Rumors of Pratchett Film 204
kongjie writes "The BBC reports on the rumored possibility of Terry Pratchett's novel Wee Free Men being made into a Hollywood film, with Raimi attached to it. This would be the first, although in the past his stuff has made the television screen."
Disc World (Score:3, Interesting)
Additional thoughts (Score:3, Interesting)
PTerry's market clout ... (Score:5, Interesting)
This suggests to me that, like Rowling, he now probably has enough clout to prevent his work being butchered by the studios.
By way of illustrating this point, he tells an amusing story about the first time round the Hollywood block. Someone had optioned "Reaper Man", and was actually putting some money into scriptwriting, preliminary planning, focus groups, and that kind of thing. One evening, he got a phone call from a studio executive. Who began like this: "hi, Terry! Great to talk to you, we here at XXXXX studios really like Reaper Man, and we're looking forward to making it a great movie. However, we'd like to make a few changes. We ran the outline past a focus group in rural Iowa, and they weren't very positive about this 'Death' character. If we just replace him with Tom Cruise ..."
This is how Hollywood typically deals with SF/F fiction properties.
And that's why you didn't see a big-budget production of "Reaper Man" (probably re-titled "Die Hard 4: Reap Hard") during the mid-nineties.
sweet (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Hope this follows for more ... (Score:2, Interesting)
"A production company was put together and there was US and Scandinavian and European involvement, and I wrote a couple of script drafts which went down well and everything was looking fine and then the US people said "Hey, we've been doing market research in Power Cable, Nebraska, and other centres of culture, and the Death/skeleton bit doesn't work for us, it's a bit of a downer, we have a prarm with it, so lose the skeleton". The rest of the consortium said, did you read the script? The Americans said: sure, we LOVE it, it's GREAT, it's HIGH CONCEPT. Just lose the Death angle, guys.
Whereupon, I'm happy to say, they were told to keep on with the medication and come back in a hundred years."
If WFM is a success, we can only hope they might give Mort another go. And Good Omens, too.
Re:Disc World (Score:2, Interesting)
Either would be well worth seeing, but the former is more plausible as a movie release.
what ever happened to good omens?! (Score:4, Interesting)
But wee free men (and maurice and a hat full of sky [amazon.com]) would be nice, they are fun offshoots from the discworld series that would lend themselves well to film - for that matter the bromeliad trilogy (truckers, diggers, and thieves [amazon.com]) would be great as well. Seems like the main discworld strain would be spottyish - I think that all the guards and the witch books would do well, as well as some of the standalone ones, especially small gods [amazon.com]..
Re:Hope this follows for more ... (Score:1, Interesting)
Re:This reminds me (Score:3, Interesting)
Regarding the movie project, Raimi could possibly be a good choice, although I'm not entirely convinced that the idea is very sound to begin with. The Good Omens project by Gilliams sounded much more promising. Apparently it's still "in the works" while funding is slowly being gathered... So someday, maybe...
I don't get Pratchett (Score:3, Interesting)
I really want to get into him. Anyone, anything to be an (in)adequate replacement for Douglas Adams' sensibilities. God I miss that guy.
I've read Kingdom For Sale and attempted to read one other novel by him. Oh, and I read Good Omens (w/Gaiman) and it was OK. GO really bugged me though; it was such a meaty bone, and I feel like they nibbled on it and threw it to the dogs. So much more they could have done; it was a topic that lent itself to humor. Compared to Inferno by Niven and Pourneille, for instance, it was weaksauce.
So here's my question:
If I were to give Pratchett another shot, what books should I pick up? What are his top two? I'm unsure if he writes series, but if so don't provide me with two books in the same series, give me something more broad. (If I like the first book I'll burn through the rest; I'm loyal like that)
I'd really like to fill the void of humorous fiction; I'm assuming I've picked crappy books and that's my issue. I can't believe I'm missing the boat because it's too subtle or too British, but maybe that's the case. Anyway, insights are very welcome.
Re:The Religious Community (Score:3, Interesting)
I'm a member of the "religious community". I attend an independent Baptist church, and teach sunday school. I enjoy preaching Christ's gospel message when I have the opportunity. My wife and I are working on continuing our education so we can follow God's promptings and dedicate our lives to His service in the ministry. In most all ways, I'd end up being classified as Christian fundamentalist and a member of the "religious right".
So - for the record:
Re:Hope this follows for more ... (Score:2, Interesting)
A lot of his books would make good films, the problem is that compared to the book, they wouldn't look so good...
IMHO the best discworld film would be a new story based on the characters in the books. A film featuring the Watch or the Witches would be nice.
Re:I don't get Pratchett (Score:3, Interesting)
90% of Pratchett's work is set in Discworld, and they're not "series" as such. Whichever set of his characters he's most interested in at the time, he publishes a book about. So, sometimes it's hit-and-miss.
From *this* fan's perspective, you should read (in descending order of importance):
1. Small Gods (funny book, doesn't require a lot of prior DW knowledge)
2. Feet of Clay (my first discworld read, also very accessible).
3. Interesting Times (IMNSHO, the funniest DW book).
Now, as is always the case, others will have different opinions. The man has written nearly 30 books set in Discworld, so almost anyone you ask will have different favorites. My bet is that most would recommend Small Gods as an introduction to the Pratchett style, without having to read every other Discworld book to catch all the inside-jokes.
terry pratchet is the most shoplifted author... (Score:3, Interesting)
honestly officer grimes, i've just left me thieves guild card at home!
Is this rumor just one of many Good Omens? (Score:3, Interesting)
The choice of book makes sense.. (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Hope this follows for more ... (Score:4, Interesting)
1. The narrative is strong, and although not everyone loves an action movie, Guards Guards is probably the most "action-oriented" of the earlier books. A lot of the others tend to be more cerebral, and later in the series the comedy becomes subtler.
2. Dragons! Come on, how can you go far wrong with Dragons? OK, I'll grant you Dragonheart...
3. Characters. Many of the characters introduced in this book either occur later in the series or are referred to (sometimes obliquely) in later books. GG is where Cut-Me-Own-Throat Dibbler is introduced... adn while he's a minor character here he becomes a major character later.
4. Theres a love story. Movie studios love that stuff...
5. Ankh Morpork. To me, AM was bought to life in GG in ways it hadn't been before. You got to see the REAL city, and not from a distance. Even later books often focused on specific aspects of the city (the university for example), rather than on the city which is itself a character in the books.
Unlike the poster I replied to, I started with The Colour of Magic and just continued reading. I got away from the books for many years but returned to them recently and started reading them all again. So far I'm up as far as Small Gods and I'm working on it... but I definitely see how the narrative of a movie series would benefit from starting with Guards, Guards. While it wasn't my favorite of the series, it was definitely the one I think is most "movie-like" and most likely to appeal to a wide audience.
Re:Disc World (Score:3, Interesting)
Where to start is a difficult question, but I may well choose the very book you dismiss, as it establishes Ankh-Morpork and the Assassains Guild to start with, and then moves into a standalone plot which shows the nature of Discworld as a medium to parody our own cultures. Otherwise you may be able to start with Guards Guards and make a whole *logy of movies following Vimes and Carrot.
The problem is that so many of the plotlines intermingle that any starting point other then the beginning (The Colour of Magic) will naturally mean reworking all sorts of twists or dropping all sorts of otherwise brilliant moments as the backstory is missing. While writing this comment I've been looking at the Discworld reading order [lspace.org] and being underwhelmed at how it fails to recognise so many of the intertanglings which make the world so complete (e.g. Carpe Jugulum and The Fifth Elephant are an Uberwald series of their own, Moving Pictures would to me be a sybling to both the Pyramids/Small Gods line and the whole Ankh amalgam (guards and wizards) and how can you disentangle The Truth from the Guards).
Nobody is yet ready to put a billion on the line to bank-roll a dozen or so DiscWorld movies, pity because anyone attempting to jump in half way will probably be doomed, and anyone starting at the beginning without following it up will likely lose their shirt on the deal. But this article is not about the quest to make the above films, but the hope of exploiting the Childrens works.