Adaptation Tagged Articles at Cinematical

Earlier this month we told you that "Arrested Development" creator Mitch Hurwitz was scripting an absolutely for-reals, big-screen Arrested Development movie, and that he would direct it himself. Speaking at a writing panel this weekend at the Austin Film Festival (where he appeared alongside Steven Zaillian and AD executive producer Ron Howard), Hurwitz dropped a few more hints about what exactly we might be seeing plot-wise, and it sounds like somebody in the Bluth family (or heck, maybe all of 'em) will be heading to prison.

Honestly, it's hard to tell what Hurwitz meant when he briefly gave in to moderating producer Marcia Nasatir's prodding at the "Art of Storytelling" panel in Austin. According to Austin 360, "Hurwitz relented to Nasatir, and said that there would be a heavy jail presence and then made jokes about the inclusion of TARP money, a nod to the inability of a film to be as timely as television due to lag times in production and release."

Over at Collider, Matt Goldberg wonders if the Bluth family real estate business could easily lead into a comical plotline about the current housing crisis. Methinks you're onto something, Matt. Might we see another Bluth in prison orange? If so, I vote for putting a Bluth other than George Sr. or Gob behind bars, because the last time Will Arnett went to the slammer, well... we got Let's Go to Prison. (I know I shouldn't punish the AD universe for that stinker, but the negative association lingers.)

So what do you think, Cinematicalites? What could Hurwitz's "heavy jail presence" mean for the Arrested Development movie?

It is inevitable -- any form of art will, at some point, turn inwards. Instead of focusing on other forms of life, the form will attempt to reveal itself -- whether exploratory and serious or sarcastic and mocking. In Hollywood, the camera has spun inwards countless times. Sometimes it's earnest, but most often it's a great serving of satire and irony.

There are a ton of great examples of this, from Boogie Nights to Pee-Wee's Big Adventure, Strange Brew to The Big Lebowski. If I had 50 slots, I could make this comprehensive, but I only have seven. So you're getting the best mock-filled flicks of this century -- films ranging from the year 2000 all the way to 2008. Check them out after the jump, and weigh in with your picks below.

WARNING: The following videos are NSFW. They contain, among other things, violence and foul language. Watch at your own risk.

I know, I know: it's horribly unfair to compare every movie that uses multiple personality disorder as a plot point to The Three, Donald Kaufman's fictional screenplay in Adaptation. And I quite liked Identity, which was basically The Three made flesh. But I can never resist.

The Three, you'll recall, involved a police detective, a serial killer, and the killer's female hostage, who later turn out to be the same person. Frankie and Alice, a psychological thriller that Halle Berry will produce and headline, is more like "The Two": according to Variety, Berry will play "a young woman struggling with multiple personality disorder and torn between who she is and a racist Caucasian alter-personality that preys upon her mind." It's not clear whether this is supposed to be pure schlock or an attempt at metaphor. Either way: oh dear.

Variety has no word on who is writing or directing, which could have given us a hint of what to expect. I feel like a script has to exist, because I can't imagine anyone shelling out money for this project based solely on that goofy logline. I missed Halle Berry's last dramatic offering, the fairly well-reviewed Things We Lost in the Fire. But Frankie and Alice seems more in the vein of Perfect Stranger, anyway, and unfortunately I did see that one. It's hard to know what to make of this project, but there's a distinct possibility of a fascinating train wreck.

Yesterday we shared some news from Fango: Mick Garris out and Joe Dante in as director of the Thirst remake. That's all fine and good, but you might be wondering exactly why the director switch was necessary. Well, I'll tell you: According to the same Fango report, Mick Garris' next project will be (get this!) an adaptation of a Stephen King story! Fans of either storyteller could tell you that Garris and King have previously collaborated on Sleepwalkers (1992), The Stand (1994), Quicksilver Highway (1997), Riding the Bullet (2004), Desperation (2006), and the (eventually) upcoming From a Buick 8. So this news hardly comes as a big surprise.

I hate to admit that Bag of Bones is one of those King works that I just kinda breezed through and forgot about fairly quickly, but maybe I'll give it a second spin once Mr. Garris starts organizing his cast and crew. If memory serves, the tale is a gothic ghost story noir romance sorta thing. Definitely not among Mr. King's most "fantastical" stories, but a pretty good book all the same. (I think...) More word on the Bag of Bones adaptation when it becomes public.

There's a pretty informative story about how, after getting the gig to adapt his own novel The Cider House Rules, John Irving sat down feeling fairly confident, thinking something to the effect that "Hey, all I have to do is re-type who people are, what they do and what they say -- this'll be a breeze ..." and, after doing that with his novel, found he had enough screenplay pages ... for a nine-hour film. Adaptations are tough: What do you leave in, what do you leave out? Is fidelity the only true measure of worth, or can carefully-made changes actually improve the film version of a book? Below are some of my picks for the best adapted screenplays of the past ten years; as ever, this list is wildly subjective, and our ever-hungry comments section awaits your picks. ...

1) Jackie Brown (1997)

A great example of how tweaking a good book can make it even better -- Quentin Tarantino's adaptation of Elmore Leonard's novel Rum Punch moved the setting from one coast to another, changed the race of one of the leads -- and, by ignoring such petty details, wound with a film that completely nails the talky, criminal, human spirit of Elmore Leonard's amazing body of work. Leonard's work also gave Tarantino the first grown-up story he's ever worked with, and Tarantino stepped up to the plate and delivered -- as fond as I am of Pulp Fiction's incendiary inventions, I still think Jackie Brown is the better actual film.

2) Children of Men (2006)

Another case where the screenwriters modified much of the book to the improvement of the story -- P.D. James's novel takes place over a period of months, while Curaron's film speeds by over a few days like a fever-dream nightmare. There are other changes, too (Clive Owen's lead is no longer related to England's all-powerful Big Brother, but, instead, Danny Huston's minor functionary), but the decision to strip Children of Men down to a few nightmare days was incredibly insightful -- and made for an adaptation that works as an amazing film.

In honor of the striking screenwriters, I wanted to write a list of my favorites, either contemporary or all-time. But I decided that it would be more respectful to not exclude any of them. Even the bad writers need recognition right now. I've tried writing screenplays, and I salute anyone who has had one produced, whether brilliant or not. Even if it weren't difficult to actually write a script, it's certainly tough to deal with the b.s. of Hollywood and the sad truth that your vision will likely not make it to the screen as devised. So, instead of concentrating on real writers, I figured I'd look at screenwriter characters, specifically those portraying the hardships of the job.

"Joe Gillis" from Sunset Blvd. (1950, Billy Wilder).

I imagine there's nothing scarier for a struggling screenwriter than the thought of ending up like poor Joe Gillis (William Holden). The opening shot of Wilder's classic shows the character floating face down in a swimming pool, and immediately he's labeled "an unsuccessful screenwriter." This sets up a hopelessness for the character, and for writers in general, as the film then flashes back to one of the greatest stories of Hollywood cynicism ever made. Gillis not only represents the difficulty of making it as a screenwriter, he also shares some juicy lines about how writers aren't recognized enough by the public ("Audiences don't know somebody sits down and writes a picture; they think the actors make it up as they go along."); about drastic alterations to his scripts ("The last one I wrote was about Okies in the dust bowl. You'd never know because when it reached the screen, the whole thing played on a torpedo boat.") and about the desperation that turns good writers into seemingly hack writers (replying to talk of his once promising talent, he says, "That was last year. This year I'm trying to make a living."). There were screenwriter characters before him, and plenty after, but Gillis will forever be the quintessential example.

With the Writer's Guild members on strike, it's time for you wannabe screenwriters to push through the picket lines and get noticed. I don't actually know how possible this is. I kinda shrugged off my own mother's suggestion of this idea thinking it not possible -- well, that and the fact that I haven't really wanted to be a screenwriter for many years now. But I figure, if possible, the easiest way to get noticed would be to write up a brilliant adaptation of a popular book that's been in need of a good script. Need some examples of such books? Check out The Onion's latest list, "If you film it ... : 21 good books that need to be great films, like now." Many of these books have already been optioned by or sold to producers and some of them are currently on the track to getting made. Others, like Confederacy of Dunces, have been attached to multiple filmmakers and stars for nearly thirty years now. Someday it will probably get filmed, but the point of this list is not that it needs to be adapted. It needs to be adapted well. Actually, better than well. In the satirical paper's words, it needs to be a great film.

To admit how badly read I am, at least with regards to popular fiction, I've only read three of the 21 books. The rest I'm at least familiar with through news of their respective film deals and/or development, much of which Cinematical has covered. Of those three I've read, one is something I was recently excited about being adapted until it fell through, one is something I can't imagine making a great film because memoirs hardly work cinematically, and one I've seen adapted once and could care less about being adapted again, especially since it's the subject of an annoying legal battle (can you guess the three?). Anyway, the list is pretty well-thought out, but it made me wonder what most people think makes a great adaptation. Do people really prefer movie versions to be literal translations, or do they want something less redundant in their adaptations? Personally, I've always championed the latter. To me, a great film is one that is brilliant enough that: 1) You don't easily say the usual, "the book was better," nonsense; 2) You can still read the book without it having been ruined by the film -- major points if you can even ignore the cast of the film while reading; 3) It utilizes the film medium so that it now seems necessarily appropriate that the story is being depicted visually rather than verbally; 4) That it communicates new ideas that the novel didn't communicate. I know of three adaptations that come closest to fulfilling these four standards of excellence, To Kill a Mockingbird, About a Boy and Adaptation. I'm sure there's plenty others, but like I said, I'm not well-read enough to be sure.

[via Fark.com]

Note: This is the premiere entry in a new, weekly Cinematical feature focusing on the art of screenwriting. Welcome!



"That movie sucked! I could write something better than that!"

How many times have you walked out of a film saying those very words? Well, why don't you put your money where your mouth is, Buster Brown? If you can write something better, then by all means -- write! Writing is one of the few professions you can just do. You don't need lots of fancy equipment, you don't need lots of money, you just need a computer (heck, pen and paper will do) and an imagination. It's fun, it's free, and if you're really good at it, you could make a ton of money and get to sit in your underwear while you work. And really, isn't that the American dream?

"But Patrick," you're probably asking. "Where do I start? How do I know what to write about? How will I know if my stuff is good? And who the hell are you, anyway?"

Friends, I'm here to answer all of those questions and much, much more. "The Write Stuff" is a brand new column here at Cinematical devoted to the art of screenwriting. Every other Wednesday, I'll be giving writing advice and tips, answering your questions -- talking shop. On alternate Wednesdays, I'll be interviewing major Hollywood screenwriters about their craft (next Wednesday the interview series kicks off with Adam F. Goldberg, co-writer of the highly anticipated Fanboys, and the upcoming film adaptation of classic cartoon The Jetsons). Ideally, this dual approach will give you two valid perspectives -- one from the writer trying to make it, and one from the writer who's already made it.

He's sung about a Blaze of Glory, right around the time when he played "Pit Inmate Shot Back into Pit" in Young Guns II. He's been The Leading Man, suffered with dysfunctional relationships on Sex and the City, helped Pay it Forward and even got Pucked with National Lampoon. Most recently, he's gone on a non-Lynchian Lost Highway of music. Now Variety is reporting that Jon Bon Jovi is going to go Where the Day Takes You -- or something pretty similar. He's hitting the production biz with music managers Jack Rovner and Ken Levitan to produce an adaptation of Jessica Blank's upcoming novel Almost Home.

The book, which hits stores on October 23, is about a "group of homeless teens in Los Angeles struggling to find themselves." Blank and her husband Erik Jensen have already started adapting it for the screen. Basically, this sounds like Where the Day, but I bet a little cleaner -- it's being released by Disney's Hyperion Books for Children. I'm thinking that means no drugs, prostitution and other struggles that the likes of Sean Astin and others struggled with in the 1992 film. I'm not quite sure what spurned this -- the singer has been an actor, but has never worked behind the camera, and Rovner and Levitan have no film credits. But good luck to them!