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- PuyoDead, on 10/12/2007, -0/+11House of Leaves, by Mark Z. Danielewski. One of the best books I've ever read, and I honestly think it would be impossible to make into a film. I don't think any director, not even Terry Gilliam, could do it.
- joaob, on 10/12/2007, -0/+9to kill all morbid curiousity....spam lies beneath the buried comment
- BrainBoy, on 10/12/2007, -0/+7The silmarillion.
10 new name/places per page...
with a story spanning the entire existence of time. (and even a bit before that) - Arcadian, on 10/12/2007, -0/+7I want to see At the Mountains of Madness as a film.
- Homunculiheaded, on 10/12/2007, -0/+7Have you seen David Cronenberg's Naked Lunch? I think Cronenberg did an absolutely amazing job bringing the strange work of Burroughs to film. He certainly doens't try to retell the novel, but rather to transmit the experience of Burroughs in novel to another media. I think you actually might like the film even if you don't like Burroughs that much.
- geekwithsoul, on 10/12/2007, -0/+6I saw Stephen King's Dark Tower series mentioned and that would definitely be at the top of my list. I would also add (for those with a slant towards speculative fiction) :
Robert Heinlein's "Stranger in a Strange Land" (evidently Tom Hanks was connected with an effort to bring this to fil in the 90's but it never went anywhere -- thank god)
Larry Niven's "Ringworld" series
Issac Asimov's "Foundation" series
Asimov and Robert Silverberg's "Nightfall"
Dan Simmon's "Hyperion" series
Robert Jordan's "Wheel of Time" series (not that this ever should be a movie, the books were painful enough)
Orson Scott Card's "Ender's Game"
John Varley's "Titan" series
Any book by Neal Stephenson or Bruce Sterling :)
. . . but then again, I'm obviously just a SciFi/Fantasy junkie and not particularly interested in the "real" literature mentioned in the article - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+6The Bible!
- navster15, on 10/12/2007, -0/+6The one that sprang to mind immediately for me was Marquez's 100 Years of Solitude. Nice to see it on the list. I absolutely love that book, but cannot for the life of me imagine what it would look like as a theatrical film. While it would probably be absolutely terrible, a television miniseries could have the potential to capture the spirit of the book.
- evilTak, on 10/12/2007, -1/+7Dark Tower
- orientis, on 10/12/2007, -0/+6It's brilliant, you should check it out. Very disturbing. I watched it on acid - wouldn't recommend it.
- theragu40, on 10/12/2007, -0/+6Well, it's pretty tough playing a character who never speaks.
- timxpx, on 10/12/2007, -0/+6...just because it looks good doesn't mean it's a good movie
- goatomatic, on 10/12/2007, -0/+6Wasn't there already a rock opera of Franz Kafka...
He is Franz Kafka!
Franz Kafka!
Be careful if you get him pissed…
Franz! Franz Kafka!
He’ll smite you with metaphor fists!
Writing all he can, he’s just a man
A warrior of words taking a stand
He is Franz Kafka!
*Home Movies - ghostbyte, on 10/12/2007, -0/+6I would like to see a Snow Crash movie but I think all the metaphors would make it too hard.
- ICSU, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5I too find "500 Server Error" hard to film.
http://www.duggmirror.com/movies/The_Unfilmables_A_List_of_the_Hardest_Novels_to_Film/ - Lunarshadow, on 10/12/2007, -2/+7They're missing The Watchmen.
- TheoDork, on 10/12/2007, -5/+9http://www.duggmirror.com
loo loo loo - praisethelard, on 06/06/2008, -1/+5I'd definitely like to see A Wrinkle in Time as a movie...it's quite odd itself.
- tpodr, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4The guy that is making '300' is also making a movie version of 'Watchmen'
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0409459/ - headzoo, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4First thing that crossed my mind was Naked Lunch. The movie that's already been made was terrible. Not terrible in that it wasn't a good movie. Terrible in that it wasn't Naked Lunch. At all. They should have given the movie a different name. Like "Burroughs' Making a Naked Lunch".
- SkeletaLlama, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4The least filmable book I've ever read that I desperately wanted to see a movie about was House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski. The entire book revolves around a fictional film and academic articles about the film. If anyone ever figured out how to make it into a movie that kept the core of the book intact, they'd have a horror classic on their hands. But it's probably too much to ask of anyone.
- lostradamus, on 10/12/2007, -0/+428 diggs = dead server. yikes.
- MemeWarrior, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4I think the Illuminatus! Trilogy by Robert Anton Wilson, may he rest in peace, would be damn near impossible to film in a way that be comprehensible to the vast majority of American audiences.
- elamr, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4I would love to see William Gibson's Neuromancer on the big screen but I am not sure how they'd do all the scenes inside "the matrix" (no, not the Wachowski Matrix - which they took from Gibson), without making it look like that lame "flying through a computer" Hollywood "Hacker" crap.
- themarq, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4In almost every case the book is better than the movie. Whether that means; more enjoyable, or deeper or whatever, in most cases it's undeniable that books are better ways to tell stories (as much as I do love movies).
However, there is one glaring exception to this rule: Stephen King's "Misery."
The book was so bogged down with the "novel within a novel" concept that I was skipping over 10's of pages at a time, it was painful. However, the movie with absolutely stellar performances by Bates and Cann was and is one of my favourite movies of all time (by far Rob Reiner's best film.) - Tripcast, on 10/12/2007, -1/+5The Satanic Verses was made in to a film, but it was not a western release, and serious threats were made against the film makers. I think it was made in Iran? If anyone can clarify?
- saifatlast, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3I think it could totally be done, from a technolgy and set-design perspective making the [blue] house [/blue] would be pretty easy. The asides and footnotes could by done with cuts and narration. The only problem is that removing it from your imagination and putting it on a screen would really ruin that book. I'm sure everyone has their own idea of what the [blue] house [/blue] looks like, we'd all be disappointed by the film one.
- geekwithsoul, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3I would say Cryptonomicon would be easier than Quicksilver. I don't think any novel weighing in at almost 1,000 pages could ever "easily" be made into a movie. Add into that that it would essentially be a period piece (costumes, on-location shooting) and the convoluted plot structure, and I think it becomes even more difficult. Don't get me wrong, I'm a huge fan of Stephenson, I just don't think any of his novels would be an easy translation to the screen. The easiest one would probably be "Zodiac," but while I enjoyed that, I think that what everyone really wants would be a movie version of Snow Crash or Diamond Age, and I just don't see that happening (or at least not resulting in an enjoyable movie).
Oh, almost forgot. Probably could do a movie based on "The Big U" -- that would be one weird ass movie! - Miyazaki, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3Dugg just for the thought of Wes Anderson doing Catcher in the Rye, I really think that could work.
- adam192, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4@zaine
3 things:
1) no-one likes spam. on digg, people absolutely hate spam. your really not going to gain anything from spamming digg (anything more than abuse once someone does a simple whois and posts your contact infomation)
2) no-one on digg is technically inept enough to use myspace anyway. Your appealing to the wrong market
3) your mother has no nipples - tpodr, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3Speaking of the sardonic hombre, here is a collection of films he made/wrote/performed in:
http://www.ubu.com/film/burroughs.html - numbersix99, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3They're making On the Road into a film. Frances ford Coppola is producing. Oh dear.
I have read Dune and loved it. I have seen Dune and did not. - Elranzer, on 10/12/2007, -2/+5Stephen King's horror novels cannot be (or, more accurately, have not been) turned into good movies. His drama books so far have been made pretty good (see Shawhank Redemption). But mainly the Dark Tower saga should not ever be attempted to be turned into a string of movies (or worse, a single movie for the whole series). If it would be attempted, Peter jackson would be the only one to get it even partly right.
- digitalmadman, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3What about The Unloadable Server?
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3The movie is to the book what the movie I, Robot was to the book. They're good movies, but no relation to their "source."
- mrgreen4242, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3Enders Game has been in pre-production for years. The Wheel of Time could be made LoTR style where they just dropped all parts of the story that didn't relate to the "main focus" (Frodo and the Ring in LoTR, Rand and the Dark One in WoT).
Not sure what woudl stop Ringworld from being a standard action/sci-fi movie. It wouldn't be as good as the original books, but it could be done I think. It's been a long time since I've read those, though. - jordan314, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4+Siddartha. One of my favorite books. The 70's version was the worst movie in the world.
- logicnazi, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3Almost any popular sci-fi or fantasy novel is reasonably easy to make into a film. It requires care and a large monetary investment to make sure you don't alienate fans of the books but fundamentally these are plot driven works which would do well with plenty of eye-dazzling special effects. What makes a work really hard to film is when, as in Finnegan's Wake, the book is not plot centric (it's value is in references, prose etc..) or if it is written in an essential non-linear fashion.
As a comment I really like reading the Jordan books at first, I thought he slightly raised the level of writing and believeability from the standards in the fantasy genre (not as good as Katherine Kerr but up there). Also I enjoy the game of trying to figure out what historical/cultural elements he has based things in his works. However, things start to really drag around book 7.
Anyway I've found that the books are much more enjoyable listened to as books on tape. - bdrydyk, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3Speaking of people named Neil. It'd be difficult, but possible, to make movies of American Gods and Anansi boys. I couldn't imagine how they would handle all the "I look at him and see a man, but at the same time, a spider" kind of stuff.
- Otto, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3Lynch's Dune bears only a passing resemblance to the book. He took the characters and part of the storyline, and then proceeded to rewrite it entirely.
- MrFoodMonster, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3Has anyone read The Wind Up Bird Chronicle? I recently read a short story by the author and thought it was excellent, and was going to seek out some of his other work.
- coldfusion055, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3I am utterly surprised they recognized Haruki Murakami. I'm currently reading The Wind Up Bird Chronicle and it is excellent. However, I feel that "Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of The World" by Haruki Murakami would be an even tougher novel to film. And if you are thinking about reading some of his work, I highly suggest starting off with "Hard-Boiled..." first.
- eXp0se, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3I'm right with you Demo...we need more of Heinlein's books adapted. Hopefully whoever does will give us something a hell of alot better then the horrific adaption of Starship Troppers.
- TheWhyOfFry, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3im an aspiring filmmaker, and i once adapted this short story into a film: http://archive.sonandfoe.com/anthologized/moriya
i can tell you, its hard.
in case youre interested, its about a teenage boy who falls in love with a 19th century wind-up doll: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xsalIRgwcuQ - aftk2, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3That's the second book I thought of, after Gravity's Rainbow (which is on there, albeit in an umbrella "any-book-by-Thomas-Pynchon" category; I'd sure love to see someone try to make House of Leaves. They certainly couldn't duplicate the experience of reading the novel, but I think they could take the basic story as a jumping off point for a new kind of exploration. Michel Gondry maybe?
- LLLSecretChimp, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4I think Cronenberg's "Naked Lunch" adds credence to Burroughs' "Naked Lunch" being unfilmable. Cronenberg combined elements from several of Burroughs' novels ("Naked Lunch", "Exterminator!", "Junky", maybe more) as well as biographical elements from Burroughs' life into the movie.
I'm not putting down the movie, but it's *not* a film of "Naked Lunch". - Democritus2, on 10/12/2007, -2/+5THE book that fits this is a book I have said for years would make a great movie, but it would never be made because of the content. Recognized as one of the great books (at least by me). STRANGER IN A STRANGE LAND.
A list like this, without that book is garbage. - d17182, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2How about Douglas Hofstadter's Goedel Escher Bach?
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Yep. Definitely would like to see Neuromancer....but as for an "unfilmable," Idoru would be HELL to film, IMHO.
- SinisterDexter, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2The book it self is pretty hard to read as it is. Making it a movie would be even harder. Although I suppose they could deal with the synchronicity aspects like they did in that movie "Timecode"(I think it was Timecode) where they split the screen 4 ways.
No wait. That would be terrible.
Fnord. -
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