I'm pretty sure I grew up at the start of studios adapting popular print media (books, comic, etc) to the screen (mostly because I'm not going back to do research). One of the first instances I remember was Nickelodeon's attempt at Animorphs which, as bad as it was, I was super excited to see. Then came the start of the Harry Potter franchise which I was even more excited to see since I was already into book three at the time. Now though, I guess 20 years later, it seems like everything is getting its own screen adaptation, whether we asked for it or not, good or (more usually) bad. That said (and because I didn't have anything else written this week), I'd like to put in my own requests for print media that I think could do well if adapted to the live-action screen. Plus, it's an excuse to talk about books which I know everyone loves hearing about. That's a joke. I know no one reads my book reviews. And yes, I'm posting this at the same time Amazon released Reacher, its Jack Reacher book series adaptation, a book series I've thoroughly enjoyed so far (no spoilers on the show, I probably haven't watched it yet). *Note, I do have another story written, but finding the time to type is so hard, and it's boring.
I know it's already been turned into a movie, but I'm still holding out hope that someone will remake Wanted (comic book written by Mark Miller, illustrated by J.G Jones) closer to its original comic book source. Especially with the popularity of the two Deadpool movies, Logan, The Boys series, and Invincible, a studio could definitely remake this as an R-rated supervillain movie and still make money. (Spoilers) Instead of The Fraternity recruiting Wesley Gibson and secretly training him to kill his own father (you've seen the movie, right?), in the comic book The Fraternity recruits Gibson as part of his father's request after his death to teach his son to be a man and take control of his pathetic life. Oh, right, I said "supervillains." In the comic book, The Fraternity isn't just a group of assassins who merely curve bullets, but a legion of supervillains who secretly took over the world years ago after wiping out the superheroes. All of them. All. Of. Them. So, instead of a movie with a bunch of people who just curve bullets around corners, imagine one filled with an assortment of supervillains with unique superpowers. For example: The Doll-Master who controls a bunch of toy dolls to do his bidding. And Shithead, who is made up of the crap of 666 of the most evilest people to have ever lived. As Wesley describes his own superpower, "I just kill people," and that's what he does. No matter what he's armed with or the odds he faces, his opponents tend to die. The story follows Wesley's training and navigating the secret supervillain society until a coup emerges attempting to take The Fraternity out of the shadows. It's filled with a bunch of action, several twists, and the whole story fit into 6 comic issues meaning you could fit the whole thing into one movie as it's relatively short. See, doesn't all that already sound like a better movie?
After watching Netflix's live-action adaptation of Cowboy Bebop (yeah, I can't believe I'm using that show as a standard either) I think they'd do a decent job at turning Simon R. Greene's Nightside series into a show for a couple seasons. If you didn't read my review of the series last year, The Nightside series follows Private Eye John Taylor as he solves all manner of supernatural cases from retrieving the Unholy Grail, discovering the origins of The Nightside itself, and delivering Excalibur to its rightful owner. Visually, Cowboy Bebop was appealing in that it matched the aesthetics of the original anime, and one of the major aspects of The Nightside is the setting. It's a place where EVERYTHING exists: magic and advanced technology, time travel and other dimensions, Heaven and Hell and all manner of different gods, and literally everything inbetween. A place where everything is for sale "for the price of your soul, or at least someone else's" (or something like that). Settings ranging from the standard gritty, seedy city nightlife, to a glamorous club district, and even a desolate wasteland of a possible future. Even just the background characters from the normal humans bustling about, heads-down searching for the things they'd be too ashamed to look for in proper society; gangs of demons trying to avoid returning to Hell; the traffic that never stops filled with all sorts of vehicles, and some that aren't vehicles. These are the things that Netflix got right taking on a project as epic and beloved as Cowboy Bebop, and I think they could apply that skill to create a decent Nightside. As for the characters, there's so many introduced through the series that are only used for a book or two that I can't imagine anyone being so attached that they'd be angry if certain characters were written a different way. Of course, I'd like the biggest characters to remain unchanged but of course, there's so much that goes on in the series that I think (obviously if done properly) it could work if the changes are made to the source material.
Larry Correia's Monster Hunter series could be turned into a movie (or several). After Owen Pitt survives an attack by his boss-turned-werewolf, he's offered a job at Monster Hunter International, a company of professional monster hunters collecting bounties on dangerous monsters paid secretly by various government agencies across the globe. I'm only two books into the series but so far Pitt has already saved the world twice, facing down master vampires, zombies, and creatures from another dimension (no ghosts only because it's too hard to provide a corpse to collect a bounty on a spirit). The books already read as a man vs monster action film, and if they can make six Resident Evil movies, I don't see how they can't do the same with these. A likeable hero, a kick-ass heroine, guns (lots of guns), and evil monsters. Doesn't that sound like a decent action film?
Finally, in the category of "Only if it's done EXACTLY like the books is Brent Weeks' Night Angel Trilogy. And I mean EXACTLY as is: No character re-designs, no adding or erasing of plot points, fucking just don't do anything to it if it isn't in the books. I accepted reorganizing and adapting certain plot points and characters in The Magicians Syfy adaptation, and that worked out fairly well. But I also saw it done in Netflix's Cowboy Bebop and I was mortified. Ok, fine, some dialogue changes because you can't hear thoughts on the screen but that's it. All that said, the story follows Azoth, a street urchin as he is taken under the wing and trained by the kingdom's greatest wetboy, Durzo Blint. Over the course of the trilogy, Azoth puts his new skills to assassinating a tyrant, freeing a kingdom, and ultimately saving the world. In true swords-and-sorcery epic fashion, the setting stretches across multiple kingdoms and countries, spanning the course of several years. The cast of characters is huge (I can easily think of almost a dozen characters whose individual storylines run through all three books) and diverse: a nobleman's son growing into a leader, another urchin who takes over the criminal underworld, one devoted to peace but learns the importance of violence, a runaway prince looking to redeem his people, and more. The series is filled with action, adventure, magic, friendship, betrayal, romance and touches on the themes of coming-of-age, Right vs Wrong, and Good vs Evil. It's easily one of my favorite book series I've ever read. I wouldn't even know how to feel if whatever studio got the rights to it decided to change even a single aspect of the story. Just the thought of it....
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