looks to adapt a different chapter of Douglas Adams' work. Coming to a television near you: Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency.

Ed Victor, a literary agent who represents the late author's estate, told British humor outlet Chortle that the BBC has Dirk Gently series in the works, although there's no telling when we could see such a show:

He said he had seen ‘a great script – not just a good script' for the planned adaptation, but warned: ‘With the BBC, it can take forever'.

In the books, Dirk Gently is a detective who solves crimes not by looking at the minutiae of evidence, but at the larger picture, figuring out the interconnectedness of everything. In the first book, he goes on the hunt for a missing cat and stumbles on a greater problem involving the ghost of an alien engineer, the writer Samuel Taylor Coleridge, time travel, and the very fate of humanity. The BBC previously adapted the Dirk Gently novels as a radio series in 2007.

Victor said the BBC has also expressed interest in remaking their The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy television series, but that would involve obtaining a license from Disney, which currently owns the Hitchhiker rights.

BBC plans Dirk Gently TV series [Chortle via Topless Robot]

The Harry Potter Funeral You Never Saw On Screen

Lauren Davis — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 10:00:00 PDT

Artist Adam Brockbank has posted a vast array of the concept illustrations he did for Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, ranging from the Weasleys' whimsical toys to the gruesome Inferi... along with a scene that didn't make the movie.

Brockbank has made concept art for all of the Harry Potter films to date, and did the Doctor Octopus designs for Spider-Man 2 and several illustrations for X-Men, including Cerebro and Magneto's prison cell. He has just posted the concept art for the most recent Harry Potter movie, revealing his visual reimaginings of JK Rowling's ideas and Dumbledore's unfilmed funeral.

[Adam Brockbank via The Leaky Cauldron]

Dave Eggers' "Where the Wild Things Are" Just Doesn't Have the Same Ring to It

Lauren Davis — Thu, 03 Sep 2009 16:30:00 PDT

The New Yorker has the first chapter of Dave Eggers' novelization of the Where the Wild Things Are screenplay. As if a novelization of an adaptation of a children's book wasn't odd enough, one edition will be covered in fur. [via Metafilter]

Five Short Films That Should Get Big Screen Treatment

Lauren Davis — Thu, 03 Sep 2009 16:00:00 PDT

This summer has brought us both 9 and District 9, two movies that started life as short films. Are there more to come. We look at some of the shorts we'd like to see on the big screen.

We've seen a lot of stellar shorts here; some are simply wonderful as brief visits with strange beings and strange worlds, and some are already being adapted as feature films (like Sundance-winning Tomo and possibly Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog). These are just a few of the short films that could make for wonderful, fun, or strange feature films:

The Mysterious Geographic Explorations of Jasper Morello
Notes: Jasper Morello proved a film festival darling, taking top prizes at the Australian Film Institute Awards, Flickerfest, and Dragon Con, and received an Oscar nomination for Best Animated Short Film.

Synopsis: Jasper Morello, a disgraced airman, lives in a city plagued by a terrible and incurable sickness. He is called to be a navigator on a mission carrying an unusual passenger, the eccentric physician Claude Belgon, who is studying airmen in hopes of devising a cure. During the voyage, his wife back home, a nurse, develops the sickness, but the crew finds a strange beast whose flesh can cure the sickness. Unfortunately, the creature has a taste for human blood.

How it could be expanded: Already 26 minutes long, Jasper Morello wouldn't need much expanding once we get a bit more into Jasper's background and the personalities of the crew. But in an expanded Jasper Morello, Claude Belgon could commission an air mission on behalf of the Royal Academy to find a mysterious treasure long rumored by airmen to exist on a far off island, one closely guarded by air pirates. Belgon is fully aware of the treasure's true nature: it is a deadly monster that could potentially cure the sickness. When the airship reaches the island, they are nearly thwarted by the air pirates, but they manage to defeat them, taking one unconscious pirate hostage. They find several of the monster cocoons and take them aboard, but then crew members start disappearing. It is not until the air pirate wakes that it is revealed that Belgon has been feeding the crewmen to the growing monsters. From there, the remaining crew would have to evade Belgon and the monsters (and keep the ship afloat). In the final confrontation, it would be revealed that Belgon chose Morello specifically for this mission because he knew of Morello's disgrace and his wife's likelihood of contracting the sickness, and believed it would make him easy to manipulate. The film ends not with Morello trapped in a cavern feeding the beast, but him steering the monster-filled airship home after killing Belgon, knowing full well that, in trying to save his wife, he could be condemning the entire city.

What could kill it: Much of the short's charm comes from its silhouette animation, which might not translate well to a feature-length film. A live action, or perhaps stop motion, film would have to stay close to the look and feel of the original.

Neill Blomkamp - Tempbot

Tempbot
Notes: In addition to Alive in Joburg, Neill Blomkamp has directed a handful of short films, including Yellow, a short for Adidas about an escaped robot who easily passes for human, and Tetral Vaal, about a robotic cop patrolling South Africa. Tempbot is the more narrative of Blomkamp's shorts.

Synopsis: Tempbot is sent to a corporate office for a few weeks to determine how well robots function in the office. As the only temp and the only robot in the office, Tempbot doesn't connect to his fellow employees, only silently observing them and making mental notes of how they interact. The only connection he makes is a physical one, with a fellow temp staying at his motel. But when a new HR manager enters the office, she makes an effort to get to know him and treats him as more than an office drone. He falls for her, but when he clumsily makes his move, he's sent to an all-robot office.

How it could be expanded: Just as District 9 used alien segregation as an allegory for Apartheid, an expanded version of Tempbot could examine the way companies treat their employees like robots. An indie comedy-style Tempbot could have our industrious hero joining an office to find that all the employees are much like him: uniform, hard-working, and not showing much of a life beyond their work, thanks in part to their officious HR manager. But when a new manager joins the staff, she begins to encourage more spark and individuality among the employees. Tempbot begins to sense that he, too, is more than just a worker drone, but his fellow employees continue to treat him like one.

What could kill it: Its non-speaking protagonist.

2081
Notes: Based on Kurt Vonnegut's short story "Harrison Bergeron," the trailer for the 25 minute film (above) attracted a great deal of interest online, and the film debuted at the Seattle International Film Festival.

Synopsis: Closely, following Vonnegut's original story (except with a somewhat older protagonist), 2081 takes place in a future America where everyone is forcibly made equal through the use of physical and mental "handicaps." The strong are made to wear heavy weights, the intelligent wear devices that emit loud noises to distract them, and the beautiful wear masks. Harrison Bergeron, who is brilliant, handsome, and strong, defies the government, delivering a speech during a national broadcast in which he owns up to his own excellence. He is summarily executed while his parents, who can't remember who he is, watch.

How it could be expanded: A full-length movie could focus on Harrison's relationship with the Handicapper General, one of the few people in this modern America who doesn't use a mental handicap in his daily life. Harrison, as well as other excellent youths, attend a special school where they are closely monitored by the Handicapper General. The General normally feels shame at being "better" than other people, but she finds herself taking a perverse pleasure in devising new handicaps for Harrison, who seems to keep throwing them off. Increasingly, she is forced to remove the handicaps from guards at the school so that they can closely watch over Harrison and keep him from evading his handicaps, but he cleverly manages to slip them each time. In the meantime, the General has become lax with handicapping the other students, and Harrison manages to notice that one of his fellow students is incredibly beautiful and graceful. He tries to engage her in conversation, but she is initially too distracted by her handicaps and later too afraid to defy the authorities, though eventually she finds herself intrigued by him. The Handicapper General decides to hold a televised arts event to show off how perfectly average everyone at the school is. Knowing that Harrison is likely to disrupt such an event, she has him imprisoned in the school. But Harrison has gradually won over many of his now unhandicapped guards, and is released. When he makes his grand speech and unmasks the girl who has grabbed his attention — a ballerina in the General's production — the Handicapper General feels pride and admiration for Harrison, and immediately realizes he must be killed. She orders her enforcers — among them Harrison's friends — to kill Harrison, and they obey.

What could kill it: The original short's production was entirely funded by a conservative think tank, which may give some pause about adapting it for a feature film.

Gas Zappers
Notes: Originally made as a promotional film for a Flash-based video game, Gas Zappers (which you can watch in its entirety here) was eventually funded by the Tribeca Film Institute and made its way into the Sundance Film Festival.

Synopsis: A polar bear whose home is being destroyed by global warming strikes back, taking on rising sea levels, gas emissions, and Arctic drilling (represented by a giant drill with the face of George W. Bush).

How it could be expanded: Seeing the inconvenient truth of global warming and the threat to the polar bear population, Al Gore uses the Nobel Prize money to genetically engineer a polar bear (voiced by Ron Perlman) as the ultimate weapon of the Green Movement, sent all over the globe to combat the enemies of the Kyoto Protocol (armed only with environmentally friendly weapons, of course). When Gore gets wind of a government conspiracy that could lead to unfettered drilling in the ANWR, Gore sends his furriest and deadliest agent to investigate the situation.

What could kill it: It's doubtful that a live-action movie could live up to the awesome weirdness of the original short. Come to think of it, it might be better for an animated television series.

Lifted
Notes: The Pixar short film that was shown before Ratatouille in theaters, Lifted received a 2007 Oscar nomination for Best Animated Short Film.

Synopsis: In a flying saucer hovering near a farmhouse on Earth, a young alien is taking his final exam in abduction, toggling the correct switches from an array of hundreds of identical, unlabeled switches to use the tractor beam to lift a sleeping farmer out of his bed, out the window, and into the ship. The young alien repeatedly messes up, banging the slumbering fellow into the ceilings and walls. Eventually, the instructor becomes frustrated and returns the farmer to his bed himself, but feeling badly for the young alien, lets him launch the ship back home. Of course, even that has disastrous consequences for the farmer.

How it could be expanded: I wouldn't presume to step in where Pixar has such a proven storytelling track record. But could we possibly make the alien female?

What could kill it: Pixar may not want to venture back into space so soon after WALL*E, which is really a shame.

Of course, there are plenty of films out there ripe for adaptation. Just a couple more interesting concepts I've only seen the trailers for:

Lone, a post-apocalyptic story about a man who, while searching for survivors, discovers a robot in a pile of junk, a robot who may be just the friend he's been looking for.

And Transgressions, a near-future tale about a society where the slightest infraction is immediately punishable by death, and one man who fears for his life when he inadvertently scratches a neighbor's car.

Additional thanks to Meredith Woerner for suggestions.

New Ridley Scott Movie Has Better Drugs Than Blade Runner

Charlie Jane Anders — Fri, 28 Mar 2008 16:30:00 PDT

Ridley Scott is returning to science fiction, the genre he spurned, for the first ever movie adaptation of Aldous Huxley's classic false-utopia novel Brave New World. Leonardo DiCaprio, who owns the movie rights to Brave, will probably star as John the Savage, a natural man who confronts a world of test-tube babies who are kept pacified with drugs and sex. According to Leonardo's dad, who was friends with Huxley's widow, the movie will include CGI vistas of a "vast futuristic world." [Big Picture Radio]

Believe It Or Not, "Greatest American Hero" Is A Movie

charliejane — Fri, 01 Feb 2008 06:30:34 PST

The movie version of TV's worst superhero show, The Greatest American Hero, starts filming in July, says director Steven Herek (The Mighty Ducks). And Herek wants "name" actors to play the teacher who gets superpowers from an alien suit and his main nemesis. The good news: the movie version's synopsis actually has some potential to be way more interesting than the super-dull TV show.

In the movie version, just like on TV, Ralph Hinkley is a high-school history teacher chosen by aliens to defend humanity and wear a super-suit. But he loses the suit's instructions and flies around crashing into things. The movie also includes cranky FBI agent Bill Maxwell, a major supporting cast member in the TV version. The movie adds a villain, Harvey Lundy, who's another schoolteacher chosen by evil aliens to help them strip-mine the planet. Lundy and Hinkley wind up having a super-powered duel to the death. The movie also adds a love interest for Hinkley.

I rented the DVDs of the TV show a couple of years ago, and wound up bringing them back early, because the watching-water-boil storylines were so hard to sit through. But adding a supervillain, backed by his own set of aliens with their own agenda, gives the movie at least some potential to rise from awful to watchable. Maybe. [MovieWeb]

Two Gibson Adaptations, But Only One Peter Weir Movie

charliejane — Mon, 07 Jan 2008 10:00:23 PST

Hayden "Anakin" Christensen will star in a movie adaptation of William Gibson's classic novel Neuromancer, directed by Joseph Kahn. So far, Kahn's only credits are the low-budget biker movie Torque, and some Britney Spears music videos. (Torque does feature lots of spooky flickering neon lights, which is a start.) The slightly more experienced Peter Weir (The Truman Show) will be directing the movie of Gibson's Pattern Recognition.

Must See: The Incredible Hulk

charliejane — Sun, 30 Sep 2007 22:56:41 PDT

Must-see TV shows are futuristic classics that shouldn't be missed. Of course, not every must-see is perfect. That's why we've rated them 1-5 on the patented "crunchy goodness" scale.

Title: The Incredible Hulk
Date: 1978-1982

Vitals: An experiment gone wrong gives David Banner the ability to transform into a roaring green bodybuilder whenever something pisses him off. Unlike in the comics, he doesn't fight supervillains or alien menaces. Instead he runs from place to place, pursued by a meddling reporter and only occasionally becoming the Hulk.

Famous names: Bill Bixby, Lou Ferrigno, Jack Colvin, Kenneth Johnson

Crunchy goodness: 3

Bang for your buck: Ferrigno, as the Hulk, wore a $650 wig made out of pure yak hair. Also, one reason for the show's cancellation was that it had the highest special-effects budget in television — higher even than Buck Rogers. Network execs wanted to cut costs, letting Banner turn into the Hulk only once per episode instead of twice.

Spinoffs/Sequels/Copycats: Three TV shows, featuring other Marvel characters such as Thor, Daredevil and the Kingpin. Bixby planned to direct another TV movie, featuring Spider-man and co-starring Nicholas Hammond, who played Spider-man in his short-lived TV show. But it never happened.

Stunt casting: Mariette Hartley won an Emmy for playing a terminally ill scientist who falls in love with Banner in the two-part episode "Married."

The Incredible Hulk TV Series Page: Episode Guide, FAQ, Multimedia & More

Must See: Wonder Woman

charliejane — Sun, 30 Sep 2007 22:52:03 PDT

Must-see TV shows are futuristic classics that shouldn't be missed. Of course, not every must-see is perfect. That's why we've rated them 1-5 on the patented "crunchy goodness" scale.

Title: Wonder Woman
Date: 1975-1979

Vitals: An Amazon from an all-woman island paradise travels to America to fight Nazis — and then hops forward a few decades to fight disco.

Famous names: Lynda Carter, Lyle Waggoner, Norman Burton, Douglas S. Cramer

Crunchy goodness: 2

Spinoffs/Sequels/Copycats: Joss Whedon was supposed to write and direct a movie, but now it's stuck in development hell.

Stunt casting: Chloris Leachman as Queen Hyppolita, Wonder Woman's over-protective mother, who's worried about letting Wonder Woman visit the unhygienic outside world.

The shit: When the boogie-woogie theme music plays and Carter spins around to create a burst of light and don her spangly costume, you can't help believing in Amazons.

The Wonder Woman Pages

Must See: Flash Gordon

charliejane — Sun, 30 Sep 2007 22:43:04 PDT

Must-see TV shows are futuristic classics that shouldn't be missed. Of course, not every must-see is perfect. That's why we've rated them 1-5 on the patented "crunchy goodness" scale.

Title: Flash Gordon
Date: 1954-1955

Vitals: The swoosh-haired Flash Gordon fights the Cold War in space, with the help of the only-slightly-mad Doctor Zarkov and the dashing Dale Arden.

Famous names: Steve Holland, Irene Champlin, Joseph Nash, Edward Gruskin

Crunchy goodness: 1

Spinoffs/Sequels/Copycats: Before it was a television show, Flash was a newspaper comic strip and a 1930s movie serial. After this show, Flash went on to star in a 1980 movie. We've also heard rumors of a 2007 television revival, but have never been able to find anybody who's watched a whole episode.

Sights you'll never unsee: Holland, as Flash, wearing the world's tightest T-shirt with a big lightning bolt on it, and an honest-to-Zarkov girdle scrunching his tummy.

The shit: Dale Arden isn't just the girlfriend or sidekick, she's a space fighter in her own right, showing great bravery whenever she's threatened with a death ray or "the breath of death" or whatnot.

Flash Gordon and The Planet of Death (1954).