We've all read books that just scream to be adapted for the screen, you know. What are some that you've read.

"The Gunslinger"

Empire of the East, it is better than LOTR if you like the more modern fantasy with different settings and yet the same. Although the main characters name is Rolf, weird names.

I have desired for the longest time to see the Chronicles of Thomas Covenant (all 6 of them) adapted for the screen. I just started reading the long-awaited "Last Chronicles of Thomas Covenant" and those are shaping up to be just as good.

The rumor mill has that a studio did purchase the rights to the first six books, but we'll see if that comes to anything.

THE COMEDY WRITER by Peter Farrelly (of the Farrelly Bros.)

I like to see The Resort by Benntley Little made into a movie. That is a cool butt book, let me tell you.

Remember "Catcher In The Rye" by J.D. Salinger(?)? It was like a mandatory book in the 11th/12th grade. That was an awesome book and I think it would be a great film that most teens would enjoy and could relate to. It's touching, disturbing, exciting and fun.

Some books like Empire of the East are next to impossible to convert into screenplays because they have some very vague descriptions. Some books, older ones in which i love better than new age ones have very vague descriptions of the main characters and are mostly written in the first person perspective and are kinda hard to figure out at times what's going on.

Great books, sometimes confusing because they are over written.

(Ps. Ziggy why not write your own adaptation of Gunslinger?)

I might, though I want to get my other shit together, I dunno about you but I take a long time to a script. But yeah, I could see an adaption happening.

I started adapting another book 2 years ago and guess where it went? I don't know, it took me forever and I lost interest. I wanted to adapt Empire but it was something best done by more than 1 person because its as large as Lord of the Rings in scale.

How true, since it's you have to determine what the fanbase wants, who want the book a certain way, you know. Then, if you're looking to pitch them to a studio, how long and if it's picked up, how many. The original "Gunslinger" trilogy had seven books, I beleive. Though maybe a mini-series would be the way to go?

I had started adapting "Desperation" but that's already in the works as a mini series...

Quoted from Chris_MacGuffin I had started adapting "Desperation" but that's already in the works as a mini series...

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO! Dammit, I wanted this one as a movie. Motherb*tches. >

I loathe tv series - especially Stephen King ones, they're all so terribly done.

Andy x

I have this western type book with gunslingers and hookers, it's an adult book with a lot of raunchy stuff in it... I didn't know this when I bought it but it would be one of those films "Guys Night Out" type films if adapted. There is a whole series of them but I only have one.

I want to learn how to write a western and how they differ from normal, someday i hope to learn.

When I first read you're post I thought you said you'd written it. lOl.

Anyhow, willing they don't make a mini series or movie, or the fanbase doesn't try to tear my head off, I may write an adaption of the series. Perhaps as a trilogy or maybe, just maybe, a mini series.

Right now I want to focus on the projects I have on hand before jumping into something like this, you know. Hopefully once I have everything done, I'll start this.

LOL!

I just was so disappointed with the King series' I've seen thus far.

I hope you do give it a go, would love to read that actually, I love that book so much, it just has to be made.

Am surprised it hasn't already been done...

Phew  

The Autobiography of An Ex-Colored Man --- now this is a GREAT book! It has all the good stuff in it, racial issues, love, loss, gambling, drinking, and comedy. Everyone should read this book. I think its GREAT!!!

'The Scabbed Wings of Abaddon' by Sean Kennedy. (Fantastic book, available free online -- as the author positively refuses to get it officially published.) Some of the action sequences would be awesome on film.

John Wyndham's novels are ripe for adaptation. They have been so influential, and yet so badly served on film.

"Day of the Triffids", which manages to foretell genetic engineering, is currently being remade by the BBC - but I am not keen on the talk of "re-imagining it for the 21st century"!

"The Midwich Cuckoos", in this age of old before their time children, might be very effective (and in the book the kids, while they can kill with a stare, are just normal children in other respects, which makes them even scarier). The 1960s film is good, but it can stand being remade (and wiping out the memory of the dreadful John Carpenter version).

"The Kraken Wakes" - which is all about alien created global warming and rising sea levels!

"Web" - a really terrifying horror story about spiders with a Hive mentality like ants.

Anne Rice's Queen of The Damned (and consequently, The Vampire Lestat as well) still needs to be done properly. I hope the rumors concerning another adaptation of the Chronicles are true, but leave RDJ out of it. The man cannot be Lestat.

H.P Lovecraft's short story, "Shadow over Innsmouth", would also make a good film. Most of his stories aren't good material for film, but I think that one could work.  The 2001 movie 'Dagon' and 1993's Dark Waters were kind of good but they were only loose adaptations, more insipired by several Lovecraft stories than actually based on one of them.

--Julio

Any of the Lovecraft stories. Stuart Gordon seems to be the Lovecraft connoisseur but his versions of the story still have a tad too much humor mixed in. He's getting better though. Guillermo Del Toro was supposed to adapt In The Mountains Of Madness at some point. Hopefully, that works out.

Also, State of Fear by Michael Chrichton. Totally wacky sci-fi/action about global warming. Hollywood will never make it though as it's blatantly anti-green and compares global warming to eugenics and basically anything racist or Nazi-oriented. Just the same. It's a fun story and a movie would be insane.

I was going to say any of Patricia Cornwell's Scarpetta books, but it looks now that it's going to happen with Angelina Jolie playing Kay Scarpetta.  http://hollywoodinsider.ew.com/2009/04/22/angelina-jolie/

Good choice btw.

Can't believe I forgot to mention this one... Preacher! Probably the only comic book/graphic novel ever made that can hold a candle to Watchmen. Amazing stuff. All it needs is the right filmmakers who are committed enough to bring it to life. Just like Watchmen, the film adaptation's had some trouble with commitment. That and it's subject matter may prevent it from ever seeing the light of day.

Of course it'll have to be The Catcher in the Rye, if only Salinger would just let someone make it already. The guy has let down tons of great directors and producers who could make the thing a very beautiful film.

Also Child 44. It would make a great thriller.

Quoted from Oney.Mendoza Remember "Catcher In The Rye" by J.D. Salinger(?)? It was like a mandatory book in the 11th/12th grade. That was an awesome book and I think it would be a great film that most teens would enjoy and could relate to. It's touching, disturbing, exciting and fun.

I hear you.  Personally, I would say anything by Ian McEwan, he writes so cinematically.  His novel, "Atonement" has already been adapted into an Oscar nominated film.  And it's brilliant.

Also, 'When We Were Orphans' by Kazuo Ishiguro.  It would be very difficult to adapt and very easy to get wrong.  But I think there's great potential there.

It's a little dated due to 9/11 and the death of Saddam Hussein, (the book was first published in 1997) but in an adaptation, one could make a decent film out of it:


KNIGHT HAWK by Pat O' Donnell

The F-15 Eagle fighter was the U.S. Air Force's most effective weapon in aerial combat. Fast, maneuverable, equipped with cutting-edge technology and the latest military design specs, the F-15 was designed to be virtually unstoppable. But suddenly one has to be stopped at all costs, for the unthinkable has happened--America is being attacked by one of its own super-fighters, being flown by a top U.S. pilot.
****
Once you start reading, the two main pilots, both the protagonist and the antogonist--are female pilots. All sorts of tech-thriller action in and around NYC and Washigton DC. "The Bad Girl" is a character who had a rough life in the States and turned into a spy/thief for Hussein's Iraq military

I don't think it's still in print; I could be wrong.

I would also like to see:

THE SELECT by F.Paul Wilson
Think 'The Firm' meets medical school.

SWAN SONG.by Robert R McCammon

TESTAMENT by John Grisham

NEROMANCER by William Gibson

KEY TO MIDNIGHT  by Dean Koontz

I'd liek to see someone special do Catcher In The Rye.

Daemon.

I think Paramount have the rights hopefully they'll do it justice. Best techno-thriller I've ever read.

About a guy taking over the world through computers after his death.

Stephen King's The Running Man.

The only thing that the Arnie movie used from it was the title and the name of the main character. Everything else was original, I fact I have no idea why they bothered buying the rights in the first place.

In fact I am not sure the book can ever be adapted anymore, I will admit now that last year I spent a couple of months trying to write an adaptation. It had lots going for it and could have been decent. I moved locations to London, set  in a world similar to Children of Men.

But in the end it fell apart and I gave up, It just will not work with today's technology, even in a Children of Men type of world it was too much of a push to think that society had gone backwards enough to not have mobile phones and Internet and yet still have a thriving TV industry.

The catalyst though was the realisation that it had been adapted before in a way, I think the Will Smith film "Enemy of the State" must of been influenced in some way by this book.

Great book though, would have made an excellent film if someone has bothered to do it in the 80's.

"When We Were Orphans" By Kazuo Ishiguro

I don't really see how it could be done with the jumpy timeline and the unreliable narrator, but if it worked it would be awesome.

Usher's Passing by Robert McCammon is a sequel to the Fall of the House of Usher by that Edger Allan Poe guy.  Set in modern times, it tells about the Usher family, its curse and its sinister secrets for survival.  It's an incredible read.

The New Gods is arguably Jack Kirby's greatest comic book work.  It's too hard to describe in a few words, but his story of the battle between good and evil on the planet Apokolips is richly detailed and entertaining.  While created in the early 1970's, making a movie would be impossible without today's CGI technology.


Phil

'The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch' by Philip K. Dick. Love that book and the visuals in it are fantastic. I attempted an adaptation a while back but it was a bit too ambitious for me at the time but it would certainly make a fantastic, surreal sci-fi film.

While mine isn't as prolific and artsy as the vast majorities here -- But I'd love to see "Dan Frontier" imagined on film for children and young adults.  I've, not ashamed in the least to admit it, got the entire collection and hold them very dear.  They are a huge part of my childhood and while many of them are written for the average 4 year old, there were some that had really good characters and stories inside them.  These were also the longer in the series too.  Very memorable to me.  And, in some small way, I believe they helped me write a better "Coffin Canyon".   Without that series of books I probably wouldn't have been near as interested in Westerns.

I think you cast Ryan Reynolds as Dan Frontier, toss him in a bear skin coat and give him a large knife -- Call it "DAN & THE WILD FRONTIER", slap a Disney logo on it.  Thing would be huge.  I'd love to write the script.

It's al about the Front, man.  The Dan Front.

Quoted from dogglebe The New Gods is arguably Jack Kirby's greatest comic book work.  It's too hard to describe in a few words, but his story of the battle between good and evil on the planet Apokolips is richly detailed and entertaining.  While created in the early 1970's, making a movie would be impossible without today's CGI technology.

What a coincidence!  The powers that be are introducing the New Gods on Smallville tonight.  I'm guessing Darkseid will be the big bad this season.


Phil

Books by Gary Shteyngart. I just love his humor and social critique. In particular, I would love to see Absurdistan. It would be a lot like "Snatch". "Memoirs of a Russian Debutante" has a lot of potential too.

* Dreampark (Larry Niven)
* The Stainless Steel Rat (Harry Harrison)
* Short Circuit (Melinda Snodgrass)
* The Rainbow Cadenza (J. Neil Schulman)
* Transmetropolitian (Warren Ellis)
* Hellblazer (Warren Ellis) (The REAL damned thing, not Constantine...)

Oh please, oh please, oh please, oh please.

And remake V for Vendetta, while you're at it.  Stupid Hollywood screwups...

I really want to see Patricia Cornwell's Scarpetta novels as film. I think Angelina Jolie has been cast as K. Scarpetta already, but I'm not sure which book will be filmed or if it's a brand new story written especially for the film.

Also anything S. King of course. I think The Dome is going to be a series though. I suppose that might be best since it is a rather long and rich book, but I HATE TV series.

J. A Konrath's Jack Daniels books would be cool too. Horror and a bit funny too.

Quoted from Oney.Mendoza Remember "Catcher In The Rye" by J.D. Salinger(?)? It was like a mandatory book in the 11th/12th grade. That was an awesome book and I think it would be a great film that most teens would enjoy and could relate to. It's touching, disturbing, exciting and fun.

Salinger went out of his way to ensure no adaptations could be made of his book. Now he's dead, who knows?

Off topic a little - yesterday saw a DVD of a film called "Tomorrow, When the War Began". It sounded like a remake of "Red Dawn" (teenagers struggle to survive as invaders attack), but it turns out to be based on a series of YA books - which I have never heard of.