CinLit

What book would you like to see made into a movie?

I pick two and predict that one of them will be made into a movie.

One Foot in Eden by Ron Rash. This is a wonderful short novel by a South Carolina writer/poet. It just begs to be filmed.

The Road by Cormac McCarthy. I loved this book and wept at the end of it. With a Pulitzer to its credit, I see this one turning into a screenplay soon, if it hasn't been already.

 What book would you like to see made into a movie?

Re: What book would you like to see made into a movie?

I just finished Finn.  I would love to see it as a film.  It is extremely dark with some wonderful characters throughout.  It is based on Huckleberry Finn's dad, Pap Finn.  If you start to read it expecting anything like what Twain wrote you are gonna be surprised.  I was pleasantly surprised.  A great book.

 Vamped  by David Sosnowski is a great twist on the Vampire story.  A little hokey at times but a wonderful story.  I think it would make a good film.  If you havent read the book, try it.

Re: What book would you like to see made into a movie?

Will have to check those out. Who wrote Finn?

Two other books (or series actually) I thought would make great movies:

The Richard Jury mysteries by Martha Grimes. Melrose Plant would be great on screen.

And the Stephanie Plum series by Janet Evanovich. I always thought Sandra Bullock would make a good Stephanie Plum, although she may be a little too long in the tooth now. Evanovich actually has a section on her Web site that asks fans to vote for who they would like to see play the recurring characters in the book.

Re: What book would you like to see made into a movie?

Jon Clinch wrote Finn. 

 There are 2 other's I think would make great movies:  Slow Dancing on Dinosaur Bones and Heart of a Thirsty Woman, both by Lana Witt.  Based in eastern ky and Arizona.  Great reading.

Re: What book would you like to see made into a movie?

Re: What book would you like to see made into a movie?

I've actually been on-and-off working on a screenplay adaptation of Being Dead by Jim Crace, so fingers especially crossed on that one.

 Survivor by Chuck Palahniuk would make an excellent film -- I know it's been in and out of production under a few different filmmakers, but hopefully we'll see it hit the screen eventually.

I'd also love to see a remake of Candy by Terry Southern and Mason Hoffenberg.  The original film adaptation was little more than a late 60s lovefest, but the novel has so much more to offer along the lines of social criticism and black comedy.  I tried my hand at a screnplay adaptation of this one as well a couple years back, but it's tricky.  The novel is very episodic and would tend to get redundant unless adapted very carefully.

Most recently, I thought A Spot of Bother by Mark Haddon would lend itself very well to film given some judicious trimming.  For what it's worth, I thought Bother was much better than Haddon's good but overpraised Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime.

Re: What book would you like to see made into a movie?

Re: What book would you like to see made into a movie?

Possible? Yes.

Probable? No.

I know a bookseller who once argued for more than an hour with my cousin that Catcher in the Rye had been made into a movie.

I thought my cousin would brain him before they finished, because Catcher in the Rye is his favorite book and he, if anyone, ought to know if it was a movie.

Re: What book would you like to see made into a movie?

I'm a bit gun shy about this topic. There were so many books I thought would make outstanding movies that just ended up disappointing terribly (Cormac McCarthy's All the Pretty Horses, Alex Garland's The Beach, James Ellroy's Black Dahlia most recently), that I'm afraid to put my curse on yet another book.

I've been reading here and there how McCarthy's The Road is already being talked about, but I'm leery to see what Hollywood would do to it to give it more of an 'upbeat' ending. The Oprah stamp of approval certainly didn't hurt its paperback sales.

I've thought that Octavia Butler's 'Parable of the Sower' would make a great film (or perhaps 'Clay's Ark', which seems more streamlined and cinematic in pace.)

I've also long thought that a pair of rather obscure books by Tom De Haven would make excellent movies. 'Derby Dugan's Depression Funnies' and 'Funny Pages' - both about the early comic strip industry, the former set in the thirties and could be nicely done by integrating live action with occassional animation (like was done so nicely in 'American Splendor' and recently in 'Miss Potter'), and the latter set around the turn of the century and I can see it treated like 'Gangs of New York', historical but with a lot of grit.

And I just recently read a great book by the Japanese Crime Noir writer Natsuo Kirino called 'Out' which would make an interesting, creepy, and quite gruesome film (David Lynch, have you read it yet?) 

Re: What book would you like to see made into a movie?

Another one that would be good:

The Secret History by Donna Tartt.