Wouldn't you rather have a nice cup of tea?
Let's forget that the Dark Tower was a (total letdown of a) movie. Instead, to really do the epic story justice, it makes sense to create a series in order to really let it stretch out (and incorporating other closely related works like Salem's Lot, and Hearts in Atlantis) while sticking more closely to the source material. I also believe that the best way to approach it would be in an anime style.
Don't believe everything that you read.
A seven season series of the seven Harry Potter novels.
Each season is one book. Each episode is one chapter.
Okay... it might take more than seven season as the later books have a lot more chapters.
I'd totally watch it.
The one I've proposed in the past is Fifth Business by the late Robertson Davies. It's the first book of his Deptford Trilogy and each book could easily be a 4-6 episode mini-series. Nice mix of humour, melodrama, and even magic realism (esp. in World of Wonders, the final book of the trilogy). Fifth Business stands well on its own so you could do it first, then gauge interest before doing the other two. The second book, The Manticore, could be challenging though given that the framing device is the child of a character from the first book undergoing Jungian analysis. And if that worked, then his next three books are also a trilogy in the same "universe".
Lord of the Rings might have been better served by a mini-series than a trilogy of movies. Given how long each movie ends up being (4+ hours for the expanded versions), it pretty much already is. The fact is, Tolkien wrote it as one big story and it was the publisher who insisted that he divide it into a trilogy (long books don't sell). Doing it as one long series would be closer to the author's original, IOW.
And, while there have been frequent movie and TV adaptations of Homer's two epics (The Iliad and The Odyssey), the Roman epic The Aeneid by the poet Virgil has never really been touched save for some old operas. It is about Aeneas, a Trojan nobleman and survivor of the Trojan War who leads a band of Trojan refugees on a journey through the Mediterranean basin that eventually leads to them settling in Italy. Given current issues around refugees, it would be timely. It also has a nice mix of magic (including a visit to the afterlife), romance (the famous affair between Aeneas and Carthaginian queen Dido), adventure, and ends with a war between the Trojans and a Latin group trying to drive them out of Italy.
I really like Damon's suggestion of The Plantaganets, and Seeker's suggestion of The Aeneid.
The Plantaganets offer a long line of intriguing characters that encompass treachery, the Crusades, Conquering Wales, the Scottish Revolution, murder, sex, betrayal, and a helluva lot of battles, and like Damon mentioned, The Hundred Years War with France including characters like Joan of Arc.
The Plantaganents could easily be a multi-season miniseries, giving the producers the chance to make a great profit. But hey, l'm a capitalist.
The Aeneid, while in reality it's fiction, is a great epic story. But I'd love to see it sold in a way that doesn't make you think Romans all spoke in aristocratic modern English accents. The Aeneid would make an outstanding miniseries.
I'd like to see mini-series' that shows the opposite viewpoint of what I would describe as the traditional heroic epics of war, the 'taming' of the Wild West, discovery of the New World etc. So examples would be the same events from the perspective of Germans/Japanese, native peoples and so on. I'm sure they have been a few over the years though nothing pops in to my mind at the moment. Might be useful to get a more balanced perspective. There are some good series out there that provide a more honest and historically accurate version of events but the film/TV business tends to gloss things over.
A film based on Modern Native Americans
What life is like on a reservation or problems that they go through.
Also, maybe in the same movie, a gathering of all of the Nations and tribes.
That would be so cool.
Buz- I really like your ideas with the Native Americans.
Something around the lines of Addams Family meets The Munsters.
Something spooky cute for this generation.
Mine would be about the first mini series ever made which happened in the early days of television and was never seen because of the controversial subject matter the story centered on.
The show would start with a very old man sitting and watching television until his tea kettle starts sounding as he shuts the television off and goes to make some tea. After doing so, he walks over to his computer and turns it on. The camera is filming from behind the computer as we see him searching for a site and after getting there, having trouble remembering his password. Eventually, he gets it, and after taking a sip of tea, begins to post as we hear him in voice over as he types.
"My memories are fading. The unfortunate side effect so many of us suffer when our time on this earth nears the inevitable end. I come here while the mind is still reasonably sharp, before the lights go out for good, to tell a story known only to a very few of us, four to be exact, that number now reduced to one as of three weeks ago, Monday." (He takes another sip of tea)
"The year was 1958. Television was the new frontier in entertainment. Many movie studios began the process of developing programs they anticipated would be needed sooner, rather than later. Some studios turned to colleges and even ordinary citizens for ideas for new programs."
"Tom, Gary, Dianne and I were friends and colleagues, working for one such studio. It was our job to weed through these ideas, of which there were many, before passing them along if we felt they were indeed good ones. The manner in which these ideas were submitted varied. Some were just written ideas. Others came in the form of a pilot film. One fella presented his idea in the form of a puppet show, which I thought was pretty good, but unfortunately was rejected, as was the case with most of the submissions."
"To be brutally honest, most were rejected simply because they were terrible ideas. There were others, however, that were rejected because of "concerns", meaning the content was considered unfit for broadcast. Understand, we were living in a different time back then and the content I speak of wouldn't even raise an eyebrow in today's world. Using this as a measuring stick, it's easy to understand how none of us could have been prepared for the work of Zachary Merrick." (He takes another sip)
"Mr. Merrick arrived one morning and made his presence felt immediately by demanding to see someone in charge, not aware of, nor accepting of the policies in place. Words were exchanged before security forcefully removed him from the premises. With the mornings excitement out of the way, we went about our normal workday, which included meeting in the company parking lot after work."
"As was customary, we started discussing about the ideas we had been presented with when Tom, the unofficial leader of the group, excused himself and started walking across the street to an old, rusted automobile, where he began talking to a man in the drivers seat. It was Mr. Merrick. And I remember wondering if he had been sitting there all day."
"As we watched, we could see the conversation was getting animated. Just as quickly, however, Mr. Merrick calmed down. Tom was always good at that. He had a way of talking to people that always seemed to bring out the best in them. Then, just at that moment, for the first time, I saw Mr. Merrick smile. He got out of his car, opened the trunk and handed Tom a box."
"After a few more words, Tom returned to us and as he approached, said..."I need to ask you guys for a big favor."
"The favor was indeed, a big one. Mr. Merrick wanted us to watch his film, which, as it turned out, was a completed series, ten episodes, each about an hour long. You could call it a mini series before mini series ever existed. He insisted we watch it all the way through and that any discussions would only occur after viewing the last episode."
"What's it about?"...Gary asked. Tom answered that Mr. Merrick wouldn't say. He didn't want us to know. We were to watch with clean minds...Mr. Merrick's words."
"What if it's really bad?"...I asked. Tom answered that that was indeed a possibility and he would understand if any of us didn't want to participate. He then added that this would be on our own time and not the studio, so none of us would get paid."
In the end, we all agreed to do it and so on the very next Sunday, we met at Tom's house, in the basement. We all sat down and got comfortable as Tom set up the projector. Then he turned off the lights and started the film."
"For the record, the production values were as good as anything being made at the time, a real surprise, considering Mr. Merrick had the look of a man who had been living in his car. As we watched, we knew early on that we were seeing something that would never see the light of day on television. That was confirmed to me after viewing the last episode when we were finally allowed to discuss what we had just seen."
At first, it was total silence, until Dianne, the lone female of the group said..."That was interesting."...Not what I expected her to say, but it did break the ice. We all agreed his film, as it was, would certainly be rejected. But we also agreed the film was simply too good to dismiss based on subject matter alone. We came to the conclusion with just a few changes, Mr. Merrick's work could not only be accepted, but likely thrive should it make it to broadcast. Tom then arranged to meet with Mr. Merrick the following day to discuss our proposal." (He takes another sip)
"And so, the time came. Mr. Merrick was parked across the street as before, when Tom approached, carrying the box. The two talked for a while and things seemed to be going well when Tom must have told him about the changes that would be necessary. Mr. Merrick's mood changed and he began shouting. Even Tom wasn't able to calm him down."
"He grabbed the box away from Tom and threw it in the passenger compartment before getting in his car and slamming the door shut before driving off at high speed. Tom started returning to us while shrugging his shoulders. Before we could even ask him what happened, we heard the crash."
We all ran down the street and noticed the damaged guard rail and soon after, the first traces of smoke. As soon as we got to the edge, we knew there was no hope. Mr. Merrick and his work were no more, both engulfed in the flames."
"Perhaps because Tom had tried to help Mr. Merrick, he took it particularly hard. For some time after, he was not his usual happy go lucky self. Time heals all wounds and eventually he was back to normal. Even so, it was a subject we all avoided...just a bad memory best kept in the back of our minds until one day, out of the blue and just a few days before his sudden and unexpected passing, Tom quietly mentioned what a shame it was that no one would ever know of Mr. Merrick's work. We would, of course, but after our passing, no one would. Mr. Merrick would just be another anonymous soul, whose work demanded that he be more than that."
"And so, it is in this spirit, as the lone survivor of the group, that I now share, as best I can remember, what the four of us saw that day. And I do so here, on this forum, perhaps the only place a story like this can be told." (As he speaks this last paragraph, the camera slowly moves around from behind the computer to behind the old man and we can see what kind of forum he is posting on)...to be continued.
