The subject, of course, is Hollywood adaptations of our favorite books (or comics, or older films). Two of my current favorite TV shows are adaptations, HBO's Game of Thrones and Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. Yes, SHIELD Show is more of a...free form adaptation with a whole lot of wiggle room, but I'm counting it, motherfucker, so fuck you.
They are both fucking excellent, and a testament to how well you can adapt literature to broadcast television. And just to keep things more streamlined, I'm most likely going to concentrate on TV and Web show adaptations rather than film, cuz we all know that most books are extremely difficult to transform to feature length movies. Also, it's gonna be pretty Stephen King heavy cuz fuck you, he's my favorite writer and it seems like there's a plethora of his stuff getting put on TV lately. (Do you even know what plethora means..?)
Last Sunday, viewers of FXX were treated to a strange show at 1:30am titled Winter Dragon. It was adapted as a "pilot" of sorts of the prologue chapter of Robert Jordan's The Eye of the World. That book is the first in the epic (both size and scope) fantasy series The Wheel of Time. This is something I've waited 17 goddamn years for. I've been a fan of this book series since my high school buddy put the first book in my hand telling me I fucking HAVE to read this. It's been a journey of gargantuan proportions, with many heartbreaking moments including the death of author Robert Jordan (born James O. Rigney) and the final trilogy having to be finished by fantasy author Brandon Sanderson (from notes compiled by Jordan himself prior to his impending death from cardiac amyloidosis... don't ask me, I had to look it up...)
17 years, people. 17 fucking years. My father waited over 20 for the last Dark Tower book (there's SK again!) so that's the fucking time period I'm dealing with here.
Problem is, Winter Dragon was...I don't wanna say lame, but to quote another favorite author Chuck Palahniuk, it's the first word that comes to mind. This series has the potential to be, again for lack of a better term, the next Game of Thrones. A cleaner version, but still supremely awesome. However, Red Eagle Entertainment (the rights holders) dropped the fucking ball. Big time. They've been fumbling with this property since around 2000, and they've mismanaged fucking everything from an unfinished comic book to an unfinished video game. Fucking sad.
They threw this pilot together on a shoestring budget (even tapping Billy fucking Zane to appear as Ishamael) and the whole thing would have made a fucking excellent 10 minute cold open a la Game of Thrones. This whole mess was just an excuse to retain the film rights from the Bandersnatch Group (Jordan's Estate) but for the life of me, I fucking can't understand why. You dropped the fucking ball for 15 years, let it go.
If you're interested in reading more about it you can find more info here...here...here...and at i09.
That being said, I'm looking forward to new adaptations of Stephen King Classics The Stand and IT. Fuck yeah. I'm dating myself here, but the ABC mini series of those two works made in the 1990's was pretty decent. Pennywise STILL scares the shit out of me (Tim Curry for the win!) and I get nervous around storm drains. Particularly when I visited Bangor, Maine.
But they're doing them again, and for damn good reason. The Mick Garris helmed teleplays are incredibly dated. The special effects are more like special ed. The cast was fucking epic as fuck. We're talking Seth Green, Jonathan Brandis, John Ritter, Richard Thomas, Tim goddamn Curry, just in IT alone. The Stand, released in 1994, featured Rob Lowe, Molly Ringwald, Ruby Dee, Gary Sinise, Jamie Sheridan, Matt Frewer, Miguel Ferrer, Bill Fagerbakke, Laura San Giacomo, Corin Nemec, Ray Walston...and a shitload more. And it wasn't bad for the mid 90's.
But if you haven't already heard, Matthew McConaughy will be playing the villainous role of Randall Flagg. Flagg is King's...flagship...bad guy. He's fucking epic as fuck, and I really hate that word (despite using it multiple times in this piece alone). Perfect. Fucking Casting. I can't fucking wait. And the only thing that I ask for is that McConaughy has a little button on his denim jacket that says "How's Your Pork?" ...King fans will understand.
There's been a few King adaptations recently. 2006's anthology series Nightmares & Dreamscapes, broadcast on TNT, was pretty spectacular. The very first installment based on the short story "Battleground" was killer. Starring William Hurt and directed by none other than Brian motherfucking Henson (son of St. Jim Henson and the current voice of Kermit the Frog...if I'm not mistaken) features ZERO fucking dialogue. It's a cinematic masterpiece. I've been told the film version of "Big Driver" is also excellent and I look forward to checking it out. Even if it is Lifetime Channel fodder. But I do love Maria Bello.
King's JFK thinkpiece, 11/22/63, is being produced by Netflix (the future of broadcast web entertainment, but that's another rant) will have James Franco in the lead role. I'm pretty jazzed about this; I fucking love Franco. It's an exciting time for King fans, to say the least.
But there's been a misstep or two. The big one is the shitstorm that is Under the Dome. Fucking Under the Dome, man...holy shit. I tried. I wanted to like it. Dean Norris from Breaking Bad (and Starship Troopers!) plays the villain. But it's like the goddamn Richard Bachman version of the story (King fans will understand). I spent the whole first season watching religiously every Monday night just to fucking make fun of it. But the show went so far into left field that even ragging on it wasn't fun anymore. Not to even mention the hackey fucking writing. They fucking ripped off Fight Club in one episode for Fuck's Sake!! ("Hit me as hard as you can!!") I quit three episodes into the pathetic second season.
Bad Fucking Television. Thanks CBS, why don't you give us another NCIS while you're at it.
I'm just saying, maybe sometimes it's better to just leave a piece of art or literature in the format that it' already exists in. Do we need a live action version of Akira? No. We don't. It already exists in the format that it should be in.
But hey. At least Harry Potter got it right. Fuck Yeah JK Rowling!!
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