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You get to choose your favorite director's next project. What is it, and why?
I think about this from time to time. Good directors often switch gears. They abandon beloved themes, franchises, or entire genres. Sometimes they become producers for the series they initiated and the quality takes a dip. In any event, for whatever reason, talented movie directors sometimes decide to dedicate their careers to something we are not as fond of. Perhaps you read a book that would be perfect for them! This post is an opportunity to put them on the right track! (in our imaginations at least...)
Denis does Hyperion Cantos. Book 1 is a miniseries, with 60-90min episodes for each section. Books 2-4 get one or two movies each.
I was trying to think of what Denis should do and yes this is perfect š.
In case you missed it, I asked a question in a really similar vein in the Tildes Book Club, which is covering the first Hyperion book, a few days back. I think Denis would be a very cool choice, but also wanted to call out that @carsonc gave an incredible answer that spanned multiple directors and I think that'd be an absolute treat to see as well!
Do we know what the status is on whatever Bradley Cooper is doing with it?
Hopefully dead, unfortunately. It looks like it's been awhile since any news came of it.
Thanks @Shevanel! I wanted to mention that I did seriously consider Villeneuve and admire his work and I think he would be an obvious choice, but I wanted to consider some less conventional choices as a thought experiment.
The only thing with Villeneuve as a director of a Hyperion adaptation is that I think he does serious super well, but I found Simmons to have a taste for the "ick" factor, a kind of over-the-top, gratuitous violence that would have been more at home in Jodorowsky's Dune than Villeneuve's.
However, that isn't the whole of the Hyperion Cantos and Villenueve would capture other areas (Kassad's story, for example) would be on point.
Very thoughtful consideration, and I do like the idea of different directors for different parts of the story, considering how unique each portion is to some extent.
I'd like a Tarantino Hotline Miami.
And I'll take LoTR era Peter JacksonxGuillermo del Toro collab for a Elden Ring/Dark Souls film.
Guillermo del Toro Dark Souls would be amazing. Probably way too creepy for me to really enjoy but I'd be so glad for it to exist
Great choice. I was thinking of another flavor of Tarantino: Rimworld. Though after seeing your comment, I think Hotline Miami is a MUCH better fit.
While we're doing video game adaptations, let's get a Stardew Valley TV series in the works with Hayao Miyazaki.
I want the teased Tarantino Star Trek.
I remember hearing about that.. but it's such a weird combination. For me peak star trek looks like it was filmed in a La Quinta meeting room with two bureaucrats arguing some ethical or moral question in front of a judge who is clearly over it.
Tarantino has demonstrated that he is very good at understanding the essence of 1960s and 1970s television. I think it would be great, but unlikely to command the kind of audience expected for the franchise. Not many people are open to a faithful (yet Tarantified) rendition of Star Trek TOS.
Yeah, when I listened to his discussion of Star Trek on a podcast a few years ago he seemed to have a deep affection for it. I suspect that if he had gone through with the project he would have approached it seriously and addressed the series on its own terms.
I thought it was interesting that several of the episodes he referred to involved time travel. Given how much he likes jumping around his stories' timelines, I imagine that he would have had a lot of fun somehow using time travel as a formal storytelling device.
I don't doubt that he'd put together an interesting version, and it would probably work well for TOS. But to my mind his style leans into a gritty, western style of film. But I don't really like TOS and as a TNG kiddo I'm not sure if Tarantino's sensibilities match with the vision of utopia I value in Star Trek.
I'd watch it, which is more than I can say about any other Star Trek films.
Thatās perfect for him. Watch the opening dialogue in Hateful Eight and tell me he canāt handle it.
Josh Sawyer to direct Fallout: Two Vegas (or a similar Fallout game in another setting). Ideally reporting into Microsoft instead of Bethesda with assistance from IDSoft to improve the Starfield engine. Abandon everything that Bethesda has done to the Fallout universe since New Vegas and reintroduce stats and skills.
I realise that you may have been talking exclusively about films but video games are also a medium with a director.
Manā¦ This is kind of how I approached my whole Hollywood career as a screenwriter in the 90s. I remember one production company meeting where they asked whose career I wanted most. After thinking a bit, I said David Lean. But they didnāt know who that was. So I said Howard Hawks. More blank stares. Billy Wilder? Then they asked if I could limit my answer to post Star Wars Hollywood lol. I couldnāt.
So I have a historical screenplay about outcasts in 10th century France called The Twisting Door that I am still trying to get to Werner Herzog. And Iāve always wanted Coppola to direct my Emperor Norton script, although Robin Williams was supposed to play that partā¦
You sell any screenplays throughout that stint?
I did, but none of my features ended up getting made. Fortunately I made a good amount of money but unfortunately I met nearly no one in LA worth working with. And that's not because I'm such a precious and wonderful artist. The place was just filled with sharks and hustlers.
The first screenplay I wrote was a 1994 version of Easy Rider for my young Gen X audience. Called The Monkey People, it was about five young adults blowing through an inheritance on drugs and extreme sports, which were brand new at the time, like 2 years before the X games got started. So they went skydiving on ecstacy (which was something I felt I should try doing before I held meetings about it--BAD IDEA. If any of you have ever been tempted to skydive in any state other than sober... don't. I was a crazy kid in the 90s) and my characters eventually escalated to gunfights with cops in Arizona. John Cusack nearly made it but chose Grosse Point Blank instead. I was very bitter.
My next screenplay was a kind of lyrical love story about a couple learning to fly, like actually fly like Superman. Called To The Air, I wanted Paul Newman for the dying father. Diane Keaton had a production deal at the time and she eventually decided it was too New Age for her. And when Diane Keaton thinks something is too New Age, well... Nobody else would touch it.
So for my third script I decided to play the game. My agency's big star at the time was Alyssa Silverstone, so over about a half hour period I spun out a comedy of her being a teenage spy, a love child between the greatest CIA and KGB spies of the Cold War. The opening sequence was her and her mom fighting over a detestable gun runner while pretending to be honey pots, fighting over the corpse for the kill. Really like a French comedy. It was called Bombshell and that opening sequence got me every meeting in town. Then, after 54 (not joking or exaggerating) rewrites we sold it to New Line. Team Todd had just gotten a huge hit with the OG Austin Powers and they bought it for Jennifer Love Hewitt's first film, with Jamie Lee Curtis as the mom. But there was some drama at the executive level and the project died. Hewitt's team tried to rehire me to write "a different version" uncredited, stealing over half the script. I told my agent to hire lawyers and she told me the production people were too powerful and if I was going to force her to choose between them and me she'd choose them.
Dire Wolf (werewolf movie) and The Mandarins (Wolf of Wall Street style) nearly got optioned by Paramount. I worked on a few scripts by others, and then I realized that would be my career. Script doctor for other people. Not interested. Went back to stage plays and novels and I've been much happier.
This is fucking sick bro. If you don't mind can you DM me so you can send me those screenplays. I think you're the first person here who actually has experience in this industry I pay too much attention to.
Sure thing. Let me find something to share. My earliest scripts never made it to the digital age. Are you a writer?
Anyone else who wants to talk writing or read scripts, feel free to reach out. To me, the art of storytelling has always been best when freely shared.
Somewhat. I'd love to eventually get to the level of selling scripts like that and making some cash off of it, but that's pretty far away in my mind. I'm more of a cinephile than anything.
That would doxx @EarlyWords if they told us wouldnt it? :) but I would also love to know.
In lieu, can you tell us about any that got close to being sold but somehow wasn't?
Thanks for looking out for my online anonymity. I found early on, like pre-internet, that I didn't actually like being a public figure. All kinds of creepy people start bugging you. But fortunately I've never been a big success. I happily call myself an obscure writer.
I really want to see Quentin Tarantino's cancelled Star Trek movie.
For those OOTL, Tarantino was co-writing a script with Mark L. Smith. It was a feature-length adaptation of the TOS episode A Piece of the Action (the Mafia planet episode), with Tarantino writing the mob stuff down on the planet and Smith handling the sci-fi elements.
Paramount decided to not go forward with the project and I've been kind of sad about that ever since.
I want Spielberg to do Ringworld by Larry Niven. I donāt think heās particularly off track, but I like when he does sci fi like āA.I.ā.
I also just want someone to make that movie. I guess Amazon announced a tv series back in 2017 but I donāt know if itās been canceled.
How do you think Niven would fare in the modern cinema? I remember reading some of the Man Kzin Wars as a kid and enjoying them, but I tried to make my way through Protector a year or two ago and couldn't do it. The cultural norms of Niven's books might be difficult to reconcile with those of with today.
It's been years since I read Ringworld but I don't remember anything problematic. At least I can't remember anything like that which would ruin the story if it was removed. In another book, Lucifer's Hammer, which he co-wrote with Jerry Pournelle:
Plot point spoiler
After society collapses, there are some middle-aged men who take underage girls as wives. There is no organized society to stop it. Also there's cannibalism and some other unpleasant stuff.If there is stuff like that, I guess it can kind of be spoofed or mocked as was done by Verhoeven with Heinlein's Starship Troopers
Edgar Wright - Dan Da Dan (live action)
Edgar Wright is my all time favorite director, with Hot Fuzz still unbeatable first place in my heart, and Scott Pilgrim a close second. Baby Driver, the other two Cornette Trilogy are fantastic as well. I do wonder if somehow even "hip" directors become too old for newer and newer media. But I actually rather like the "restraint" that slightly older directors also bring: maybe fewer hotdog fingers and "I'm sorry" farts as they age, while maintaining the high octane insanity.
Science SARU is doing such a kick butt job of animating this series, and I usually don't like live action adaptations. But since you asked, I wonder what it would look like as a combination of live action, graphic novel style screen annotations, foot stomping good beats, meticulous visuals, and clever practical effects.
Lots of live action anime adaptations just look like people cosplaying their favourite anime scene.. Dan Da Dan could work on the basis that the main cast tends to wear relatively normal clothing and the interactions between them are also relatively normal.
Seriously, I think that may be enough. Although maybe some of the aliens may still look like dudes in costumes so what do I know ĀÆā \ā _ā (ā ćā )ā _ā /ā ĀÆ
You know Farscape? Practical effects using Jim Hansen style puppets. I want that for the Dan Da Dan monsters. Oh boy do I want to see them as animatronics/puppetry
Farscape is such a criminally underrated scifi show, IMO. It was so fucking good, and yet I rarely see anyone ever talk about it. :( I really should go rewatch it. It's been quite a few years since I last did.
p.s. I still have a massive crush on Claudia Black because of her roles in Farscape (Aeryn Sun), Stargate SG-1 (Vala Mal Doran), and Dragon Age (Morrigan). That smokey voice of hers. š„µ
They just had an anniversary live stream on YouTube :) fans got to chat in comments it was great. Aeryn / John still one of my all time favourite media couples <3
Yeah, criminally underrated ;_; thanks for chiming in
In the vein of anime, I'd like to see Jean-Luc Godard (rip) do Cowboy Bebop. There's some clear Godard -> Bebop inspiration, heck there's even an episode Pierrot le Fou which shares a name with a Godard film!
Pierrot le Fou is my favorite single anime episode of all time. I have been known to show it to friends in order to convince them to watch the rest of Bebop. It was also the one episode that I thought was treated fairly well for the live action series.
I'm on a Cowboy Bebop rewatch alongside listening to JeffJeff's Bizarre Adventure watch through from a couple years ago. Pierrot le Fou is on the docket tonight and I've been looking forward to it!
I liked the live-action.. it very much missed a lot of what makes the anime special but it was a fun diversion. I'm glad they didn't get to realize their version of Ed. I like Ed in the anime but the live action bit they showed was awful.
I had never heard of this, but am definitely going to check it out. Looks fun. :)
I agree about the live action. It was enjoyable enough to watch the whole thing, and I thought they made a good effort even though they didn't quite hit the mark for me. 100% agree that it's good they never got to do any more with that version of Ed. It was so painful to watch that scene.
Edgar Wright's where he can go from down to earth, indie film conversations to high octane madness at the drop of a hat would go so well with DanDaDan's tone. I'm not sure how much of a movie you could do with the pacing, but I'd at least give it a watch.
I would like to see a Jon Favreau adaptation of Mistborn: Era 2. Only Era 2 though. For some reason I can't imagine Era 1 being very good in his hands. Also Favreau isn't really my fav director. This just popped in my head after reading the prompt.
I think an anime version of Mistborn: Era 1 would probably work well, and there are numerous directors and studios that would probably do a good job of it. But just for how awesome and beautiful it would undoubtedly be, I would love to see Miyazaki and Studio Ghibli's take on it. :P
I was just considering Era 1 and had decided that Robert Rodriguez might be a good pick, but I think I would love to see an anime even more. Hell, just animate the entire Sanderson library while we're at it. I would absolutely gobble all of that up without question.
Edit: Now I can't get the idea of an anime Warbreaker out of my head. It would work so well, and could be a great self contained intro into the Cosmere.
Roriguez would definitely be a good choice. As loathe as I am to admit it, Zack Snyder could probably do a good job too, so long as he stuck to the damn source material. But TBH, Luc Besson would probably have been the ideal director for it in my mind, although with the recent rape/SA allegations I personally wouldn't be able to support that decision. :/
Warbreaker is always my answer for someone's first Cosmere book! An anime adaption would work so well! But Sanderson seems averse to anime adoptions of his work
I was curious, so I did a search on coppermind. It actually seems like Sanderson is open to anime adaptations, just non-committal since he would need someone more knowledgeable about anime to approach him rather than seeking it himself.
Source
Yea I've read those replies from him and honestly it just seems like he's not at all interested. He just doesn't want to say it directly. That's okay, I'm just not holding my breath waiting for an animated adaption š
Not really my favorite Director, but I would give David Fincher the job of adapting Blood Meridian.
Why would you wish something like that on someone you like!?
I kid. But for real, I wouldn't have thought of Fincher as a choice for Blood Meridian, but I'd definitely be interested to see how he'd go about it.
I would love to see Villeneuve direct a Mass Effect movie! That franchise is just screaming for a movie about something like the Human-Turian war or recovery after the genocide by the reapers (or any number of stories) and after his work on Blade Runner 2049 and Dune, I have to assume it would be nothing short of a visual masterpiece.
I was just thinking how cool it would be to see Villenueve take on Cixin Liuās The Dark Forest. He has a great eye for high-concept sci-fi. I think Mass Effect would be a great choice too.
I'd like to see Tim Burton attempt a CGI or stop-motion Cats movie adaptation.
I would like to see Guillermo del Toro's take on anything involving The Classics. Epics like Gilgamesh, Iliad/Odyssey, 1001 Nights, etc. Take all the time needed, turn it into a trilogy, four hours apiece like LotR, if necessary.
I think Steven Spielberg should go back to the theme of aliens one more time. His War of the Worlds is good enough, but I can't accept the fact the creator of Close Encounters of Third Kind won't revisit the theme that made him great in the first place. A lot of people talk about Denis Villeneuve. I love him too, but I don't think he even came close to the achievement of Close Encounters. I want Spielberg to remind us, once and for all, why he is the master of movie aliens. Perhaps he is too old for this but I don't care. I want Spielberg aliens and I want them now!
I just finished Adolescence and while I liked it, I still think its themes can be handled much better and go even deeper into the uncomfortable parts of the current various gender issues. I would love to see what Michael Haneke could make of that.
I've heard Dredge is potentially getting a movie. I'd love to see it done by Martin McDonagh. Maybe more in Bruges and less Banshees.
If I could take it a step further, I'd have a few suggestions for cast too.
Fisherman - Ralph Fiennes
New Mayor - Brenden Gleason
Traveling Merchant - Dichen Lachman
okay fine -- I want Refn to make a Darth Bane trilogy.
I still want the Old Man's War (by John Scalzi) adaptation. It's too expensive to ever happen, but a comment above mentioned Sam Raimi, and I think he'd be great for it. Given the book's action & tone, what he did with Spiderman could work well.
As with so much, the kick would be to animate it to keep costs down.
Spiderverse had success with that approach, but I don't know what style of animation would fit the material best.
Peter Greenaway and Sam Rami doing any sort of collab.
Not because either is a favorite of mine, but because of the immense frustration it will bring one particular person.
Lynn Reid Banksā entire Indian in the Cupboard series, adapted and directed by Alfonso CuarĆ³n.
I'd like to see 2:
Denis Villeneuve adapt
Arkady Martine's Teixcalaan series
Christopher Nolan take on The Culture
Studio Mir adapts Saga by Brian K. Vaughn and Fiona Staples. I know that they said they didn't want to do an adaptation, but I think an animated show would be the best bet at trying to capture it.
Edit: Right, a director. Maybe the Wachowski sisters?
Runner ups would probably be something like Bone or Worm, just because they are extremely unlikely to be properly adapted, but this is a dream list, so that's what I'm dreaming about.
As long as Villeneuve continues to work, I'm happy. Not gonna tell him what to do lol!
I'd really like a Warcraft franchise to get off the ground but not sure who could do that well.
Villeneuve seems to choose his projects very well, so I agree that he needs no guidance in that regard. When he is done with Dune, his next film may be Rendezvous with Rama. I haven't read the book yet (just a few chapters), but from what I know about it it's a match made in heaven.
Christopher Nolan directing a movie version of the book "Dear Leader: Poet, Spy, Escapee--A Look Inside North Korea"
I guess someone saw this topic, and made a wish.
EDIT: I continue to fail to understand Tildes hyperlink formatting.
I think link would work if you take the space between square and round brackets away
Thanks - my mobile keyboard adds them automatically, and they're on different lines so I didn't see it.