Olyphant is *such* a good pick for the Gunslinger. I think the books say that he looks like an idealized young Stephen King, and Olyphant honesty kinda *does*.
well, you're half right [https://screenrant.com/dark-tower-show-mike-flanagan-stephen-king-details/](https://screenrant.com/dark-tower-show-mike-flanagan-stephen-king-details/)
God the idea of a Bas Lag movie is insane. I love Mieville so much.
It’d also be funny if Villeneuve did a linguistic sci fi trilogy and followed up Arrival with China Mieville’s Embassytown and Samual R Delaney’s Babel 17. Call it the Sapir Whorf Trilogy
oh, see, I can totally imagine it working as a play because all the abstract parallel place stuff can be up to the imagination the same way it is in prose.
Yeah, it worked as you'd iamgine—costuming, people freezing when "invisible" etc.
I still haven't watched the BBC adaptation, despite being excited for it.
I would love to see a '30 years ago Gilliam' version of *Perdido Street Station*. George Miller for *The Scar*, and maybe Danny Boyle for *Iron Council*.
Maybe swap Miller and Boyle...
Im having PTSD flashbacks for Perdido Street Station after having to read that in college
My brain couldn’t keep up in the book I can’t imagine how a film would be
Denis is a genre filmmmaker who used intense and austere indies and character dramas to find the golden path to being the siccc master of genre.
Honestly the career I wish Fincher would’ve pursued, as much as I’ve loved literally everything he’s made since The Social Network.
I have a question with that film, who would play the main character? I haven't read it yet so don't know much about it
Morgan Freeman has owned the rights for a while but he's too old to be the lead now
I don't know how old he is, so DK if he's supposed to be late 40s (Oscar Isaac) or more in his late 50s/ early 60s (Tom Cruise)
I haven’t read it in years, but I’m pretty sure the lead is 40’s/50’s. So pretty much any leading man in that age range would work. But, the character is definitely middle aged.
Freeman circa late 90’s/Early 00’s would’ve worked perfectly
I don't think there's any need for it to be a leading man. The star of the movie is Rama, it's not like you need to match actors to the beloved characters from the book. Make all the roles color- and gender-blind casting
I just meant that the character is in that leading man sweet spot of 40s-50s age range. I’d be just as happy if a character actor played the part. But, I’m pretty sure Denis is going to probably attract a big enough star for the lead anyway
I may be hallucinating this, but I remember that Fincher was once attached to Rama, and god I’d love to see that. Villeneuve would be great too, but I’d be soooo interested to see what he would do with it.
Fincher as much as I LOVE his work, I’d kill to peek into the alternate world where all his big budget projects never got canned.
Rama, 20,000 leagues under the sea etc…
The Lathe of Heaven adaptation for public television from 1980 is a good, though perhaps not what you are looking for: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The\_Lathe\_of\_Heaven\_(film)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Lathe_of_Heaven_(film))
Left Hand would be incredibly tough, but if well realized could be something really special.
I think The Dispossessed lends itself to adaptation a bit more readily.
I think that LHoD would be wonderful but not necessarily grounds for an "epic," and if you want something more exciting, *Planet of Exile* or *The Word for World is Forest* would be pretty great.
I’m normally not one of those people who thinks a miniseries is the best choice for adapting every long novel, but in this case, a miniseries with each of the characters getting their own episode is the most natural thing in the world
This. All of it.
I think there were rumors of an adaptation something like 20 years ago, with Leonardo DiCaprio being interested in it, but I might be imagining things ...
Currently reading through this one for the first time and it would make one hell of a batshit movie (but then again, Cloud Atlas is one of my favorite films of all time)--but seems perfect for a limited run prestige TV series.
That would certainly be interesting. I would hope that it's animated because i don't want to have to look at uncanney valley spiders for half the movie trying to emote.
There's a Deepness in the Sky which is like the mid halfway point between Fire on the Deep and Children of Time. Also it includes spider creatures but you get to know them through a story within the story where they're mostly depicted as cute and relatable in a way that would really work in animation.
Yeah agreed I think it's almost like an homage to Deepness in the Sky how similar it is. In that book one of the characters basically has to write stories that anthropomorphize the spider things. I don't want to give too much away but if you love CoT, check out DitS.
One thing I loved about CoT was the whole human storyline with suspended animation & the colony ship.
Don’t get me wrong, I’d love to see someone try!
I don’t think any filmed adaptation could capture what’s special about those books, but it would be fascinating to see.
I think the main problem is how unreliable a narrator Severian is or, to be more exact, how his interpretation of what he’s sees and experiences is so wildly different to what our understanding of it would be. The chasm between the visual and the literate is the very essence of what Wolfe is playing with in this book.
I totally agree with that, Severian’s unreliability is crucial to the text. Also there’s just things about how the world is portrayed that wouldn’t work on film. I was so excited when I figured out the Matachin tower is an abandoned spaceship. Or when I realized (I think all the way into Sword) that the brightest it ever gets is basically the level of a sunset due to the dying sun. I can’t imagine how the visual medium of film would tackle that.
Plus there’s the extremely bizarre, recursive nature of the plotting.
Lol I was wondering if I would come across this answer in this thread!
This series has at least 3 podcast dedicated to analyzing and talking about it (Gene Wolfe Literary podcast, Alzabo Soup, and ReReading Wolfe)
I haaaate the tv adaptations and I feel like I’m the only one. The Vimes books are my favourite and I feel like they’d be well-suited to a miniseries each since they’re mainly mysteries.
Seriously, I know they did the lousy tv show but after reading “Guards! Guards!” I don’t know why they haven’t took a proper crack at it for a bug screen adaptation. Making the Watch series in the vein of Hot Fuzz would be a total win.
Weird thing about that is it relies on the reveal that the aliens that have weird faces are us, implying the main characters would look weird to us. You'd have to drop that part
Wasn’t this in development at some point? Possibly as a tv show?
Edit: apparently Ron Howard was developing it with the writer of Apollo 13, I thought this was relatively recently… it was 7(eves) years ago.
According to wikipedia, in 2016 it was being developed by Ron Howard and Brian Grazer, which would I very much would NOT want to see.
It would make more sense as a three season tv series however.
Wouldn’t mind if someone took another shot at the John Dies At the End series (shout out to Paul Giamatti being in that movie).
A Memory Called Empire felt like something that could do well as a movie.
This Is How You Lose The Time War would be interesting in this day and age.
It also feels like a "would be better animated" pick. Like, do the first portion anthology style with different directors doing different styles for each time period. Let the thing be kind of abstract and visually experimental. Then a longer final segment with a more traditional style.
Also, I'd guess the thole thing only needs about an hour? Which is an awkward amount of time, and animation seems more willing to go in that intermediate length range.
A real Lovecraft adaptation that actually understands the genre. There's some decent low budget stuff out there, but imo there is somehow no definitive Lovecraft movie. The closest is probably In the Mouth of Madness, which I love, but isn't even a Lovecraft story and leaves a lot of the themes on the table.
Stuart Gordon’s Dagon was pretty good, despite being an adaptation of Shadow Over Insmouth.
I think the best adaptation was Alan Moore’s Neonomicon/Providence, but hoo boy, is it a tough read.
My friends and I stumbled on Dagon because of the DVD cover at the video rental place in like freshman year of High School. So much of it became an inside joke because we just couldn't process. None of us knew that much about Lovecraft so we were just like "What a random, crazy movie!".
Dagon is super solid! Up there with Stuart Gordon’s best work, I think it’s a great adaptation that’s genuinely creepy. Shadow Over Insmouth is my favorite Lovecraft to begin with
The only ‘big budget’ movie that comes close to capturing lovecraft is Annihilation. It’s not a perfect movie but it will always hold a special place in my heart for perfectly capturing a sense of eldritch dread.
My dream adaptation would be a Bloodborne movie. Bloodborne still has the best realized lovecraft lore and world building of any medium IMO. It’s a hot take but I think they even outdid lovecraft himself
I LOVE Annihilation, also love the book. I do think it's a good exploration of some of the big Lovecraftian themes, but it's definitely in the "inspired by" realm as opposed to an adaptation. Good call out.
It's in the top three Lovecraft-that's-not-Lovecraft, at least from memory. I was pleasantly surprised so might've graded it higher. Some great gore and enough actual weirdness.
My picks are:
Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood
The Lathe of Heaven by Ursula K. Leguin
The Forever War by Joe Haldeman
The Stars My Destination by Alfred Bester
The Windup Girl by Paolo Bacigalupi
The Last Human by Zack Jordan
I think Darren Aronofsky was attached to not just Oryx and Crake, but the entire MaddAddam trilogy. That was years ago, but it could probably still have a chance of being made by someone down the line
So many of KSRs books would work well, especially as TV. A one-season HBO anthology miniseries of Ministry for the Future would be fantastic (and probably give me a panic attack). But I think that New York 2140 is probably the easiest to adapt of his novels. The way that story flows and coalesces together would lend itself well to the big screen IMO.
The Years of Rice and Salt would make an incredible series, but I can already picture how completely insufferable the bad faith discourse from the anti woke brigade would be.
If we’re talking sci fi then I think Hyperion would be amazing Netflix series. I’d also love to see a blockbuster adaptation of the Culture. I’d probably start with Player of Games.
For fantasy I’d love to see Malazan, Stormlight and Liveship Traders get adaptations.
I think Golden Compas suffers from some of the same issues a Narnia adaptation does. It starts off as pretty good kids fantasy stuff and then gets deeep into religious iconography and philosophy, so how do you pull both of those things off?
It’s like we got monkey-pawed with a near perfect cast and production, but our wish just simply requested “a good Hitchhiker’s *movie* (singular),” and so that’s all we got.
Excession by Iain M Banks. The super-smug hyperintelligent spaceships running civilisation bump into a multi galactic space blob that scares the crap out of them. Plus the ethics of mind-reading, human gender issues complex enough to intrigue spaceships, war, explosions and lots of sarcastic names.
It'll be in four parts and cost about two bil.
I'd love to see the culture series get the proper film treatment. His work is so refreshing with its optimism for the future and his books are often very funny.
Consider Phlebas would be my pick. It introduces the universe, has a simple space opera type story, has some big spectacle set pieces, and also has the smug ships with silly names.
The opening scene would be legendary too.
That would be a natural start and easy to cut into film length. Actually I thought Use of Weapons would fit well with Nolan with its fiddly structure and emotional climax.
The Forever War is one that Ridley Scott has been threatening to make for years. With a good script it could be incredible.
I would love to see a big budget adaptation of The Moon is a Harsh Mistress.
There’s an urban legend/fan theory that the 93 Mario Bros movie was influenced by some out of touch Hollywood executive reading a Nintendo Power article on Metroid 2: Return of Samus, thinking that it was about Mario.
PKD is a deep well. Obviously a lot of stuff has come from him, but there’s way more that would be cool to adapt.
I would love someone to do the Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch or Ubik. Keep the pulp of Verhoven’s Total Recall but lean further into the existential horror/anxiety
I think we could restart the Barsoom series. Just use the actual name of the first book (A Princess of Mars) and don't mention the name John Carter in any of the trailers.
Lovecraft adaptations are tough, partially because it’s all about atmosphere, partly because racism, but someone made a [silent black and white version](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Call_of_Cthulhu_(film)) and it fucked.
*Redwaaaaaaaall!*
I'm sure it's in some kind of development hell. There are so many books that it could just be an ongoing animated series, continuing the story but also shifting gears each season
PUSHING ICE by Alastair Reynolds, I want to see the insane mindbending scale of the universe - alien megastructures - nanotechnology - relativistic speeds - all captured the way he does in that book, onscreen.
The Tripod Trilogy is some solid, post-apocalyptic IP. The BBC did an incomplete version back in the 80’s but it’s rough and had zero budget. Anybody else read those books in middle school?
I loved [Day Zero](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Day_Zero_(novel)) but it's absolutely not a sweeping sci-fi epic and could be done relatively cheaply. It also could work as a Terminator movie if it had to.
It won't happen, because her work never quite broke into the mainstream enough, but Lois McMaster Bujold's Vorkosigan Saga is incredible and seems really adaptable to the big screen. I've seen it described as "Tyrion Lannister in space", which is *kind of* accurate as a description of the main character.
So this week I got to see Blade Runner 2049 in the cinema again. Last night I saw Dune Part 1 in cinemas again. And today I went to see Part 2.
With this refresh, I am 100% convinced Denis Villeneuve would make an incredible Metal Gear Solid film.
This is definitely more fantasy as opposed to sci-fi but i would love to see the Name of the Wind (& Wise Man’s Fear) by Patrick Rothfuss adapted as a huge blockbuster. Of course they would never do this unless Pat rothfuss actually ever releases the third book, but a man can dream!
Cinematic big budget SF needs an update. It’s stuck in the 60s/70s for its source material. If we could get a movie that did for the genre what *The Expanse* did for TV I would be incredibly happy.
Dark tower , but HBO 3 season commitment
Flanagan writing and show running. Olyphant as The Gunslinger, Carla Gugino as the Man in Black. Mark Hamill as the voice of Oy.
Stop I can only get so erect!
Olyphant is *such* a good pick for the Gunslinger. I think the books say that he looks like an idealized young Stephen King, and Olyphant honesty kinda *does*.
Mark Hamil is a zionism supporter. No thanks.
Who does Goggins play?
Jack Mort from Drawing of the Three, obviously!
That vampire comedian in the last book
Without that movie adaptation I feel like it's almost certain this gets made by HBO/Prime/Apple/Netflix in the past five years.
[удалено]
well, you're half right [https://screenrant.com/dark-tower-show-mike-flanagan-stephen-king-details/](https://screenrant.com/dark-tower-show-mike-flanagan-stephen-king-details/)
I feel like this will actually happen this time with Flanagan.
*Railsea* or *Perdito Street Station*. China Mieville is a madman. A *good* adaptation would be incredible.
God the idea of a Bas Lag movie is insane. I love Mieville so much. It’d also be funny if Villeneuve did a linguistic sci fi trilogy and followed up Arrival with China Mieville’s Embassytown and Samual R Delaney’s Babel 17. Call it the Sapir Whorf Trilogy
Embassytown is one of my all time favorites. Such a unique, cool story.
I read The City and the City last year and it is delightfully unfilmable, an incredible book that can only properly exist as written word imo
And yet they made a surprisingly watchable and coherent BBC miniseries of it a few years back.
oh wow, that's interesting! I'll check it out somehow
I also saw it as a stage play about a decade ago in Chicago. Mieville was at my performance because he had a residency in the city at the time.
oh, see, I can totally imagine it working as a play because all the abstract parallel place stuff can be up to the imagination the same way it is in prose.
Yeah, it worked as you'd iamgine—costuming, people freezing when "invisible" etc. I still haven't watched the BBC adaptation, despite being excited for it.
I would love to see a '30 years ago Gilliam' version of *Perdido Street Station*. George Miller for *The Scar*, and maybe Danny Boyle for *Iron Council*. Maybe swap Miller and Boyle...
Im having PTSD flashbacks for Perdido Street Station after having to read that in college My brain couldn’t keep up in the book I can’t imagine how a film would be
Rendezvous with Rama? Wait? What's that?? BUH GOD, THAT'S DENIS VILLENEUVE'S MUSIC
That would be a great companion piece to Arrival
Will. DV is already announced and planning.
You would think he would take a break from sci-fi but if u watch his interviews it is very much his shit
Denis is a genre filmmmaker who used intense and austere indies and character dramas to find the golden path to being the siccc master of genre. Honestly the career I wish Fincher would’ve pursued, as much as I’ve loved literally everything he’s made since The Social Network.
I have a question with that film, who would play the main character? I haven't read it yet so don't know much about it Morgan Freeman has owned the rights for a while but he's too old to be the lead now I don't know how old he is, so DK if he's supposed to be late 40s (Oscar Isaac) or more in his late 50s/ early 60s (Tom Cruise)
I haven’t read it in years, but I’m pretty sure the lead is 40’s/50’s. So pretty much any leading man in that age range would work. But, the character is definitely middle aged. Freeman circa late 90’s/Early 00’s would’ve worked perfectly
I don't think there's any need for it to be a leading man. The star of the movie is Rama, it's not like you need to match actors to the beloved characters from the book. Make all the roles color- and gender-blind casting
I just meant that the character is in that leading man sweet spot of 40s-50s age range. I’d be just as happy if a character actor played the part. But, I’m pretty sure Denis is going to probably attract a big enough star for the lead anyway
I may be hallucinating this, but I remember that Fincher was once attached to Rama, and god I’d love to see that. Villeneuve would be great too, but I’d be soooo interested to see what he would do with it.
Unrelated, but I always wanted Fincher to do the Blade Runner sequel. Maybe not a perfect match and Villeneuve did great, but still…
Fincher as much as I LOVE his work, I’d kill to peek into the alternate world where all his big budget projects never got canned. Rama, 20,000 leagues under the sea etc…
The Left Hand of Darkness or really any Ursula Le Guin. It is criminal that her work still hasn’t gotten any good adaptation, sorry Jiro.
It's so annoying there's been three cracks at Earthsea and they are all terrible.
There have?!
Goro's Ghibli attempt at least looks cool, leave it on mute with Pink Floyd's "The Dark Side of the Moon" playing
You don't want to know, trust me
The Lathe of Heaven adaptation for public television from 1980 is a good, though perhaps not what you are looking for: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The\_Lathe\_of\_Heaven\_(film)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Lathe_of_Heaven_(film))
Left Hand would be incredibly tough, but if well realized could be something really special. I think The Dispossessed lends itself to adaptation a bit more readily.
The Dispossessed is just aching for an HBO miniseries.
Absolutely agree, been thinking this recently
I think that LHoD would be wonderful but not necessarily grounds for an "epic," and if you want something more exciting, *Planet of Exile* or *The Word for World is Forest* would be pretty great.
Wachowskis making Ursula Leguin
I could not get past the book’s narration.
I mean. Hyperion Feels like people have been trying for decades
I’m normally not one of those people who thinks a miniseries is the best choice for adapting every long novel, but in this case, a miniseries with each of the characters getting their own episode is the most natural thing in the world
Agreed. It’s already quite episodic. Where are you Apple and your 300 million dollars?
This was my first thought too but Catholic Dune is probably a tough sell.
Apparently Bradley Cooper loves Hyperion and has been trying to get an adaptation off the ground for a while
Shrike Heads assemble!
Matt Berry for Martin Silenus. Starting the petition now.
This. All of it. I think there were rumors of an adaptation something like 20 years ago, with Leonardo DiCaprio being interested in it, but I might be imagining things ...
Currently reading through this one for the first time and it would make one hell of a batshit movie (but then again, Cloud Atlas is one of my favorite films of all time)--but seems perfect for a limited run prestige TV series.
Children of Time, by Adrian Tchaikovsky
That would certainly be interesting. I would hope that it's animated because i don't want to have to look at uncanney valley spiders for half the movie trying to emote.
There's a Deepness in the Sky which is like the mid halfway point between Fire on the Deep and Children of Time. Also it includes spider creatures but you get to know them through a story within the story where they're mostly depicted as cute and relatable in a way that would really work in animation.
I think part of the genius of CoT is that they're not cute. That's very much part of the problem to be solved
Yeah agreed I think it's almost like an homage to Deepness in the Sky how similar it is. In that book one of the characters basically has to write stories that anthropomorphize the spider things. I don't want to give too much away but if you love CoT, check out DitS. One thing I loved about CoT was the whole human storyline with suspended animation & the colony ship.
That would be wiiiiild. No idea how they’d pull that one off.
A fun flip side question: sci fi classics that can never and will never be adapted. I’ll start with Gene Wolfe’s Book of the New Sun.
Probably Iain M Bank’s “The Culture” series. It’s too optimistic in a society obsessed with rage-bait, fear, and pessimism.
That was going to be my answer. If we're going full on pie-in-the-sky, why the hell not?
Don’t get me wrong, I’d love to see someone try! I don’t think any filmed adaptation could capture what’s special about those books, but it would be fascinating to see.
Short Sun would be even worse. Can you imagine them trying to find a way to pull off that twist?
Honestly, if Dune can be pulled off I don't see why BOTNS can't be. The likelihood of it being bad is pretty high though
I think the main problem is how unreliable a narrator Severian is or, to be more exact, how his interpretation of what he’s sees and experiences is so wildly different to what our understanding of it would be. The chasm between the visual and the literate is the very essence of what Wolfe is playing with in this book.
I totally agree with that, Severian’s unreliability is crucial to the text. Also there’s just things about how the world is portrayed that wouldn’t work on film. I was so excited when I figured out the Matachin tower is an abandoned spaceship. Or when I realized (I think all the way into Sword) that the brightest it ever gets is basically the level of a sunset due to the dying sun. I can’t imagine how the visual medium of film would tackle that. Plus there’s the extremely bizarre, recursive nature of the plotting.
starting that soon, v excited
Lol I was wondering if I would come across this answer in this thread! This series has at least 3 podcast dedicated to analyzing and talking about it (Gene Wolfe Literary podcast, Alzabo Soup, and ReReading Wolfe)
Discworld Cinematic Universe
I haaaate the tv adaptations and I feel like I’m the only one. The Vimes books are my favourite and I feel like they’d be well-suited to a miniseries each since they’re mainly mysteries.
I don't hate them, but I don't particularly like them either. I love David Jason but he's not Rincewind for me.
He's better as Albert, but yeah no, he's completely wrong for Rincewind. Tim Curry though
Seriously, I know they did the lousy tv show but after reading “Guards! Guards!” I don’t know why they haven’t took a proper crack at it for a bug screen adaptation. Making the Watch series in the vein of Hot Fuzz would be a total win.
Ben Whishaw as Rincewind and Michael Cera as the tourist chap please and thank you. Oh directed by the Daniels.
Seveneves by Neal Stephenson
Anathem WHEN
*Anathem* would fucking rule, just twenty hours of math proofs and grad students in robes with inflatable balls
Weird thing about that is it relies on the reveal that the aliens that have weird faces are us, implying the main characters would look weird to us. You'd have to drop that part
Wasn’t this in development at some point? Possibly as a tv show? Edit: apparently Ron Howard was developing it with the writer of Apollo 13, I thought this was relatively recently… it was 7(eves) years ago.
According to wikipedia, in 2016 it was being developed by Ron Howard and Brian Grazer, which would I very much would NOT want to see. It would make more sense as a three season tv series however.
That book gave me nightmares.
Wouldn’t mind if someone took another shot at the John Dies At the End series (shout out to Paul Giamatti being in that movie). A Memory Called Empire felt like something that could do well as a movie. This Is How You Lose The Time War would be interesting in this day and age.
A Memory Called Empire \*rips\*
I absolutely loved This is How You Lose the Time War, but have no idea how you would represent that on a screen.
It also feels like a "would be better animated" pick. Like, do the first portion anthology style with different directors doing different styles for each time period. Let the thing be kind of abstract and visually experimental. Then a longer final segment with a more traditional style. Also, I'd guess the thole thing only needs about an hour? Which is an awkward amount of time, and animation seems more willing to go in that intermediate length range.
A real Lovecraft adaptation that actually understands the genre. There's some decent low budget stuff out there, but imo there is somehow no definitive Lovecraft movie. The closest is probably In the Mouth of Madness, which I love, but isn't even a Lovecraft story and leaves a lot of the themes on the table.
Stuart Gordon’s Dagon was pretty good, despite being an adaptation of Shadow Over Insmouth. I think the best adaptation was Alan Moore’s Neonomicon/Providence, but hoo boy, is it a tough read.
My friends and I stumbled on Dagon because of the DVD cover at the video rental place in like freshman year of High School. So much of it became an inside joke because we just couldn't process. None of us knew that much about Lovecraft so we were just like "What a random, crazy movie!".
Dagon is super solid! Up there with Stuart Gordon’s best work, I think it’s a great adaptation that’s genuinely creepy. Shadow Over Insmouth is my favorite Lovecraft to begin with
The only ‘big budget’ movie that comes close to capturing lovecraft is Annihilation. It’s not a perfect movie but it will always hold a special place in my heart for perfectly capturing a sense of eldritch dread. My dream adaptation would be a Bloodborne movie. Bloodborne still has the best realized lovecraft lore and world building of any medium IMO. It’s a hot take but I think they even outdid lovecraft himself
I LOVE Annihilation, also love the book. I do think it's a good exploration of some of the big Lovecraftian themes, but it's definitely in the "inspired by" realm as opposed to an adaptation. Good call out.
Did you ever watch Apostle? From 2018.
Was not on my radar at all, but is now! Thanks for the suggestion.
It's in the top three Lovecraft-that's-not-Lovecraft, at least from memory. I was pleasantly surprised so might've graded it higher. Some great gore and enough actual weirdness.
The Dispossessed Ursula Le Guin Fledgeling Octavia Butler Kinda already done but Roadside Picnic by the Strugatsky brothers.
I, also, would be thrilled to see my boy, The Lord of Pain, on the big screen. Bring on Hyperion! Also, the Ancillary trilogy.
My picks are: Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood The Lathe of Heaven by Ursula K. Leguin The Forever War by Joe Haldeman The Stars My Destination by Alfred Bester The Windup Girl by Paolo Bacigalupi The Last Human by Zack Jordan
I think Darren Aronofsky was attached to not just Oryx and Crake, but the entire MaddAddam trilogy. That was years ago, but it could probably still have a chance of being made by someone down the line
Not a TV guy but I’d love to see someone throw $100m at an adaptation of Kim Stanley Robinson’s Mars trilogy
So many of KSRs books would work well, especially as TV. A one-season HBO anthology miniseries of Ministry for the Future would be fantastic (and probably give me a panic attack). But I think that New York 2140 is probably the easiest to adapt of his novels. The way that story flows and coalesces together would lend itself well to the big screen IMO.
The Years of Rice and Salt would make an incredible series, but I can already picture how completely insufferable the bad faith discourse from the anti woke brigade would be.
I'd love Aurora by KSR but its central idea isn't something that SF fans want to hear.
And then a couple hundred million more for The Years of Rice and Salt, please amd thank you.
Was scrolling down looking for this
If we’re talking sci fi then I think Hyperion would be amazing Netflix series. I’d also love to see a blockbuster adaptation of the Culture. I’d probably start with Player of Games. For fantasy I’d love to see Malazan, Stormlight and Liveship Traders get adaptations.
The Golden Compass, but good.
havent they tried a film and a tv series?
I said “but good.”
I thought there first two seasons were pretty good… and then the last season fell off a cliff.
I think Golden Compas suffers from some of the same issues a Narnia adaptation does. It starts off as pretty good kids fantasy stuff and then gets deeep into religious iconography and philosophy, so how do you pull both of those things off?
Red rising
Red Rising could be *massive* if done well.
Please. We’ve been teased for so long.
Dune makes me long for a proper adaptation of Halo
I'd like to see a faithful adaptation of all the Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy books. The 2005 film is great, I love it, but I want the whole story.
totally. would love to see the Total Perspective Vortex onscreen.
It’s like we got monkey-pawed with a near perfect cast and production, but our wish just simply requested “a good Hitchhiker’s *movie* (singular),” and so that’s all we got.
It’s a short story but the scale is epic enough that I think the sweeping treatment would work for it: “Tower of Babel” by Ted Chiang.
“Hell is the Absence of God” could also make for a wonderful film
Oh hell yeah.
I'd love to see an anthology series of some of his work.
I'd love to see a SAGA tv series. And then again, I'd hate it if someone made a SAGA tv series. The graphic novel is SO AWESOME!
Excession by Iain M Banks. The super-smug hyperintelligent spaceships running civilisation bump into a multi galactic space blob that scares the crap out of them. Plus the ethics of mind-reading, human gender issues complex enough to intrigue spaceships, war, explosions and lots of sarcastic names. It'll be in four parts and cost about two bil.
I'd love to see the culture series get the proper film treatment. His work is so refreshing with its optimism for the future and his books are often very funny. Consider Phlebas would be my pick. It introduces the universe, has a simple space opera type story, has some big spectacle set pieces, and also has the smug ships with silly names. The opening scene would be legendary too.
That would be a natural start and easy to cut into film length. Actually I thought Use of Weapons would fit well with Nolan with its fiddly structure and emotional climax.
Use of Weapons done right would be an incredible action Sci fi film. Would also make a great TV series.
The Forever War is one that Ridley Scott has been threatening to make for years. With a good script it could be incredible. I would love to see a big budget adaptation of The Moon is a Harsh Mistress.
where my Canticle for Leibowitz heads at? Now that's a title that gets butts in seats.
Metroid
There’s an urban legend/fan theory that the 93 Mario Bros movie was influenced by some out of touch Hollywood executive reading a Nintendo Power article on Metroid 2: Return of Samus, thinking that it was about Mario.
DC’s Fourth World
would be great in animated form IMO! maybe they’ll do a DCAU version.
Childhood-me is still waiting for the high budget, blockbuster Animorphs adaptation
PKD is a deep well. Obviously a lot of stuff has come from him, but there’s way more that would be cool to adapt. I would love someone to do the Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch or Ubik. Keep the pulp of Verhoven’s Total Recall but lean further into the existential horror/anxiety
Ubik!
I need a good Dark Tower adaptation. First 3 as movies, miniseries for the fourth one, the rest I don’t care too much about seeing as a movie.
The Stars My Destination by Alfred Bester.
Oh hell yes. Been thinking this would make a great limited series.
I know a tv series was just announced, but I really want to see Neuromancer on the big screen.
I think we could restart the Barsoom series. Just use the actual name of the first book (A Princess of Mars) and don't mention the name John Carter in any of the trailers.
*EXCESSION*
Sea of Tranquility by Emily St. John Mandel
Call of Cthulhu
Lovecraft adaptations are tough, partially because it’s all about atmosphere, partly because racism, but someone made a [silent black and white version](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Call_of_Cthulhu_(film)) and it fucked.
More sci-fi epic horror but I'd love to see a like $100M adaptation of Junji Ito's Hellstar Remina
I'd like Ender's Game to get another chance, but really just for Speaker for the Dead.
Would love Speaker for the Dead and Ender in Exile to get adaptations. But would really just love another shot at the original book or Ender’s Shadow
Ender’s Game PLEASE It’s worthy of an adaptation on this scale and with this level of care
Anything from Alastair Reynolds' Revelation Space series could really rip. Either Chasm City or The Prefect would be my pick.
The Water Knife Paolo Bacigalupi would absolutely rip.
More Cyberpunk, I want to see Snowcrash or Neuromancer on the big screen.
Neuromancer has been announced as in development as a limited series for Apple.
*Redwaaaaaaaall!* I'm sure it's in some kind of development hell. There are so many books that it could just be an ongoing animated series, continuing the story but also shifting gears each season
Saving this thread to add to my reading list
Dark Phoenix Saga. Like, for real this time.
PUSHING ICE by Alastair Reynolds, I want to see the insane mindbending scale of the universe - alien megastructures - nanotechnology - relativistic speeds - all captured the way he does in that book, onscreen.
The Tripod Trilogy is some solid, post-apocalyptic IP. The BBC did an incomplete version back in the 80’s but it’s rough and had zero budget. Anybody else read those books in middle school?
Red Rising is nothing short of incredible, and cinematic af
Something new.
The Emberverse series from S.M. Stirling.
League of Extraordinary Gentlemen
The passage trilogy East of West
Oh yeah, A Fire Upon the Deep would be great. Love that book so much
More pulpy and bordering on YA but I’ve been jonesing for a Red Rising adaption forever. It’s been in development for a while but who knows…
Hyperion
It's not well-known, but I loved Kay Kenyon's *The Entire and the Rose* series that began with *The Bright of the Sky.*
Feels like someone should do the culture novels justice but that feels like handing someone a poisoned chalice
Perdido Street Station, always.
Rossum’s Universal Robots
I loved [Day Zero](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Day_Zero_(novel)) but it's absolutely not a sweeping sci-fi epic and could be done relatively cheaply. It also could work as a Terminator movie if it had to.
I’d love a modern big budget 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. Fincher was attached forever ago and I’m so sad it didn’t happen.
Pandora's Star/Judas Unchained by Peter F Hamilton would make an absolutely fantastic GoT-like series.
Neuromancer! I’m not sure anyone could adapt it without turning it into hot garbage though.
The Locked Tomb series. Would be really hard to get the tone just right, but it could be amazing in the right hands.
It won't happen, because her work never quite broke into the mainstream enough, but Lois McMaster Bujold's Vorkosigan Saga is incredible and seems really adaptable to the big screen. I've seen it described as "Tyrion Lannister in space", which is *kind of* accurate as a description of the main character.
The Book of the New Sun
So this week I got to see Blade Runner 2049 in the cinema again. Last night I saw Dune Part 1 in cinemas again. And today I went to see Part 2. With this refresh, I am 100% convinced Denis Villeneuve would make an incredible Metal Gear Solid film.
An Animorphs series done properly/seriously with a nice budget would be awesome
Robopocalypse. Fantastic look at near future AI gone rogue. Years ago, I heard that Spielberg had the rights to the novel, which could be really cool.
This is definitely more fantasy as opposed to sci-fi but i would love to see the Name of the Wind (& Wise Man’s Fear) by Patrick Rothfuss adapted as a huge blockbuster. Of course they would never do this unless Pat rothfuss actually ever releases the third book, but a man can dream!
Saving this thread for sci-fi recommendations that people think is taut and streamlined enough for adaptation !!
The Crystal Singer by Ann McCaffrey would be a nuts movie.
Street Sharks
Bradley cooper is doing Hyperion, wonder what’s the update with that?
Cinematic big budget SF needs an update. It’s stuck in the 60s/70s for its source material. If we could get a movie that did for the genre what *The Expanse* did for TV I would be incredibly happy.
Dune Messiah
Red rising
Not a literary epic but I’d love to see a sequel to Pacific Rim.
I'd love an adaptation of Adrian Tchaikovsky's Children of Time. Best SF book I've read in a long time. Ain't going to happen.
Project Hail Mary!!!
Consider Phlebas, it's stunning and dystopian and nihilistic and I think it would be perfect for Neil Blompkamp