The greatest film that's never been made

[rekstout]

Opinions please on great books, stories, myths that really ought to have been made into movies by now but - unexpicably - have never made it to the silver screen.

 

My vote - Good Omens by Terry Pratchett

[Bangkok]

The second part of Albert Speers' Inside the Third Reich

Stephen Fry The Star's Tennis Balls

Roald Dahl My Uncle Oswald (top shelf!)

[FunkyDora]

My all time favourite book is A prayer for Owen Meany by John Irvine - i would absolutley love to see this made into a film

[LeMarchand]

Good Omens is still in developement, though Terry Gilliam has dropped out of the project.

 

The first few that spring to mind are:

 

1. The rest of Paul WS Anderson's "The Sight"
2. The live action version of "The Last Unicorn" (that keeps being delayed)
3. Almost anything by Graham Masterton (one cheap movie and a couple of TV adaptations are all that have been made)
4. Phil Rickman's "Merrily Watkins" series (apparently in development in 2002)
5. Lovecraft's "At the Mountains of Madness" (supposedly Guillermo del Toro was making this, but he keeps announcing other projects)
6. Bill Fitzhugh's "Pest Control"
7. Anything by Michael (Marshall) Smith (most of his books have been optioned at one time or another)
8. George R R Martin (see Masterton for current success) almost anything, preferably "Fevre Dream"
9. Kim Newman's "Anno Dracula" books
10. Neil Gaiman's "Sandman" (or anything else as long as they spend more than the 50p they spent on "Neverwhere"). "MirrorMask" looks promising, but perhaps too experimental, and it seems likely to go pretty much straight to video.

[Ouisch]

Although there have been a few books written about it, none are famous, per se.  But it's a true story that I think would make an excellent film - the tragic Our Lady of the Angels fire.  Here's a site with photos and news stories:

http://www.olafire.com/

 

To cut a long story short: 1959, Chicago, Illinois.  Classes are 20 minutes before dismissal one December day.  A small fire breaks out in a rubbish bin in the basement.  The building is old, and being a Catholic (parochial) school, is exempt from many safety laws, therefore there were no fire doors, no sprinkler system, and the building was coated with layer upon layer of oil-based paint.  The fire spread to the second floor within a matter of minutes, and hundreds of students were trapped.  Some nuns managed to get their students out to safety, while others had their pupils sit at their desks and pray the rosary.  The decorative iron fencing around the school hampered rescue attempts.  Local parents ran to the school, and stood helplessly watching 7, 8 and 9-year-olds gasping at the windows for air and unable to escape. Final tally:  92 children and three nuns died as a result of the inferno.

 

[stoo_pid]

On a more lighter note, "The Stainless Steel Rat" by Harry Harrison

[Oneeyedvic]

rats, lair & domain by Frank Herbert.

 

Hope Good Omens does come out - fantastic book

[el duerino]

very hard to capture pratchett on screen i think. a lot of the humour lies in the way he sets the background rather than the characters themselves. I will wait and see.

[bernardo]

A 1995 novel - The Aachen Memorandum by Thingy Whatsisname (I can't remember his name off-hand).  It's set in a corrupt decaying EU in 2045, and is about the unravelling and exposure of a plot to rig the referendum in 2015 which created the European Superstae in the first place.

[crafty]

'No Beast So Fierce' - Eddie Bunker
'The Big Nowhere' - James Ellroy
'EON' - Greg Bear
'The Famished Road' - Ben Okri
'A Stained white radiance'
&
'In the electric mist with the confederate dead' - James Lee Burke
'And death shall have your eyes' - James Sallis

[liljoolz]

mmmm tough one!!

The Lee Child series. (kind of like Bond only main character Reacher falls into situations and doesnt kno how - actually it's already got a few movies in the pipeline.)

Kelley Armstrong, Bitten, Stolen, Dime Store Magic etc. (Adult!! fantasy about the only female werewolf and the Alpha pack she is protected by and lives with.)

Phillip Pullman, Northern Lights, The Subtle Knife and The Amber Spy Glass. (A book adaults should read as much as kids, rises so many questions of faith etc. -wow)

Garth Nix, Sabriel, Lirael and Abhorsen, ( about a young girl 17/18 who's father is an Abhorsen, who dies and leave her his gift, only she lives in the area of the land where the magic she recieves is weakened so she has to travel back to her native 'old kingdom'. Amazing, i couldnt put it down, it should be a movie!! i have already started to write the screenplay im so impatient!!)

[marchantino]

 nostradamus ate my hamster by robert rankin.also the amazing maurice and his educated rodents by terry pratchett.

[bobbyx]

'The Diceman' by Luke Rhinehart

[mike.hobbs3]

watchmen by alan moore

 

[crafty]

NEMESIS The warlock