What Book Have You Read Do You Think Should Be Turned into a Video Game or Movie, but Hasn't?

[Bara_no_Hime]

I think we all have that moment, some where half way to three quarters of the way through the book where we say to ourselves, "This would be an AMAZING movie!

Or video game.

I'm going to go with the Dresden Files series by Jim Butcher (for a Video game).
Why?

Because it would be LA Noir, but with magic powers. Solving mysteries with good investigation, and fighting vampires, werewolves, fairies, and other spell casters with awesome magical powers? If you did it right, that would be an awesome video game.

 

[Lieju]

Clans of the Alphane moon, by Philip K. Dick.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clans_of_the_Alphane_Moon

It has hobos with giant psychic delusion lizards.
And sentient slime-molds that offer relationship-advice.

It's a really good book, though, that examines the concept of mental illnesses, normal people involved in politics, and delusions and reality.
But there's some weird stuff going on that would be fun to see on a screen. And the plot would translate well into gameplay, pushing you around with no idea what is going on in a conflict between CIA and alien bugs. And you never really find out, and just stumble around, getting involved in this espionage-bussineess, just trying to survive. (And possibly kill your wife)

However, it would never ever get picked up by any studio out of fear of being accused of making fun of crazy people. It kinda does, but not in a way that trivialises the problems or makes fun of them. It's more about our concept of insanity and how the society responds to these issues than anything.

the redemption of althalus as a turn based rpg. or any of the jack west jr books by matthew reily as uncharted-esque games

*goes into paroxysms*

Redemption of Althalus? Are you kidding? That's got to be one of the most disappointing fantasy novels of all time - the only book I've ever stopped reading four pages from the end in the realisation that there was nothing, nothing that it could give me that would justify the hours I'd wasted wading through it.

When I read the book, I went "This is like a plot of a bad video-game".
Or rather, an average one, might be even good depending on the gameplay.

But it had some stuff that just would work well in the medium of a video-game, somewhat of a cliches, in fact.
For one, you have the knife (or whatever it was), telling you to go to place A, then to Place B to do X, which would be a good device if a lazy one, to propel a story of a game.
And it had the thing with the teleporting doors, didn't it?

Instant travel to backtrack in the gameworld.

And the way you collect your party to fight the evil...

It doesn't have to be made into a game, it already has been made countless times.

 

[Solnishka]

I think we all have that moment, some where half way to three quarters of the way through the book where we say to ourselves, "This would be an AMAZING movie!

Or video game.

I'm going to go with the Dresden Files series by Jim Butcher (for a Video game).
Why?

Because it would be LA Noir, but with magic powers. Solving mysteries with good investigation, and fighting vampires, werewolves, fairies, and other spell casters with awesome magical powers? If you did it right, that would be an awesome video game.

You have given me an interesting thought there... An action adventure crime solving wizarding game?! Quick! Some one call Jim Butcher!

 

[Nimcha]

House of Suns by Alastair Reynolds! Though it would probably have to be a 3 hour movie...

 

[Wilcroft]

-snip-

They butcher anything that originally started off as a book (ala Legend of the Seeker/Sword of Truth), unless they have the author keeping them true to the original (HBO Game of Thrones), the BBC generally have a good record with stuff made from books though...

Also good as a movie series : Codex Alera

Actually, I'd forgotten about Alera. It would make an excellent Movie Series.....

 

[rembrandtqeinstein]

The big Stephen R Donaldson series have really deep worlds that would make for great MMOs. The Gap Cycle is the best hard SCI-FI ever written, and the Chronicles of Thomas Covenant is a very rich LoTR-turned-on-its-head world.

 

[icyneesan]

The Looking Glass Wars. Probably reread that book 50 times over 2 years before my school forced me to give it back.

 

[the Dept of Science]

The Naked Lunch really needs a videogame adaptation.

 

[dementis]

The dragon series by my friend Stephen Deas, those books are awesome, with entire wars fought on dragons! It's a political story too, it would make an awesome movie and probably a great game too, especially if you got to play as Kemir, he is one BAMF! HAHA!

 

[DasDestroyer]

His Dark Materials. I know that there already is a movie based on the Golden Compass, but I mean a movie made by someone who can actually make good movies, not the guy who made American Pie.

 

[Dalek Caan]

I've said it once and i will say it again. Orcs by Stan Nicholas. Great story. Lots of action to be had when playing as an Orc.

 

[bodyguarddied]

A video game based on Gaunt's Ghosts would literally transcend conventional awesomeness.

I came into this thread to say that. Damn you!!! Gaunt's Ghosts would make an amazing game. They could probably get a few books into each game... maybe one for each story arc (Founding, Saint, Lost, whatever the hell the new one is called). Dammit Games Workshop, MAKE THIS HAPPEN!

off topic: If your forum name means what I think it means....that is fucking awesome....

 

[Fwee]

Possibly the Hyperion/Endymion series by Dan Simmons for a movie or series.

Armor, by John Steakley would make a great game given the right development. Splitting action sections between Jack Crow and the recordings of Felix, with first-person scenes for Felix's memories outside of the armor. I also envision a kind of free-flowing mix of first-person and third-person action depending on vicinity of enemies.

Spares, by Michael Marshall Smith was already optioned to be made into a movie but for several reasons it was never made. However themes and ideas from the book have been cannibalized into movies for years.

 

[Lizardon]

None. None at all. Ok, I'll admit in a perfect world I'd love the Matthew Reilly books to be adapted (as movies) properly, which is maybe happening, or was, or will be I don't know. Studios have the rights to a few of his books, nothing much has happened yet. It could actually work, Reilly has pretty much promised he'll be on set keeping an eye on things.

Pretending they'd be done well, I'd love to see movie adaptations of a lot of things, the Skulduggery Pleasant books by Derek Landy, the Bartimaeus books, the Keys To The Kingdom series and the Old Kingdom trilogy by Garth Nix, some Dean Koontz books (apparently Odd Thomas is being done, with Koontz keeping a very close eye on it, since he's had some awful experiences with movie adaptations), any Tamora Pierce books, the Alex Rider books and The Power Of Five books, oh, either series by Darren Shan would be awesome and of course redo the Eragon movie.
There's more, I'll just stop here.

They made an Alex Rider movie

Spoiler

Wasn't very good :-(

I'd really like to see Wheel of Time movies or a TV series.

 

[Flatfrog]

David Eddings wrote one excellent sequence of books*, a reasonably diverting follow-up series, and an increasingly awful pile of dross. I blame his wife - the more credit she got, the worse the books became.

* Well, it was fantastic in a light, easy reading sense. It's not like it was profound or nuffin'.

It would be a pretty awesome movie
I don't see how you think it's not profound though... care to elaborate?

Just to be clear, we're talking about the Belgariad, yes?

Well, it's your basic fantasy adventure story in the destiny mould. It's a romp that bears all the hallmarks of being written by starting with the world map and finding a story that goes through all the bits of it. The characters are nicely written, and it's got decent ideas of magic and prophecy, although logically a bit flawed (and they got more flawed in the Malloreon, where it all kind of fell apart). Eddings has always suffered from a problem with good and evil, though - he tries to have his cake and eat it by creating a race of people who are all evil (as a result of worshipping an evil god) and thus morally ok to slaughter, and then making them redeemable (this is the same problem as the 'good demons' flaw in Buffy/Angel).

Don't get me wrong - I love the Belgariad and have read it several times. But you do have to switch your brain off a bit!

 

[Soushi]

The Dark sword Trilogy would make a good, paint-by-numbers movie, or my personal favorite, THE TRANSAL SAGA!!! WHY DOES NO ONE KNOW OF THIS BOOK AND ITS AWESOMENESS!!!

 

[zabour]

It's not exactly a book... More like ancient tablet but I believe that the "Epic of Gilgamesh"
would fit extremely well in a game. A movie wouldn't have made justice to such an epic story.

If done right it could become a masterpeiece.

 

[syko670]

Losing my virginity, an autobiography by Richard Branson would make a good game i think!

 

[Furioso]

They should turn HP Lovecrafts short story "Shadow over Innsmouth" into a video game.... oh wait, they did, called Call of Cthulhu... AND IT WAS AWESOME

Seriously though, they need to make some more Lovecraft games