Flick Bits: Tad Williams’ Otherland + Warner Bros. = Feature Film (Your Thoughts?)
If you haven’t heard already, Warner Bros. has acquired the rights to Tad Williams’ science fiction series (Otherland). From Variety: Warner Bros. is heading to “Otherland,” acquiring feature rights to Tad Williams’ sci-fi book series and setting it up with Dan Lin to produce. Studio has tapped John Scott III to script the film, based on the four books published by DAW-Penguin USA between 1996 and 2001 as “City of Golden Shadow,” “River of Blue Fire,” “Mountain of Black Glass” and “Sea of Silver Light.” Good news? You bet. Some of the folks attached to this project have been involved in Sherlock Holmes, Sherlock Holmes: Game of Shadows, Gangster Squad, Terminator Salvation, The Departed, etc. John Scott III is currently penning an adaptation of Isaac Asimov’s Caves of Steel, which better turn out great if he knows what’s good for him… The good thing about this is that it shows how valuable SF/F has become to the Hollywood community. There have been so many announcements for pending or currently-being-produced adaptations in the last five years that it’s rather surprising there are any properties left to snatch up (hyperbole police, anyone?). And if we’re really lucky, maybe Philip K. Dick won’t be the only classic SF/F author to have over 10 of his works adapted for the small or big screen (I’ve intentionally taken H. G. Wells and Jules Verne out of the equation because, from a generic standpoint, they are only SF/F authors in retrospect; science fiction was not codified as a generic tradition until decades after Well and Verne had released their most popular genre works. But you can ignore me on this point and include Wells and Verne as high contenders for the SF/F-author-with-the-most-film-adaptations Award.) In any case, Tad Williams is a fairly recent author. I haven’t read any of his work, but I’m told he’s quite good. Have any of you readers/listeners read the Otherland series? Do you think it will make a good movie? Why or why not? More importantly: what do you all think about all these film adaptation announcements?
