4mo ago

What book that hasn't been adapted into a TV show or movie do you think deserves an adaptation?

297 comments

Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy deserves a good adaptation, rather than that trash movie and that too short BBC series.
- The BBC series was brilliant.
  
  Agreed, just too short.
- I would love that, I dont think the movie is terrible, its just that everything after Ford and Arthur get thrown out the airlock isnt as funny or absurd as the books. The main issue is the first 2ish books are unadaptable because there is no central conflict (or arleast the main cast dosent care or know there was supposed to be one).
  Zaphod is the only person with motivation to do anything other than to continue existing, and he is unaware (or dosen't care) he is being hunted until they meet those suprisingly progessive law enforcment officers on Magrathea and when he visits the guides publishing offices.
  
  Zaphod's 2 heads were the biggest let down of the movie.
- And it should be of the first three books, not just the first book.
  
  The BBC series does up to them being on >!prehistoric hairdresser and middle management earth!< Iirc
  Which I'm pretty sure is the third book. But I haven't read it in a loooooong time.

Hyperion Cantos.
Neuromancer.
- For being what I would consider one of the founding fathers of cyberpunk, I'm surprised there hasn't been a Neuromancer film yet. Especially when so many of the tropes we know from the cyberpunk genre originated from Neuromancer, to begin with.
  
  The question is do they stick with the existing Johnny Mnemonic movie as the prequel story, recap it in an intro scene, or ignore it completely?
- Neuromancer has been optioned before but no one did anything with it. I think it was in play again but recently but haven't heard much lately.
  Hyperion Cantos would be great.
  Gormanghast might also be cool.
- I think neuromancer is being done? Maybe it's something else tho I forget
- The first book seems ideal for a mini series
  
  An anthology-like mini series where each episode deals with one pilgrim and is written and directed by different people. As many different styles as there are pilgrims, just like how the book is written. Would translate very well to screen IMO.
- Watch Inception and think of Neuromancer and you will find that its probably the best closest match for the way the story is told. So many things made me realize there are so many little "I loved that story but I cant make that movie so I will just give you clues". The throwing star is the top.
- https://www.theverge.com/24086056/apple-tv-plus-neuromancer-streaming-series-william-gibson
  Neuromancer Might be getting made.

Always felt like that Eragon series could have been good. Too bad they never made a movie for it. Never once. I'm sure it would have been solid if they had. But they didn't.
- I think they are making an Eragon adaptation (for the first time, of course). I think Disney+ is making a series, similar to them restarting Percy Jackson.
  
  Oh boy. Disney adaptation track record is very hit or miss. I hope they don't mess this one up like the last adaptation.
- I feel the same way about Avatar: The Last Airbender. It would have been such an amazing movie, or perhaps even a series. But alas, they've never attempted it once.
- Ah, it appears you have forgotten or have simply Mandela'd in from a different timeline. Allow me to refresh your memory for you in the kindest way possible:
  Eragon was a 2006 dance film featuring Jeremy Irons and Ed Speeler on a ship. Some fighting is involved. And I dunno, a dragon maybe.

Every single thing Brandon Sanderson ever wrote
- The graphic audiobooks are pretty great already. Would love some visuals to go with it. Would need a big budget though..
- Similarly, I'm reading through the Lightbringer series by Brent Weeks and I think it would be a great candidate for an adaptation. It's a really good story and the magic is all based on the colour of light which I think would make the special effects pretty easy to create and should also look nice.
  
  I know I recognise the name Brent Weeks, and I know I remember a magic system based around colour. Does that book start with someone who brings his cloak to life with colour magic? And as you get more magically powerful, you can see more and richer colours?

The Iliad. Not a "take" or an "adaptation" or a "re-imagining". Just play it straight as it is, cut out some of the monologues and replace the "throwing spears at each other" parts with swordfights.
I want to see the gods descend from Olympus to fight on the battlefield.

Old Man's War by John Scalzi was made for this, I swear. His latest books also read a lot like movie scripts are contained therein.
Charles Stross' Laundry series has a ton of potential too, if less Chtullu is required, I wouldn't mind a Merchant Princes series either.
I heard rumours about Forever War being optioned at some point, but nothing came of it.
- I vote for laundry series too
- I had thought that some Hollywood people were talking to Scalzi about Old man’s war, but nothing ever came of it. Sad.

The Long Earth by Terry Pratchett and some guy who's name is harder to remember.
An inventor uploads a schematic to the Internet for a cheap, easy-to-assemble device that lets anyone (or almost anyone) "step" into parallel earths. A nearly infinite stretch of untamed wilderness sees people abandoning the polluted, crowded, government-run Old Earth in search of new opportunities. The catch: No iron or iron alloys can "step" across, sending these new earths back to the bronze age.
Also: Zeppelins that are also reincarnated Buddhists that are also the first true machine intelligence; robot cats; libertarian communes; sapient nonhuman primates; sapient nonhuman non-primates; radioactive ziggurats; space programs to parallel moons; and grumpy survival chicks.
- Stephen Baxter
  The premise was better than the execution, but I've definitely been curious if you could use the world stepping premise in an RPG in a compelling way.

Ringworld :)
- Apparently in the woks by Amazon
  
  No shit. I'm very suprised. Some of it gets rather technical for the masses.
- Announced over 3 years ago (2021) in this article that mentions Amazon Prime optioned it in 2017: Tech Advisor article about “Ringworld” on Amazon Prime
  So…
  
  So, it's still not here :P

Dragonriders of Pern, by Anne McCaffrey. Currently doing my umpteenth read-through completely accidentally. I wanted to read one of the books then got sucked in. I'm nine books in and read several of them in one sitting, despite having read them all plenty of times.
And while I'm on the subject, I don't think I've ever seen anyone taking about Pern online but I see mentions of Isaac Asimov every few weeks. They're of a similar age and Pern is equally good as Isaac's work, if not better. Grumble grumble...
- I'm a lifelong pern fan, but... the immense fear of thread won't come across well on the screen in my opinion. And thread fighting will be hard to make such that it has the same magnitude as it can in your imagination. All in all, thread is over played. It can't be such a harrowing fight in the skies, and still be so devastating if one got through unnoticed. Cause if the fight in the skies was so hard, more would get by, and some would get missed over the years. And that is played off as the end of the world. In your imagination, that can work, but on screen, not so much. That means they would need to make some fundamental change to film it.
  
  You're probably right, but I was trying to say it deserves more recognition. I don't think it would be a good TV show either. And Eragon has put me off all dragon-related adaptations I think!
  
  Canonically some gets by every time, which is why they need ground crews with flame throwers, right?
- Yup. Or it would lend itself to a 3-4 season show. The CGI time would seem prohibitive thanks to the dragons, Thread, and sci-fi aspects of the story.

Sanderson's Mistborn series could make some good film or TV. Honestly they could probably even pull off a whole cosmere MC universesque type thing... Although I think deals keep falling through because the author wants full creative control.
- Stormlight has to be an anime. Especially for the "magical girl Kaladin" memes
- Although I think deals keep falling through because the author wants full creative control.
  I mean looking at the ruins of the Game of Thrones franchise that David Benioff and D. B. Weiss left behind, maybe that's not such a bad idea.
- Pretty sure that's a result of him seeing how Wheel of Time has been going.
  
  Or any adaptation where they DON'T have creative control.

The original TSR Dragonlance D&D series from the '80s by Weis and Hickman.
- At least we finally seem to be beyond people wondering why Drizzt isn't around.
- This is what I was looking for. Sure, we have a crappy animated movie, but all I have ever wanted was to see the Heroes of the Lance in real life.
- Hell yes!

Any of the Discworld series by Terry Pratchett
- There are a couple animated adaptations of some of the books, and the live-action adaptation of Hogfather is pretty good!
  
  There's also a Sky One live action of Color of Magic and Going Postal that are pretty solid.
  Edit: Thanks Madjo!

I would love a true to the book series of World War Z. I’m not even sure anyone involved with that movie read the book. It should be a 3 season HBO series with an episode for each persons vignette. Intros and outros of each episode has the recurring reporter meeting the person and starting his recording as they launch into their narrative of what happened. If you need more episodes, just write additional vignettes. Season 1 is the events that lead up to the outbreak, season 2 is the war itself, season 3 is the aftermath. I’m pretty sure this is what Max Brooks was writing towards. It could be amazing.
- I've been saying this for years. It's ideal for a series. Was terribly disappointed with that zombie movie that borrowed the name.

mass effect could be a huge tv and movie franchise but the designs of the aliens would make the effects budgets prohibitively expensive. damn would I love it though.

Old Man's War
Tom Godwin's The Survivors, it's pretty short so they could do their thing where they always mess with the story and it wouldn't have much effect.
Asimov's Robots stories, particularly those with Powell and Donovan, US Robots, etc could be the basis for a cool series, ideally retro-futuristic...
- Surely you've seen the 100% faithful adaption, "Will Smith Shoots Stuff"?
  And apparently Amazon made an adaptation of Foundation, not that I've watched it yet. Not sure if I even want to, part of the charm is how long ago it was written and how crazy some parts of it are
  
  I watched the first couple of episodes of Amazon's foundation... Then I abandoned it

The Dark Tower.
Whatever that monstrosity they released a few years ago was doesn't count.
- Just the first book
  Make it like Blood Meridian level creepy and violent

Almost anything from Neal Stephenson.
- Oh shit. The Baroque Cycle getting the Game of Thrones treatment... minus the executive meddling.
  
  You wouldn't even have to obsess over the history, alchemy, etc., just don't fuck it up. People get too wrapped around an axle thinking every single infodump has to be there. Stephenson's got issues (coughendingscough), but the stories are informed by the same research as the infodumps, and they'll hold up well.
- Seveneves is coming as a series. Not sure if they could pull off Baroque, but I'm game. I'd love a Snow Crash film.
  
  Typing that comment made me do my semi-annual check for adaptations, and I just saw that announcement came out a couple of weeks ago. Hope it comes along better than the movie that got stuck in development hell.
- Seconded.
- Seveneves would be the bomb (eta : they could even do the last part as a separate animated short)
  
  Seveneves is functionally two separate books jammed together. I hope they do the serious TV show on just the first book.
  
  Yeah, it certainly doesn't hold up as well as the "origin" story, but silly though it was I liked the last part of Seveneves. It could definitely work as an animation.
  FALL could as well, or at least kind of a Tron-like thing.
  
  First part as a movie, second part as a tabletop roleplaying setting

I would have loved Name of the Wind, but that lazy fuck Rothfuss is going the way of George Reorge Reorge Martin: he's been promising book 3 for a decade and can't finish it.
- He wrote himself into a corner. Somehow he needs to wrap up a spiralling plot in one book...
  It's never gonna happen.

The Red Rising series would be an awesome TV show. Each of the 6 (so far) books would be excellent as long seasons.
- Yes and I want the people who did The Expanse to make it.
- I kinda fell off after book 3.
  
  Book 4 is a bit slow but it picks up a lot after that.
  That said don't feel obligated to read something that Doesn't interest you of course
  
  4 is the weakest of the series imo, it does pick back up
- Who (actors) do you think would be Darrow or Goblin?
  
  Benedict Cumberbatch and Judge Reinhold

A well-done Brothers Karamazov could put your Downton Abbeys and Bridgertons to shame.
Maybe call it "Three Brothers..."

You ask as if that was a good thing. Like an honor for a book. But I way too often find myself defending books with "It's nothing like the movie. Don't juge it by the awful movie."
Especially fantasy adaptions are regularly awful and damaging for the books.
Examples: The Dark Tower, Eragon, Percy Jackson, The Giver, Inkheart.
Netflix's Persuasion, The Beach to name a couple of non fantasy as well.
So I'd rather they leave the books alone and make original stories into movies.
- After the Dark Tower movie came out, I heard a whole bunch of people on the internet saying that the movie was awful and the books are so much better. I didn’t see the movie, but if the books are so well-liked I thought I’d give them a try.
  I tried my best, I really did. But I just couldn’t finish the first book. It was just way too surreal and abstract for me.
  
  You are not alone in this. The first book is awful. It made me doubt my english reading comprehension. Everybody hates it.
  It's unfortunate, that such a great series starts off with the worst book, not only of the series, but imo of all of Kings books.
  Somehow the real story starts (for me) with the second book. The first is more of a world introduction, a world building tool. And otherwise quite irrelevant.
  I urge you, to give the second book (The drawing of the three) a chance. You won't regret it, because if you disregard the first book, the series is fantastic.
  
  Try reading it alongside the podcast the KingSlingers. The podcast is set up where they read a couple chapters at a time, then spend a 2 hours talking about those chapters. One person read the series multiple times and the other is just reading it for the first time. I'm halfway through the series, and now I want them to break down and discuss every book I read.

Infinite Jest. Just for the sheer impossibility of any attempt to do so :-)

Any Batman story that focuses more on how he's mainly a detective and only breaks out the concussion gloves if he's attacked or there's literally no other way to resolve the situation at hand?
Society thinks he's The Punisher in a funny hat because of those damned nolanverse films.
- He was supposed to do some detective work in The Batman movie, right? It's been awhile since I've seen it, though, so I don't remember how much they fulfilled that promise.
  
  They did, and though it was a short segment, it was good
  
  I mean theoretically, but it was crap like everything else in that film. He figured nothing out on his own

Blood Meridian (decades of false starts not withstanding).
- What's your ideal cast lineup? I want this live action so bad but it would have to be a mini series to get all of it in, and then can never think of anyone who could bring the Judge to life.
  
  Stellan Skarsgård as Judge would be terrifying. Not sure a out accent.
- One of my faves. I've never understood why people say it's impossible to adapt.
  
  Because a huge chunk of the story is wandering the gorgeous, but empty desert with a bunch of psycho killers. Occasionally that group commits grisly large scale harvesting of passable scalps to sell off to bigger towns with a scalp trade. Sometimes one of them, usually the judge, will commit a little extra horrific crime against humanity as a treat for themselves. The "good guy" isn't exactly someone to root for either. It's a story with muddy, dark morals and an ending that'll bum out a lot of folks. No happy days here.
  I loved the story and would watch a well done movie about it. I highly doubt that'll happen. To do it right is to include almost all of the horror of what these people are, which would be a lot of money on effects that will anger a ton of people due to what they portray. It's not that it's unadaptable. It's that it would be a slow burn movie with brief, hyper violent hollowing out of small villages including baby smashing. It's slow, mean, and ends in a way that'll have you stare off into space feeling a little bad about the nature of humanity. Not a very profitable idea for a movie.

Hyperion series. That thing's gonna be hard to adapt though.
- It'd probably make a better TV series with a Star Trek The Next Generation feel to it

House of leaves.
- MZD wrote some spec screenplays for a television series and sells them for $11.
  https://www.markzdanielewski.com/digital-downloads/p/markzdanielewskihouseofleavesscripts
  Haven’t read them yet but intend to.
- Any advice on how to actually get through this book? I love it but it's very challenging.
  
  Take as long as you feel like, and try not to focus on "getting through" the book. On my first read, I was lucky enough to feel like I couldn't put it down. I tried a second time years later and didn't get very far, I think because I was focused on finishing it.
- Hard to imagine it being done well, given not only the plot(s) but the...unique narrative structure.

One of my favorite books is called Inherit the Stars.
Mankind is starting to reach out into the solar system, but finds a man on the moon entombed in a space suit, and he's been dead for 50,000 years.
It'd make a pretty good movie, 2 hours tops.
It does one of my favorite things, by strongly blending two genres: mystery, and sci-fi. A sci-fi show, movie, or book that's purely sci-fi is rarely good. Same goes for fantasy. Season 1 of Game of Thrones is good because it's primarily a mystery/drama story in a fantasy setting. A New Hope is great because it's a western, coming-of-age story in a sci-fi setting. Rebel Moon is garbage (for many reasons) because it's pure sci-fi schlock with no nuance.

Any Brandon Sanderson books of course.
- Ayyyyyyyyyyyy my boy Brando Sando!
  Time for !BooksCircleJerk

Lot of good ones in here. Only idea I can think of is The Black Company. Not specifically to follow Croakers story either. Could be about battles and drama of the past from the annals.
- Goblin and One-Eye would be fucking awesome as the main characters, or Raven. Hell even a story about how the Silver Spike came to be would be a good movie.
  No fuck that Croaker is the bad ass mofo and his story should be the first movie. Make it an unknown actor who can be humble but also a bad mofo who everyone is like JFC dude!
  
  If you did a TV series it could be like True Detective. Each season being a different timeframe. The Taken being the few reoccurring characters. But even then a character like Shifter could be portrayed by multiple actors.
- Gets my vote.
  Funny enough, came to say the Garrett P.I. series.
  
  Keep meaning to get around to reading those.

The Lies of Locke Lamora is just begging for an Ocean's Eleven-type treatment.
- I was about to post the same thing. That series is fucking awesome
  
  Is the rest of the series good? I read the first one and thought it was pretty good but a reasonably well wrapped up story by the end
- Yeah that would be the perfect vibe for that.

Not a book, but a true story from WW2:
5 May 1945 Troops of the 23rd Tank Battalion of the 12th Armored Division of the US XXI Corps led by Lieut. John C. "Jack" Lee, Jr., a number of Wehrmacht soldiers led by Major Josef "Sepp" Gangl, SS-Hauptsturmführer Kurt-Siegfried Schrader, and recently freed French prisoners of war defended Castle Itter against an attacking force from the 17th SS Panzergrenadier Division until relief from the American 142nd Infantry Regiment of the 36th Division of XXI Corps arrived.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Castle_Itter?wprov=sfla1
- dude i read this comment like three times and still don't know what the fuck is going on. can you do it with fewer meaningless names and numbers
  
  US and Germans (with some French celebrity prisoners) fight other Germans. My favorite part of this battle is when the French superstar Tennis player vaults a castle wall and runs through enemy lines to ask for reinforcements.

Something from Iain M. Banks The Culture. The best books, like Excession would probably be hard to adapt due to the protagonists being mostly ships, but others like Consider Phlebas or The Player of Games could probably make great films or miniseries (and Use of Weapons would probably be great as the later).
Probably excessively expensive in the CGI department if done well, but one can dream.

Assassin's trilogy by Robin Hobb.
- Agreed, fantastic story but I'll be damned if I wasn't moved to tears.
  Hey, Robin! I know you have to vent sometimes into your works, but give the poor guy a break, won't you?

They need to do a good Dark Tower series. Make it a mini-series or a series of films.
- The question was what hasn't been made. Dark Tower was attempted.
  
  That movie had very little to do with the actual story aside from a few references. And without Eddie, Susannah, and a well-danced Commala I’ll never be satisfied.

Little brother by cory Doctorow Best book ive read. Characters have real feelings and flaws. And the book got me deep into linux and foss
Would highly recommend
- Doctorow releases his books under a CC license as well, so you can download a copy here.
- I want to see Down and Out

The Rama Series by Arthur C Clarke
- I think this is a good contender for the show being better than the book (which was incredibly dry Sci-Fi with almost no character content).
  
  That's just the first book. The other 3 books were much larger and had plenty of character content.

Would love to see (and probably be disappointed by) a Revelation Space adaptation.
- I think diamond dogs would make a really interesting animation short or maybe full-length movie.
  But any of the books from the main series would require the kind of love and effort that the Expanse got early on.
  
  But any of the books from the main series would require the kind of love and effort that the Expanse got early on.
  I don't know that any series would ever get that kind of love ever again. What The Expanse got was rare and amazing.
- Although I love the books, I'd never want to see them as a film. I expect it would be so gory it would take away from the story. Kind of how Game of Thrones was just so focused on boobs that it was honestly embarrassing to watch sometimes.

A good version of “Riverworld” by Philip Jose Farmer would be awesome. “Borne” or “The Strange Bird” by Jeff Vandermeer. “Dance, Dance, Dance” by Murakmi. The Maddaddam Trilogy by Atwood.
As a deep cut, “The Woman in the Dunes” by Kobo Abe. Totally surreal.

Dragonlance
- Seconded, but I'm not sure I would go past the twins trilogy
  
  Based on Honor Among Thieves there simply isn't enough of an audience. Dragonlance does a better job of hiding the dice but I don't think high fantasy can get away with not having boobs and murder everywhere.

The Moon is a Harsh Mistress is my favourite book and would be highly relevant today given its political themes about colonialism, and AI.

I so want a Hercules/Xena type show except it's Conan. The world needs more Conan in all its glory steeped in fantasy and Lovecraftian lore.
- Now I'm picturing Conan O'Brien portraying Conan The Barbarian, and I don't like it.....

Dan Simmons, Hyperion... Or Carrion Comfort.
I'd love to see some modern tries at Dashiel Hammet's work too.

The Chronicles of Amber by Roger Zelazny
It needs to be a show, not movies. One book per season would allow enough detail to be included.
- These books changed how I read books and understood books. They were a gateway into other worlds I never knew could exist.
  
  Neat trick, that.
- Yes! I came here to see if anyone had mentioned this. My favorite fantasy series when I was a teenager. I also wouldn't mind his Incarnations of Immortality series turned into a show either, but Amber would work better due to the humor and settings

Snow Crash.

Lord of Light, high sci Fi mashed with epic Indian mythology and eastern philosophy.

Call me crazy, but I want a 14 hour epic of The Silmarillion...one movie, not a trilogy plz.
- 14 hours is way way way too long of a movie. Multiple movies or a series makes much more sense.
  But yeah, that would be really cool.
  
  Oh absolutely, no one will sit through an actual movie that long. A series of some would be the way to go for sure.
- silmarillion is tv series material. every episode a mythic story, with some two-parters.
- As an aside I found it surprisingly readable and I'm not a huge LotR fan. Maybe I just like short story anthologies.
  
  I thought it was pretty terrible tbh, and I read history books for fun. I think that was my problem with it tbh, I just kept looking at the timelines and going "no, bullshit, the kingdom would have been bankrupted by a five hundred year war, and how tf are elves replacing their combat losses?"

Dresden files would be a fantastic HBO style series. They tried a TV adaption in the past but it was trash
- I have so much of this fancasted in my head
  Clancy Brown as Morgan
  Ray Wise as Nicodemus
  Mia Goth as Aurora
  Naveen Andrews as The Gatekeeper
  Young Ray Wise as Marcone (just let me have this lmao)

After how the Withcher was butchered, I'd like to see less adaptations.
- Yeah, I don't trust them not to ruin everything. Disney fucked up Star Wars for fucks sake. If there was ever a sure thing it was that and they somehow managed to make half their shows terrible.

Where's is waldo
- Not a TV show, but this ongoing series of shorts as if a video game are fantastic.. here's the first, see the rest on their reels/shorts
  Reels: https://www.instagram.com/reel/C3-8Kx7Jl0u
  Shorts: https://youtube.com/shorts/VCYvmdgbDTY

Remove most of the muscle porn from it, which wouldn't be hard since the main characters are all essentially superheroes, and the entirety of The Deathworlders, the canon parts of Salvage, The Xiu Chang Saga, and Humans Dont Make Good Pets.
The Jenkinsverse has a ton of potential there.
ETA: also a documentary narrated by David Attenborough, based on Alice in Sunderland.
- There is no Deathworlders after War On Two Worlds.
  Outside that I agree.

The Coldfire Trilogy
I bought it because I needed something to read on a flight, the cover looked cool for Black Sun Rising, and it blew me away.

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