What Books Would Make Great Movies?
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I was thinking the other day about the different books i have read that would make really good movies and came up with few of my top choices. These are books that would lend themselves to being rewritten as movies without loosing too much of their meaning in the process. My choices are pretty much Sci-Fi/Fantacy novels which is the genre of books I tend to read.
1. Incarnations of Immortality Series by Piers Anthony: This is a series of books that would lend itself well to being produced into a movie per book. There are 7 books in the series, each one depicts the life of different incarnations. The stories assume that incarnations such as War, Death, Nature, etc are “job positions” held by persons for several hundred years before they are allowed to die and move on to heaven. On a Pale Horse for example, is the story of the Grim Reaper (Death) and the problems, adventures he has after taking on the job of helping fellow humans to the afterlife. The books intertwine with one another and you will see characters from the other books appear in each novel. This may also lend itself well to a TV series.
2. The Stars My Destination by Alfred Bester: Hundreds of years in the future, Mankind has spread out to colonize the Moon, Mars, Venus (thus creating the Inner Planets), as well as the moons of Jupiter, Saturn, and Neptune (the Outer Satellites). Man has also learned to “jaunte” or teleport himself over distances up 1,000 miles. The advent of jaunting radically changed the economies of all human-inhabited worlds, with the eventual reorganization of the Solar System into two camps (the Inner Planets and the Outer Satellites) of corporate fiefdoms or clans. A trade-war between the two major factions gradually grows, and eventually becomes outright war.
3. The Moon is a Harsh Mistress by Robert A. Heinlein: Smarter and more humane than Starship Troopers.
4. Caves of Steel (Robot City) by Issac Asimov: A terrific combination of two movie genres, the sci-fi spectacular and the murder mystery.
5. Three Men in a Boat by Jerome K. Jerome: Maybe the funniest book ever written - everything from satire to slapstick.
Let me know what books you think might make the transition from print to film and why.
7 Comments
nobody
September 1st, 2008
at 10:00pm
i wholeheartedly agree with The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress.
i would add the original dragonlance chronicles, awesome pulp fantasy, as good as it gets with over the top characters and lots of action and tension. the corrections might make an interesting movie, it would have to be pretty long though. alotta books i read already have movies made from them, although in many cases i haven’t seen the movie. how about a life of pi movie? it could be sorta like cast away, but on a boat, with a tiger instead of the beachball
K
September 2nd, 2008
at 5:32am
Sticking with Piers Anthony, how about the Xanth series? I know it’s a lot of books in that series but it would be nice to see it made into movies or a series or something. You can’t beat Piers Anthony when it comes to wit!
teddgcm
September 2nd, 2008
at 6:04am
K…The Xanth novels would definitely make a good show, but it would have to be television series rather than a movie I think.
gman
September 2nd, 2008
at 9:42am
Any the books by Australian author Matthew Reilly. Over the top set pieces, larger than life characters and non stop action.
godevillivedog
September 2nd, 2008
at 11:19am
Stephen Kings “Gunslinger” series of seven books begs to
be made into a mini-series with an old grizzled Clint Eastwood
as the gunslinger.
Mark Leeper
September 11th, 2008
at 10:39am
Really good books usually do not make really good films.
THREE MEN IN A BOAT has been made four times into movies. The critics were never that impressed (to say nothing of the dog).
Sarah English
September 26th, 2008
at 7:39pm
One Hundred Years of Solitude ( Gabriel Garcia Marquez).
One of the best books I have read by far. The imagery could easily and beautifully be pulled off with todays FX’s. As I read it I was seeing it on the big screen. The fantasy of it all could be brought to life by the likes of Tim Burton. Mark my words…. it will come to pass.