Best Film Never Mad...
 

[Closed] Best Film Never Made/Unmakeable films

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A decent H.P. Lovecraft adaptation, say ‘At the Mountains of Madness’. A cyclopean sprawling alien landscape in Antarctica would require a whopping big budget though.

Funny you should suggest that, seeing as how [i]Pan's Labyrinth[/i] has been mentioned, because Guillermo Del Toro was just about to start filming it, but pulled back because he had too much on his plate. Hopefully it'll still get made, he's about the only director with the imagination and vision to do it justice. He's the master of real monsters, after all.


 
Posted : 13/01/2013 11:58 pm
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fervouredimage - Member
Watchmen. That has yet be made successfully into a film.

You are Alan Moore, and I claim my five pounds!


 
Posted : 14/01/2013 12:00 am
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The Passage by Justin Cronin. Nothing intrinsically difficult but I can't see a film maker being able to avoid just going look vampires.


 
Posted : 14/01/2013 6:55 am
 Euro
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Northwind - Member

Cinergi Pictures already have their Hammerstein special effect sat in a box somewhere. Mekquake might need a bigger box.

Big Jobs!

The leftover ABC from the old Dredd movie? I had a little google search on the subject and it seems i'm not alone in thinking it'd be a decent movie. Also found a little homemade promo for Slaine: The Horned God.


 
Posted : 14/01/2013 7:45 am
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I think you lot are missing the point of "unfilmable".

How about a novel where most of the dialogue takes place between the curator of a botanical glasshouse and the plants in his care (or between the plants themselves)?

http://www.jdhp.net/#!/work/griefwork

As a novel it's utterly compelling. As a film it would make me want to slit my wrists.

f


 
Posted : 14/01/2013 8:37 am
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No one's considered starting an Iain Banks series with something a little more simpler like "Player of Games" or "Use of Weapons"? Both would get people interested and would be far easier to film.

Unfilmable? The Night's Dawn trilogy. Too big. Hell, I only managed to read the first one and a half books before admitting defeat.


 
Posted : 14/01/2013 10:05 am
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Lance, A true story.

Don't know about a film, would make a fine Daz advert though


 
Posted : 14/01/2013 11:28 am
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I went to a Iain Banks book signing when I was a student and we talked about filming the Culture novels and he himself said that he though Consider Phlebas was the one they should start with.

Though you'd struggle to fit any of his novels into a 2 hour film.

I'd like to see Alien 3 remade more in line with some of the original concept scripts - I think there was something about it being set on a monastery spaceship rather than a prison planet which sounded a lot more interesting.


 
Posted : 14/01/2013 11:56 am
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I'd like to see Alien 3 remade more in line with some of the original concept scripts

I'd like to see Billy Elliot remade with Sylvester Stallone in the title roll.


 
Posted : 14/01/2013 12:00 pm
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I'd like to see Alien 3 remade more in line with some of the original concept scripts

I'd like to see Alien 3 where they kill off Ripley, make a grown-up Newt the main protagonist, and impregnate Jonesy.


 
Posted : 14/01/2013 12:21 pm
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Flann O'Brien "At Swim-Two-Birds"

Edit: Looks like it has been done, and will be done again. My mistake.


 
Posted : 14/01/2013 12:28 pm
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It's easy to treat this as "books I really like and wish could be made into movies" so that's what I'll do. 🙂

I'd like to see one of Michael Marshal Smith's novels made into a movie. However Spares got the closest to being made, then along came The Island, whose central premise was the same as one of Spares' ideas, and which wasn't very good, so the chance of Spares being made vanished. That said, Only Forward is still my favourite and while it'd need a lot of CGI, it may be possible. Jeamland weirdness might be hard to render effectively.

Rats and Gargoyles by Mary Gentle is such a chunky book that condensing it into a movie would be hard, even before you got into practical issues such as recreating a continent-sized pseudo-Renaissance city or how to realistically portray those central characters who are humanoid rats. Ash probably beats it in the unfilmability stakes though, as the structure where the main plot is framed by correspondences by a translator/author who is finding some increasingly bizarre events being described in supposedly historic documents would be hard to translate to the screen.

Oh, and as far as Watchmen goes - the plot of the comics transitioned to the silver screen pretty well, the look wasn't too bad (a bit shiny) but Jack Snyder completely missed the tone, in my opinion.
It probably wouldn't be as hard as Ash, though,


 
Posted : 14/01/2013 12:47 pm
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clive barkers weaveworld would be pretty bonkers

Hell yeah - a wonderful book - one of the few books I have ever read more than once.


 
Posted : 14/01/2013 12:51 pm
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Len Deighton 'Bomber' would be an absolute epic.

The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant - if LOR is possible, why not?


 
Posted : 14/01/2013 12:59 pm
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Seen Life of Pi last night - fantastic film, and one of the few i've seen which do the book justice

Agreeing with some previous posts - Stephen King's The Dark Tower would be awesome. There have been mild rumours, but nothing more than that.

Viggo Mortensen would make the perfect Roland of Gilead

Imajica would be an epic movie if done properly

Invisible Monsters by Chuck Palahniuk (who wrote Fight Club) - get David Fincher involved again and make one dark & twisted movie!


 
Posted : 14/01/2013 1:11 pm
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No one's considered starting an Iain Banks series with something a little more simpler like "Player of Games" or "Use of Weapons"? Both would get people interested and would be far easier to film.

I can see [i]Use Of Weapons[/i], But [i]Player Of Games[/i]?
Nah, I read the book once, and I found the central character so totally unpleasant and unsympathethic that I can't see how a film could be made that would engage an audience.
He's not even an anti-heero, he's just a complete shitbag!
In my humble opinion, of course. I'd like to see [i]Consider Phlebas[/i] or [i]Use Of Weapons[/i], though, I really like those books.


 
Posted : 14/01/2013 3:05 pm
 DezB
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Why hasn't The Death of Bunny Munro (Nick Cave) book been grabbed by a film maker yet? Awesome story.

Also, those old '90s Attack! Books (punk) novels by Mark Manning and Steven Wells
(eg. [url= http://www.amazon.co.uk/Tits-Out-Teenage-Terror-Totty-Steven/dp/1840680326/ref=sr_1_7?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1358177428&sr=1-7 ]rude title alert[/url]
about time they were filmed 🙂


 
Posted : 14/01/2013 3:33 pm
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The death of Bunny Munro's a good call. Needs someone adept at the old 5 finger shuffle in the title role though .....


 
Posted : 14/01/2013 3:41 pm
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The Charlie Parker books by John Connellly would make decent paranormal thrillers.

Always thought they should have made a Rogue Trooper film rather Judge Dredd rubbish too.


 
Posted : 14/01/2013 4:09 pm
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Glamorama

They've tried to develop it a couple of times but its never got far. Totally un-filmable in my opinion unless they disregard most of the book. I read it on holiday about 10 years ago and I was sitting by the poolside bar reading it and the barman asked me what it was about. I completely failed in my description.


 
Posted : 14/01/2013 4:18 pm
 Spin
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The Death of Bunny Munro

Cave wrote it as a film script but turned it into a novel when he couldn't get a backer. There is a film in the pipeline with Ray Winstone as Bunny.

I imagine it would be a better film than book which to be honest would not be hard.


 
Posted : 14/01/2013 6:36 pm
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Blood Meridian +1

For the judge, I saw a horror with a wrestler in it, think his stage name is Kane. Physically he was just how I pictured the judge but he can't act which will be a problem. And he is/was a wrestler which it would be hard to see past. But appearance is how I thought the judge would look.


 
Posted : 14/01/2013 6:46 pm
 Spin
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I think Stephen Fry should play the Judge in any film version of Blood Meridian. Suitably shaved of course.


 
Posted : 14/01/2013 6:51 pm
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It's easy to treat this as "books I really like and wish could be made into movies" so that's what I'll do

On that note, I always thought some of the Wilbur Smith novels would be quite good as films. You'd have to do a LOT of editing thought to get it into a sub 3hr film!


 
Posted : 14/01/2013 7:01 pm
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Catcher In The Rye?

A modern adaption of The Stranger by Albert Camus?


 
Posted : 14/01/2013 7:16 pm
 DezB
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[i]Cave wrote it as a film script but turned it into a novel when he couldn't get a backer. There is a film in the pipeline with Ray Winstone as Bunny.
[/i]

thats as bad as Cruise as Reacher! Bunny's a skinny, scruffy runty bloke. Loved the book meself.


 
Posted : 14/01/2013 8:55 pm
 DezB
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[i]Glamorama
[/i]
on the other hand is theworst book I have ever read (some of). Ended up chucking it across the room.


 
Posted : 14/01/2013 8:57 pm
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Glamorama was very poor when compared to American Psycho and Less Than Zero

What makes you think it'd make a good film?


 
Posted : 14/01/2013 11:53 pm
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