MOVIE WISH LIST FOR THE COMING MILLENNIUM

If you're not happy with the sci-fi movies Hollywood are making, somebody once remarked, then go make your own. Oh definitely, anybody in Hollywood’s got a few million bucks to spare to make the following movies?

VALIS

WHAT’S IT ABOUT? Based on what is probably Philip (Blade Runner) K. Dick’s most personal and maybe even best novel, Valis is, as the jacket blurb on my copy of it says, "a wildly comic novel of one man’s obsessive, transcendent vision, of secret ruling intelligences, ancient conspiracies and the Second Coming." If you’ve read the book, then you’re probably thinking that it’s impossible to translate it to the big screen - but you’re wrong! After all, there’s an opera (believe it or not - but I’ve got the double CD set to prove it!) based on the novel, so only one step to a screenplay I say . . .
WHO SHOULD MAKE IT? Dan O’Bannon should write the screenplay. After all he shows a keen understanding of Dick’s works as shown by his adaptations of the great man’s material into screenplays for Total Recall and Screamers. Stanley (2001,  Clockwork Orange) Kubrick should direct it - but then, of course, we’ll only see the finished product in 2019 . . . that is, if we're lucky . . .
WILL IT GET MADE? There are no plans, even though the making of Philip K.Dick’s excellent A Scanner Darkly (even more impossible to film if you ask me!) into film has been announced a while ago.

V FOR VENDETTA

WHAT’S IT ABOUT? V For Vendetta was a short-lived 1988 comic book series that is available in graphic novel format from DC Comics today. Written by the brilliant Alan Moore, it’s about a future fascist government in Great Britain that is toppled by an enigmatic masked figure simply known as ‘V’. If you haven’t read it, then go grab a copy today . . .
WHO SHOULD MAKE IT? Tough one to answer, but Darius Khondji who did the cinematography of Seven and Alien Resurrection should definitely film it . . .
WILL IT GET MADE? Probably not. After all, as the jacket blurb for my copy of V For Vendetta states: "it is a work of startling clarity and intelligence." In other words, "everything comics weren’t supposed to be." Then again, director Terry (Brazil, 12 Monkeys) Gilliam apparently flirted with the idea of filming Watchmen - another graphic novel by Alan Moore . . . also not a bad idea in its own . . .

BEHOLD THE MAN

WHAT’S IT ABOUT? A short story by Michael Moorcock first published in 1966, Behold the Man is about a time traveller who travels back in time to the time of Jesus and discovers that . . . Ah, but that would be spoiling it. Go read Moorcock’s powerful story instead.
WHO SHOULD MAKE IT? Isn’t it about time that Martin (Taxi Driver, Raging Bull) Scorcese tried his hand at the sci-fi genre?
WILL IT GET MADE? Never! Remember the reception The Last Temptation Of Christ got?

ALIENS - EARTH HIVE

WHAT’S IT ABOUT? Graphic novels published by Dark Horse in turn based on the popular Twentieth Century Fox Aliens movies. "Doomsday is upon us and Earth is totally over-run by the Alien," as my copy’s jacket blurb informs me. To be honest, this should have been the theme of the third Alien movie, but instead we got the dull Alien 3 . . .
WHO SHOULD MAKE IT? The makers of Trainspotting were due to make Alien Resurrection, but opted for A Life Ordinary instead - so how about bringing them in again? Should be interesting . . .
WILL IT GET MADE? Fifty-fifty chance. Word has it that Sigourney Weaver has been signed on to do a fifth film in the series. However, Alien Resurrection didn’t do as well at the box office as the studio expected, so who knows?

THE REALITY DYSFUNCTION

WHAT’S IT ABOUT? This real page-turner sci-fi novel by Peter F. Hamilton just has "exciting movie" written all over it. Jacket blurb: "In AD 2600 the human race [has] hundreds over colonised planets scattered across the galaxy. A true golden age is within our grasp. But now something has gone wrong. On a primitive colony planet a renegade criminal’s chance encounter with an utterly alien entity unleashes the most primal of all our fears. An extinct race which inhabited the galaxy aeons ago called it ‘The Reality Function’. It is the nightmare which has prowled beside us since the beginning of history . . ."
WHO SHOULD MAKE IT? How about James Cameron who did Terminator 2 - Judgement Day and Aliens? Or Paul Verhoeven who did Starship Troopers and RoboCop?
WILL IT GET MADE? It is doubtful whether anybody in Hollywood has so much as read the novel. Another problem is that the novel (planned as an entire series) clocks in at more than an incredible 1 200 pages! But it will still make one hell of a movie (or, em, franchise) . . .

RED MARS

WHAT’S IT ABOUT? Based on Kim Stanley Robinson’s trilogy of Mars novels (Red Mars, Green Mars, Blue Mars) it deals with the future colonisation and eventual terraforming of the red planet.
WHO SHOULD MAKE IT? Anybody with a feel for big budgeted sci-fi. It’s a BIG story . . .
WILL IT GET MADE? Probably not. The fascination with the Sojourner probe on Mars seems to have blown over and so it seems has plans for the similarly themed Mars television series based on a novel by Ben Bova. Besides, each novel in the trilogy clocks in at almost 700 pages which makes it ideal material for a TV mini-series. But expensive television shows have always had a bad history - take Battlestar Galactica as example . . .
NOTE: Oops! Spoke too soon . . . seems that I couldn't be more wrong! Shortly after having written this article I came across news on the Internet that director James Cameron fresh from his Titanic triumph has bought the film rights to the Mars-trilogy with the idea of producing a television series that will serve as experimental ground for some of the effects his sfx house have developed. Cameron probably won't probably direct it himself, but it is doubtful whether anybody will refuse the director anything after having directed the biggest box office hit of all time. So yeah, we might just get to see Red Mars after all!