Wednesday, January 10, 2018

What Book Cried Out for a Movie and Nothing Has Happened so far?

When I read DEVIL IN THE WHITE CITY I expected to see the screen version within a year or two. And yet, so far, none. I know Scorcese and DiCaprio are supposedly working on a script, but I am not holding my breath. What book did you expect to turn up at your local cinema and it hasn't? Some books get turned into movies multiple times and others, just as good, not at all.
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11 comments:

Charles Gramlich said...

Cold in the Light, by this Gramlich guy. :)

7:23 AM
pattinase (abbott) said...

That would be fun to see. Or maybe not based on some of the drek Hollywood puts out.

7:59 AM
Elgin Bleecker said...

A CONFEDERACY OF DUNCES should have been a movie a long time ago. Now, there are rumors of it getting made.

8:59 AM
pattinase (abbott) said...

I wonder if they can pull it off.

9:01 AM
Jeff Meyerson said...

What Elgin said. I've always wanted to see CONFEDERACY. Too bad the rumored version with Belushi never happened.

9:50 AM
George said...

I always thought that Sue Grafton's ALPHABET mysteries would make a great mini-series on Netflix. But Grafton didn't want the books to be filmed for movies or TV.

John D. MacDonald's Travis McGee series seemed very cinematic. But, maybe the time has passed for heroes like Travis. Superheroes are all the rage now.

1:51 PM
pattinase (abbott) said...

Boy, I would have loved that. Have seen a lifetimes's fill of superheroes.

2:21 PM
Mathew Paust said...

I think Sam Elliott played McGee in an old made-for-TV movie. I don't recall the title, but it might be on DVD. As for Confederacy, Chris Farley was born to play Ignatious. Just as Toole was born to create him. Tragedy for both.

6:02 AM
J F Norris said...

I remember reading several years ago that Will Ferrell and Drew Barrymore were attached to yet another planned movie of A Confederacy of Dunces. According to imdb.com its been in development since 2012! Steven Soderbergh is listed as one of the three screenwriters and Scott Rudin is listed as producer.

I could list several movie adaptations of novels that I wish would happen, but they'd be of books most people have never heard of or read like THE MAN WHO FELL IN LOVE WITH THE MOON which I reviewed on my blog many years ago. I figure it's not worth mentioning books that are so little known. But I will add that I wish someone would turn the best of John Dickson Carr's mysteries into a mini series. If Jonathan Creek could be a hit, then surely Merrivale and Dr. Fell could follow suit. After all they were the inspiration for Jonathan Creek.

1:24 PM
Cap'n Bob said...

Mine.

5:03 PM
Todd Mason said...

AMERICAN GOTHIC, dealing as does WHITE CITY with Herman Mudgett and his Murder Castle, hasn't been filmed since 1972 or thereabouts, and Robert Bloch was a screenwriter whose novels and stories had been rather famously filmed and otherwise adapted. However, there was an episode of TIMELESS pretty much taking this matter on. Not bad, in its focus.

John, you should mention as many obscure books that could make fine A/V as you wish.

The forced broadness of CONFEDERACY will not, I suspect, translate well on screen. Hence the rub so far.

And, if anything, the rather too superness of McGee, the steadfast Rotarian hippie in someone's phrase, might tend to get in the way of his more successful adaptation, but it'd be worth a shot.

10:13 AM

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