11/12/2007 11:47 AM
posted awhile ago
Children's Movies and the FUTURE Literary Tradition
This is almost a response to Indieabby's discussion about movies adapted from books, but it's enough off topic that I thought it could deserve it's own thread. It might just be my inner filmmaker, but I find it hard to read any book these days without imagining what a film version might look like. I hardly think I'm alone in that, so tell me, what books have you read that you think would make good children's movies? Or family films, which I guess might be a bit more accurate. One series I recently read part of(the first 4 books) is Cirque du Freak, which leans towards the young-adult spectrum but is still basically for 'kids'. This is practically begging for an adaptation, although I think the best way to do it would be animated, Pirates of Dark Water style. Or like the animated version of the Redwall books. The series is about a boy and his friend who sneak off to a travelling circus. One of the friends is bitten and becomes a vampire, and must follow the circus as he learns about vampire society. It's an OK book series, and it's pretty easy to read. The only problem is that each book(there will eventually be something like 21 of them) is VERY short, and it literally feels like you've only read a chapter of a large book. That makes sense, seeing as each book is only a tiny part of the larger whole, but when the books come out so infrequently, and each one ends at a cliffhanger and very little time has passed, it gets a bit frustrating. Which is why I think a serialized animated version would be so great. It could keep the episodic feel of the books without becoming boring and schizophrenic like a feature length would feel. What are your pics?
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