Selfishly, I thouht i would ask what books you would like to see adapted because I wanted to write what I wanted to see adapted.
In no particular order...

The Alienist by Caleb Carr...It would be like gangs of new york with a great story...
would love to see David Fincher do it...It is an amazing serial killer story set at the end of the 19th century in New York City...if you haven't read this book you must!!!!

Perdido Street Station by China Mieville...It is probably unfilmable but would make a great film in the hands of a maverick autor...although the book takes a while to get started it is an awesome story with great monsters/villians...Probably would need a great deal of CGI work.I could see Tel Toro really going apeshit on this....I can forgive people reading it because it is dense and takes awhile to get started but well worth the wait....

King Rat by China Mieville...Would also be an interesting film as well


What do you think?????

Moby Dick... great tracts of it are unfilmable however great tracts of it would be filmable. The Gregory Peck version is absolute rubbish, the miniseries tosh however I think a big budget version, a la Master and Commander, would be perfect.

Who to cast as Ahab? Ben Kingsley perhaps.

Great idea for a thread. A couple of books I love that I'd like to see filmed...

Let It Come Down - Paul Bowles.
Fantastic novel by the author of The Sheltering Sky (which Bertolucci filmed), a bleak tale of drugs, whores and dubious characters set in Tangier, Morocco in the 1950s. I reckon Cronenberg could do this justice as a semi-sequel to Naked Lunch, since that was also set (though not filmed) in Tangier and Bowles was an associate of Willliam Burroughs.

Trout Fishing In America – Richard Brautigan
Classic slice of freeform counterculture Americana from the late 60s. The book doesn't remotely have a plot, but I reckon David Lynch or Jim Jarmusch would be perfect for its rambling anecdotes about rural life in the US.

Any of the discworld novels by Terry Pratchett. They rule!

Considering they are all massive best-sellers, so far they have only managed a rubbish television cartoon series, and a Sky TV christmas special (The Hogfather) which was OK.

It's a concept that is dying for a big budget, and someone with some visual flare and a sense of humour... I vote for Alfonso Cuaron, or if he's not available, I suppose they could give Peter Jackson a shot.

A second for Discworld. Actually, I'm amazed that in the post-LOTR fantasy boom that this potentially huge (there's what, like 30 books?) franchise has been skipped over for dreck like Eragon.

One book that I've always thought would make a great film in the right hands is Alfred Bester's The Stars My Destination (AKA Tiger! Tiger!) It would of course require a huge budget and equally huge balls, having a oddly likable revenge seeking rapist superhero for a protagonist. Hmm, maybe we should farm this one out to Japan or Korea...

I'd also nominate pretty much any book by George P. Pelecanos. King Suckerman would be a logical first choice because of it's 70's setting and the fact that blaxploitation movies are a central theme to the book. A few years ago I heard that the rights were bought by (gulp) P. Diddy and he (double gulp) planned on casting himself in the starring role. I haven't heard anything about this in a while so I guess we can still hope that we dodged that particular bullet.

And on a related note, I just found out yesterday that Jennifer Government, a book by Max Barry I read last year and quite liked, is in development with Steven Soderbergh and George Clooney's production company. Honestly, though, I don't have any idea how they could possibly make this movie considering it's set in a satirical Orwellian future where your surname is the company you work for (ie John Nike) and it involves Nike arranging to murder purchasers of their new limited edition sneakers in order to boost demand and media coverage. Somehow I don't see Nike jumping on the product placement for that.

I would love to see a good trilogy made of the ELRIC saga, and I think Clive Barker's WEAVEWORLD would make for one of the best horror-fantasy films ever made. It is probably the best urban-fantasy I have ever read, the stuff that Gaimans wet dreams are made of, that's for sure.

For non-genre stuff, I would like to see a film made about the life of my favorite author, William Saroyan, based upon one of his many memoirs. I would also love to see a biopic of my favorite theologian, Thomas Merton, made based upon his auto-bioa, THE SEVEN STORY MOUNTAIN and THE ASIAN JOURNAL OF...

Man, I would never want to see a Bester film, if only because there is not a filmmaker alive, or dead, who could do any of Bester's work justice. Bester's stories are just too perfect to be adapted into a film.

[quote="D_Davis"]I would love to see a good trilogy made of the ELRIC saga, and I think Clive Barker's WEAVEWORLD would make for one of the best horror-fantasy films ever made. It is probably the best urban-fantasy I have ever read, the stuff that Gaimans wet dreams are made of, that's for sure./quote]

I WOULD LOVE TO SEE ELRIC OR ALMOST ANY OF THE MOORCOCK STUFF DONE...

ALSO ANY MORE DENNIS WHEATLEY STUFF...Especially the Richelieu stuff

Troutfishing is amazing...Lynch would be a great choice as well as Jarmusch..

* Stephen King's "Bag of Bones," a surprisingly beautiful (but creepy) story. I read a couple of years ago that Bruce Willis' production comapny had optioned the rights, but nothing seems to have happened with it. I secretly dream of turning this into a movie one day.

* More "Hitchhiker's Guide" films

* "Death Rat" by Mike Nelson (of "Mystery Science Theater" fame)

-CSJ

The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test by Tom Wolfe, though I've no idea off the top of my head who could do it right.

Geek Love by Katherine Dunn. Wikipedia says there is an animated version of this in the works, but I'd much rather see Jan Svankmajer or the Brothers Quay do it in stop-motion.

How I Made a Hundred Movies in Hollywood and Never Lost a Dime by Roger Corman. Why not?

I had my copy of this book signed by Roger Corman himself following a lecture at Duke University several years ago. Who wants to touch me?

-CSJ

Tim Lucas has co-written a script about Corman's life and career which has been passed around various studios.

There's a couple of old, as-yet-unfilmed Stephen King stories that I really like and think could make interesting movies – Rage and The Long Walk, both in the Bachman Books collection. I'd also love to see another version of The Running Man, faithful to the story and set across an entire city rather than in a crappy 80s TV studio. I couldn't see the ending – our hero flies a plane into the TV company's skyscraper – getting through many Hollywodd execs though!

I second Joe's request for more Hitchhikers movies. I'm not a big sci-fi fiction reader, but I love Douglas Adams and thought the recent Hitchhikers movie was a flawed but decent stab at adapting that first book.

Most Stephen King adaptations are rubbish, though I watched the director's cut re-release of The Night Flier recently and, going in with low expectations, I really quite enjoyed it.

I would love a 28 Days Later-style treatment of one of James Herbert's apocalyptic horror novels - The Dark, The Fog or Domain. In fact, damn it all to hell, why not adapt one of Guy N. Smith's killer crab novels!