What novels can we expect as possible film adaptations? Find out here.
Novels have always provided fertile ground for films. A well-written novel provides more than
enough substance and nuance for talented screenwriters and directors in which
to sink their teeth. 2014 alone offered dozens
of novel-to-movie adaptations, ranging from children’s stories (Alexander and the Unnecessarily Long Title),
to sexy, tense mysteries (Gone Girl),
to the next flock of teen-drama cultural phenomenon (the continued Hunger Games series and Divergent trilogy).
The continued adaptations of worthy, and arguably unworthy,
novels will continue – here’s a few predictions of those that we’ll see in the
next few years:
The First Law Trilogy
In a world where HBO’s Game
of Thrones can command massive audiences and inspire watercooler moments
that boggle the uninitiated – “Did you see what Khaleesi did last night?!” “Khaleesi? It’s Daenerys Stormborn of House Targaryen,
the First of Her Name, the Unburnt, Queen of Meereen, Queen of the Andals and
the Rhoynar and the First Men, Khaleesi of the Great Grass Sea, Breaker of
Chains, and Mother of Dragons, you philistine!” - viewers are ripe for some
more hardcore, adult fantasy. Filmmakers
looking for the next Game of Thrones
need look no further than Joe Abercrombie’s stylish, brutal, and well, if you
excuse the overused term, epic The First
Law trilogy. Written like a medieval
Tarantino flick with no fear of going full fantasy, The First Law offers characters far beyond the traditional fantasy
tropes – an introspective and kind barbarian type? A wizard that casts tact and wisdom aside in
exchange for being a complete and total badass? A crippled war hero turned sadistic torturer
– THAT IS ARGUABLY ONE OF THE GOOD GUYS?
Yes, The First Law is awesome,
and will translate wonderfully to the screen.
Sharp Objects
2014’s Gone Girl
received no lack
of praise from The Sleuth, and although Fincher’s directing and Reznor’s
soundtrack certainly made Gone Girl the
film it became, they had some pretty damn incredible source material. With dialogue and plot beats taken verbatim
from Gillian Flynn’s novel, the film was destined for success from the start. Lucky for us movie lovers, we have two more
Flynn novels to be adapted to film. Her
first, Sharp Objects, with some razor
wit and wonderfully broken characters, has the potential to scratch that dirty
mystery itch that Gone Girl has left
us with. Rumor has it it’s currently
being adapted to TV – a sort of female driven True Detective, but this viewer would still love to see a feature.
After
This one is an inevitability. Plunged deep into the vein of fans of Twilight and Fifty Shades of Grey, another story of a waifish woman and an
abusive, but misunderstood (!) dude – the After
series is primed to be the next vapid cultural phenomenon. Admittedly, I haven’t read these ones, and
therefore won’t comment further, but mark my words – this is the next one.
Ready Player One
Self-indulgent, overly referential, saccharine and
pandering, Ready Player One is the
worst book that any geek will have no choice but to love. Despite its flaws, the novel absolutely adores its reader and its source
material, and offers an insanely fun look at a dystopic future and the video
game that keeps its citizens going. If
Adam Sandler’s upcoming Pixels
doesn’t cause a cultural revolution in which gamers rise up and destroy
Hollywood, they might be hungry for a film that actually cares about video
games – which would be perfect timing for Ready
Player One.
House of Leaves
The only book to grace this list that probably should never see a film release, House of Leaves is a one-of-a-kind novel
that toys with traditional storytelling in ways that can only be described as maniacal. Told through three separate forms of
narration – a first-person direct-to-reader tale, an unfinished non-fiction
manuscript complete with fictional sources and hundreds of footnotes, and the
description of the events of a documentary about a house that is larger on the
inside than it is on the outside. To say
more about the story would constitute spoilers, but suffice to say that the
tale is eerie and unexpected, and unlike anything you’ve ever read. A film version could succeed if it focused
entirely on recreating the aforementioned documentary, The Navidson Record, but to do so would certainly undermine some of
the overall brilliance of the narrative.
Whether this one sees a cinematic release or not, if you are interested
in horror or unique storytelling – check this one out.
Invisible Monsters
Ever since David Fincher’s Fight
Club hit the screen, fans of author Chuck Palahniuk have been waiting for a
big screen adaptation of Invisible
Monsters. Palahniuk’s name often pops up when it comes to movie
adaptations, but often the dark subject matter coinciding with real world
tragic events proves to be problematic. Palahniuk’s second novel Survivor was in pre-production before
being dropped after the events of 9/11. The postmodern satire of Invisible Monsters is edgy, but with the
ever changing acceptance of society, now might finally be the right time to
give this book the big screen treatment. The beginning would be perfect, like an
herbal shampoo commercial. Bride Evie Cottrell is walking down a burning
staircase of mahogany stained red oak. Her once beautiful blond hair is singed
off and her tailor-made one-of-a-kind wedding dress has burnt away to the
hoopskirt wire. In her hands she carries a recently fired shotgun. At the
bottom of the stairs lays the Princess Brandy Alexander, bleeding to death
through a bullet hole in her amazing suit jacket that perfectly matches her
hobble skirt.
Give me vanity.
Flash
Give me satire.
Flash
Give me a movie...
City Of Thieves
In 2008 Game of Thrones
series creator David Benioff wrote the book City
of Thieves. While known more for his screenplays, Benioff captivating WWII
coming of age story would need little change to adapt to film. With a well
balanced mix of comedy and tragedy, City
of Thieves follows two Russian prisoners who have been given a unique and improbable
ultimatum of freedom. In war torn Leningrad, the two must find a dozen eggs for
a Soviet Colonel to use for his daughter's wedding cake. Find the eggs and they
will be granted their freedom, fail and they will be executed. Thieves is a roller coaster of emotions
that often focuses on the gruesome rarely spoken of details of WWII, yet before
the story becomes too depressing, Benioff’s well-timed comedy is there to
lighten the mood. The ping ponging use of humor in the eyes of devastation
would easily translate to screen and resonate well with audiences. Benioff
first book, 25th Hour, was adapted
for film in 2002.
The
Last Man
Given the recent resurgence in science fiction tales
of dystopian post-apocalyptic futures, notably with Mad Max: Fury Road and to a lesser degree The Hunger Games, it’s somewhat surprising that the moviemaking
machines of Hollywood haven’t yet set their sights on Frankenstein author Mary Shelley’s 1826 novel The Last Man. Loosely
autobiographical of the author’s circle, notably her late husband Percy Bysshe
Shelley and Lord Byron, The Last Man
tells the story of England in the year 2100 ravaged by war, subsequent plagues
ending all of humanity and a black sun.
Much like the mid-60s nuclear apocalypse thriller The Day the Earth Caught Fire, it’s a story concerning an ensemble
set of characters living in a world that is slowly destroying itself. Where Frankenstein
tapped into Faustian overreaching, The
Last Man in contrast deals heavily with ineffectual medical advances which arrive
far too late to thwart the plague. It’s
also a study of how the elite utopian society will inevitably crumble within
due to classical human fallacies. With
the science fiction story of a desolate war torn landscape full of death and
destruction has been told countless times, it’s surprising just how prescient The Last Man was in being among the
first to foresee the apocalypse with unforgiving bleakness. Even more surprising is that modern cinema
hasn’t yet attempted to bring this ensemble tale to the big screen. With the recent modern adaptations of such
British classic novels as Far from the
Madding Crowd hitting the silver screen, evidently there’s still room for
both the classics and the science fiction rendition of Hell on Earth. Frankenstein
itself has been adapted into film countless times with many, many deviations
from the source. The time has come for
inarguably the first tale of the end being nigh through the eyes of a lone
figure to have its due on the silver screen.
-Patrick B. McDonald
-Andrew Kotwicki
-Lee L. Lind
-Lee L. Lind