Dream Projects (1 Viewer)

[JonZ]

Back in the late 80s and early 90s Terry Gilliam was working on Alan Moores The Watchmen. He wanted to do it as a trilogy but the studio was only interested in 1 film. After a few years the project fell through:frowning:
Others:
Iron Man (Jeff Vintars script)
Sandman (Rossio and Elliots script can be found on the net)
Grendel(Would make a AWESOME trilogy)
40 Lashes (Tarantino was attached to this for awhile)
20,000 Leagues Under The Sea
League Of Extraordinary Gentlemen (Tell me this movie wouldnt rule in the right hands-this may actually happen rumor is Sean Connery has signed on)

 

[Chuck Mayer]

For SW, AOTC has me excited. This one really is a dream project...but I have a one name solution to GL's 'issues' with recent SW dialogue. He wants a co-writer. Hales co-wrote The Scorpion King...hmmmm.
How about we spend a bit MORE money and get (drums, please, this name deserves it) John Lasseter.
That would really be wonderful...the ideas are there, I believe. JL could make them sing.
Or maybe I am nuts.
I like it,
Chuck

 

[andreasingo]

I would love to see James Cameron finally direct his scifi-epic Avatar. But he needs to collaborate with a skilled writer to improve on his own scriptment. Avatar could blow our minds if done right.

 

[Alex Spindler]

Jon, I totally agree about Grendel. The individual storylines are great, and I love the path that it takes. That could be a winner if done well.

 

[Holadem]

My dream project was already made. For me nothing can top watching The Fellowship of the Rings on the big screen... except watching The Two Towers on the big screen!
--
Holadem

 

[Peter Apruzzese]

I'd love to see Harlan Ellison's script for Asimov's I, Robot get made. Terry Gilliam would be my preferred director for the project.

 

[Adam Lenhardt]

Well, I don't know why, but I've always had this fantasy of an adult adaptation of Peter Pan. I think that could be really great. By adult, I don't mean pornographic, or super 'R.' I just mean one that's not cloying or gimmicky like Return to Neverland, Hook, and to a large extent, the original Disney Peter Pan was.

 

[Kami]

Dune done correctly. How about a 4 hour epic with a $150 million budget.
The mini-series is alright in some spots, but screams low budget in many and some of the stuff is just plain stupid (i.e. Fremen people walking around the desert without stillsuits!!!). The original movie doesn't appeal to me at all. Some people love it, but I hate it. I gave it a chance -- FOUR times. I can't bring myself to enjoy it.

 

[Sean Laughter]

A huge six film epic based on the "Otherland" novels by Tadd Williams would be awesome!!!

Barring that I could get down with a really good film version of Clive Barker's "Weaveworld" too (actually, isn't that being made into a mini-series?? There's always rumors about it anyway).

 

[Andrew 'Ange Hamm' Hamm]

James Cameron's Iron Man

Terry Gilliam's Arkham Asylum

Ang Lee's The Sparrow and Children of God

Terry Gilliam's Watchmen (a made-for HBO miniseries)

Terry Gilliam's Chronicles of Amber (another miniseries)

Wow, is this the ultimate fanboy thread or what?

 

[Jim_C]

>>Terry Gilliam's Chronicles of Amber (another miniseries)

 

[Rex Bachmann]

Julie K wrote:

Frankly, I for one would like to see it happen if, and only if they are willing to make a real old-fashion horror film, using today's technology where necessary.
In my opinion, adapting Lovecraft "faithfully" for the big screen on a big budget would mean limiting the use of the technology to where it would be suited to the story and suppressing the usual stock Hollywood demographic "hooks" and cliches.
This almost surely won't get done because of the demographic youth marketing and closed-minded studio-management thinking that prevail in today's Hollywood.
They might---and probably should---compromise on the gender-role restriction, but could and, more importantly, would they suppress their addiction to making every female lead obligatorily also a romantic interest? Could the lead women be allowed to simply be explorers or scientists who just happen to be colleagues and friends of their male counterparts? (In other words, no bed scenes, no sexual innuendo.) I doubt it seriously.
Would anyone in Hollywood have the courage (daring) to set the film in the time period Lovecraft put the stories? (Today's Hollywood mostly avoids period pieces, "'cause the kids don't like them." Well, boo hoo.) His stories are basically American boys' dimestore-novel adventures from the 1920s and -30s, horrific fantasies with a thin and crusty veneer of scientific legitimacy, and can work effectively at that level. They would not work well, to my mind, set in the 21st century, with its satellites, space telescopes, and other space-age technology.
Furthermore, a standard cookie-cutter chase-and-action flick a la The Mummy---which is a "period piece" only on the thinnest upper layer of its surface---would, by definition, replace creepy mood and the sense of intellectualized experience that is the basis of Lovecraftian narrative art with explosions, chases, and fisticuffs.
Fake anachronistic "cool" dialog---that is, Indiana Jones-type one-liners having nothing to do with the way people would have spoken at the time (or, at least, how they might have spoken as imagined by Lovecraft himself)---cynically inserted just to please the under-30 set would destroy any creepy mood needed to support the premise of the story and render the project "illegitimate", in my book. One should bear in mind that Lovecraft stories, including his novels, are often third-hand narratives and, consequently, have very little, if any dialog at all. Would any director have the courage or yet the ingenuity to pull off an adaptation with limited dialog? The old Night Gallery tv adaptations of "Pickman's Model" and "Cool Air" were semi-successful, but, note: they, too, used flashback narrative, and were basically chamber dialogs (more like a real Lovecraft story), not SFX extravaganzas.
In Lovercraft's stories the horror is supposed to grow---actually, creep up---on you slowly. Only at the end does the creepiness, like the fictional monsters, overwhelm the experiencer. Today's factory-made popular movies, on the other hand, hit you over the head from start to finish. They're real "thrill rides". Well, a "thrill ride" is NOT a movie, and, I, for one, would not like to see ol' H.P. given the "thrill-ride" treatment.
I think that pretty much rules him out of contention for "faithful" (big-budget) film adaptation in Hollywood (as much as I hope I'm wrong).
On the other hand, A.E. van Vogt's space or monster fiction lends itself exactly to today's popular Hollywood film-making. The novelette of his that I read only a few years ago---it was The Mixed Men, I believe---has everything a Hollywood high-concept movie exec would want: planetary action-adventure, a big fortress of a ship travelling in space in and between the galaxies, early 30s-ish female captain, handsome love-interest protagonist, intrigue with (humanlike) alien races (actually offshoots of man), etc. You name, it's got it. (Realistic science---ehhhh, well, you can't have everything.)
And his "Ship of Darkness" is an especially good piece: cinematic and scientific (after a fashion).

 

[Alex Spindler]

Well, I would take the recent Devil's Backbone and The Others as a positive sign that such movies can and are made these days, just in very small quantities.
The hard part would be keeping an executive's interest in a story that keeps the special effects till the last half hour, and only has moody locations and dialogue for the first hour and a half.

 

[Todd H]

How about a fourth living dead movie from George Romero, with a really big budget?

 

[DanHaya]

I gotta put in my vote for Peter Jackson revisiting King Kong. I know he was really bummed when Universal halted preproduction on it...but who could blame them since Godzilla and Mighty Joe Young both tanked at the box office?

I remember reading about his ideas for the film back several years ago. He had envisioned an authentic remake of the original, set in 1933. Kate Winslet was thought to be the first choice to play Ann Darrow, having previously worked with Jackson. Kong would be created totally by CGI this time...no stop-motion animation and no Rick Baker in a gorilla suit, either (yes that was the famous make-up artist in the Kong suit in the '76 remake). I also recall a rumor that Jackson wanted Fay Wray (who's still alive and in her 90s) to have a cameo.

I would love for Mr. Jackson to get this project back on track once he's finished with LOTR. Now that he has some serious pull in Hollywood, maybe he can use his clout to get Universal to finally greenlight this project!

 

[Luc D]

David Cronenberg doing a 3 hour adaptation of Walter M. Miller's A Canticle for Liebowitz.

 

[Joel C]

Here are some that are waaaay different than most in this thread. I'd like to see films of Douglas Coupland's Microserfs and Janet Evonovich's Stephanie Plum novels. One for the Money is screaming for a cinematic adaptation, I can't figure out what is taking so long.

 

[Patrick McCart]

Top-notch adaptation of the Wayside School books by Louis Sachar. I can't really think of a good director, though.

Buster Keaton bio-epic. Again, no idea of a good director. I'd like to see Robert Downey Jr. have a cameo as Charles Chaplin if the film covers Keaton's part in Limelight. Either Edward Norton or Jude Law look the part and could pull off a role like Buster Keaton.

 

[John M. Ford]

Another vote for "Amber" and one for "The Dragonriders of Pern"

john f

 

[Werner_R]

Count me in for a good adaptation of Frank Herbert's "Dune" ! The lynch movie was quite frankly...bad.
Robert Jordan's "Wheel of Time" and Raymond E. Feist "Magician" would also be nice, what are the studios waiting for