Some science fiction novels can't be translated into films, but others are perfect for big screen enjoyment. Here are our nominations for the next big scifi movies, ripped from the pages of your favorite books.
Unfortunately, there are a number of adaptations that don't meet or really fail expectations. Alan Moore's comic books come to mind. But the news that Roland Emmerich might be directing Isaac Asimov's Foundation Trilogy, and that Scott Derrickson is set to direct an adaptation of Hyperion isn't exactly promising either. So here's our antidote: A short list of books that would likely make good films (and television series) that would succeed in theaters, and be fun to watch.
Mars, Ben Bova Ben Bova is a solid name in the SF genre, and Mars is a book that can easily be translated to the big screen. The premise is fairly simple and straightforward: 25 astronauts from Earth go to Mars, land, and begin exploring. There's the usual drama and excitement present here, but what this book really conveys is the sheer beauty and majesty of the Red Planet, something that really hasn't been done with films such as Red Planet and Mission to Mars, to name a couple recent ones.
Kindred, Octavia Butler This is a time travel story by the late Octavia Butler, one that would be a good candidate for adaptation. The story revolves around an African-American woman in 1976 Los Angeles who is pulled back in time by her white ancestor, and has to reconcile the two eras, while working to ensure her own survival. Fast-paced and topical, this is the type of book that could do extremely well as a smart action-adventure movie.
Soon, I Will Be Invincible, Austin Grossman This book has been optioned for a film, and reading through it in a day, I can see why: It's exciting, it's easy to get into and read and it's got a neat and tidy plot. There are archetypal villains, superhero teams with plenty of backstory material for tie-ins and years of comics and a fun storyline. But there is also a realistic approach to the world of superheroes, something that Hancock proved was marketable. I suspect that whoever holds the movie rights to this book will be watching Watchmen's performance at the box office.
Probability Moon, Nancy Kress This book is essentially what Stargate SG-1 should have been. The novel is set amidst an interplanetary war between humanity and the Fallers, an aggressive alien race. The main action occurs on World, where a human team discovers an artificial moon made from an ancient alien tech (which also allows for interplanetary travel) that might hold the key to humanity's survival. The plot is nothing new as far as movies go, but it is straightforward, interesting and a solid read. Visually, this could be stunning, with exploration on a planet and in space. There are also two sequels, Probability Sun and Probability Space, which could become sequels if the first movie does well.
Altered Carbon, Richard K. Morgan Richard Morgan's first book is one that would be difficult to translate to the screen, but if done right, it would be a fantastic film. Set five hundred years into the future, the story revolves around Takeshi Kovacs, a former soldier, in a world where people can download their consciousness into other bodies. Kovacs is set to investigate a wealthy man's supposed suicide, and he uncovers a conspiracy that has wide-ranging impact. It's a hardboiled cyberpunk-ish crime noir novel with enough action and violence to keep viewers excited. The book has been optioned as a film with James McTeigue attached as director - if this happens it's good news because he worked on Attack of the Clones, The Matrix trilogy, Dark City and directed V for Vendetta.
David Hughes the author of a new book, The Greatest Sci-Fi Movies Never Made, shares his favourites with us
1: Vincent Ward's Alien 3
Having rejected a script by sci-fi author William Gibson, the producers of the Alien franchise planned to follow James Cameron’s “Vietnam in space” Aliens with an ambitious, arty third instalment by Vincent Ward, the visionary New Zealand-born director of The Navigator and, more recently, The River Queen. A planet made of wood, and spaceships modelled on clipper ships, were just two of the strange ideas in Ward’s approach. Sadly, it never got off the ground, though Fox ultimately went with another maverick director, David Fincher.
His much-derided Alien3 is, by the way, ripe for re-appraisal; sadly, a director’s cut of the film – an unofficial version of which is included in the Alien Quadrilogy DVD set – will probably remain the Greatest Sci-Fi Movie Never Seen
2: Superman -vs- Batman
Having abandoned plans to make Tim Burton’s Superman Lives with Nicolas Cage as Clark Kent/Superman, Warner Bros. decided to take an alternative approach to their long-gestating revival of the Superman movie franchise: Batman vs Superman, a script by Se7en screenwriter Andrew Kevin Walker in which Gotham’s caped crusader would face off against Metropolis’ Man of Steel.
With pre-production in full swing under Troy director Wolfgang Petersen, the studio switched gears again, when a brand new script by Lost creator J.J. Abrams plonked onto their desks. Eventually, they abandoned this idea to back Brett Ratner, and later Bryan Singer, to make the disappointing Superman Returns.
3: Steven Spielberg's Night Skies
Contractually obliged to produce a sequel to the smash hit Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Spielberg came up with the idea of a family attacked in their farm by malevolent extraterrestrials, a kind of “Straw Dogs with aliens”. One of the invaders, he decided would befriend the farmer’s young son, and during the shooting of Raiders of the Lost Ark, Spielberg and Mrs Harrison Ford – screenwriter Melissa Mathison – isolated this idea and turned it into the basis of what would be his biggest film, E.T. the Extraterrestrial. Spielberg didn’t abandon the family-in-peril idea, however: he simply altered the evil aliens into ghosts and produced another smash hit: Poltergeist.
Maybe it was seeing "There Will Be Blood," a magnificent movie made from Upton Sinclair's hair-raising Oil!, that started me thinking about how some works of fiction make the leap to the screen gracefully, and others just fall flat on their cans. Annie Proulx's stirring short story "Brokeback Mountain," for instance, was done proud in celluloid, while Paul Bowles's Sheltering Sky was not. It's said that P.L. Travers bawled at the film premiere of "Mary Poppins," because she realized that her little book would be forgotten in the wake of Julie Andrews's winning characterization.
We could argue about whether Atonement got a fair shake in pixels, or The Kite Runner, for that matter. And some movies -- "Sophie's Choice," for instance -- seem to live quite respectably on their own, at some distance from their literary forbears. But there are some that are just plain bad offal of good, even great works. Here are five that merit that sad distinction:
1. "The Sound and the Fury." Martin Ritt's 1959 version of Faulkner's incomparable novel is long, painful -- simply unwatchable. Yul Brynner as Jason Compson? Puh-lease. . . The only relief was a young, striving Joanne Woodward. It's sad to think that a whole generation judged an extraordinary book by this film.
Mia Farrow and Robert Redford made for a less-than-great "Gatsby." (Paramount)
2. "The Great Gatsby." Jack Clayton's 1974 movie of this literary masterpiece was a critical and financial flop. And with reason: Mia Farrow made a very wan, very ditzy Daisy Buchanan. And sunny Robert Redford was no match for the amoral enigma of Jay Gatsby.
3. "The House of the Spirits." Isabel Allende's roiling epic was drained of all its hot Latin American blood in this pallid 1993 film starring Jeremy Irons, Meryl Streep, Glenn Close and Winona Ryder. The only Latino actor I remember crossing the screen was Antonio Banderas, and, speaking quite frankly as a Latina: He made me cringe.
John Cusack and Kevin Spacey's "Midnight" fell short. (Sam Emerson -- Reuters)
4. "Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil." Good book. Silly movie. Kenneth Turan of the L.A. Times summed up this 1997 effort perfectly when he wrote, "Listless, disjointed and disconnected, this meandering two-hour, 32-minute exercise in futility will fascinate no one who doesn't have a blood relation among the cast or crew." So true! All of Savannah, it seems, shuffled through.
5. "The Name of the Rose." Dense and rich as Italian chocolate, Umberto Eco's book was stripped of all its vitality, strangely enough, in this all-action movie, a 1986 collaboration among French, German and Italian filmmakers. Even the wizardly Sean Connery, as Franciscan friar William of Baskerville, couldn't resuscitate the corpse.
What favorite books pleased or disappointed you in their celluloid versions?
In partnership with Blackheath firm Ink-to-Screen, Macquarie Group Foundation LongLines brings you the opportunity to apply for a LongLines New Australian Film Stories Workshop. How would your novel –published, unpublished, or just carefully worked out – work on the screen? We all know about the crisis in the Australian film industry – does your novel tell a new Australian story? Five writers with a promising story with potential for the screen will have the opportunity to work with Ink-to-Screen, to consider the special requirements of the screen story and to explore the processes of the journey from ink to screen. The six-night residential workshop will take place from September 21-27.
