November 6th, 2007
1. The Long Walk by Richard Bachman
Of all the books Stephen King wrote under his "Richard Bachman" pseudonym, it's most surprising that The Long Walk hasn't already been adapted, since compared to what it took to bring The Running Man and Thinner to life, The Long Walk could practically be a student film. Although its premise is wholly science fiction (concerning a cruel, government-sponsored walking contest where anyone who drops below four miles per hour is executed), The Long Walk is actually more a psychological drama—albeit with just a touch of Battle Royale—than a flashy actioner. Any adaptation would require little except a talented ensemble cast (and a halftrack), since the story is all in the anecdote-heavy dialogue, terse interactions similar to the uneasy camaraderie of a war film. Producers would probably want to amp up the gore and throw in lots of flashbacks to alleviate all that talking—and there's probably no way its ambiguous ending would stand, either—but the right director could turn Walk into a gripping foxhole drama with just a hint of high-concept horror. The fact that King's favorite adaptor, Frank Darabont (The Shawshank Redemption, The Mist), recently snapped up the rights is a good sign—if nothing else, it means Mick Garris won't get his hacky hands on it.
2. Jonathan Strange & Mr .Norrell by Susanna Clarke
It's a shame that Tim Burton is already set to release a 19th-century British period piece—he would have been the perfect director to bring Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell to the big screen. As it is, Dangerous Liaisons' Christopher Hampton has been tapped to adapt the book sometime next year. And while Hampton is no slouch, just imagine Burton appropriating Sweeney Todd's cast wholesale: With a bit of hair dye, Johnny Depp might have made a perfect Jonathan Strange, and Alan Rickman certainly would've excelled at portraying the gentleman with the thistle-down hair. As for Mr. Norrell, what's Ian Holm up to? Susanna Clarke's source material, of course, will be the real star: Her 2004 novel and its alternately eerie and arch history of English magic is not only perfect grist for the projectors, it's just the thing to wean budding fantasy buffs off the Harry Potter franchise as it winds down.
3. The Time Traveler's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger
Filming began in September on an adaptation of this irresistible, vertiginous love story about a librarian (Eric Bana) who travels uncontrollably through time, and the artist (Rachel McAdams) he marries. In fact, the movie rights were sold before the novel was published and became a book-club sensation. How will the film version handle the fractured continuum of the book, seen from the perspective of the girl visited in childhood by a man who knows her future? Has the premise's thunder been stolen by the similarly themed TV series Journeyman? Will the book's middle-aged female fans leave the theater weeping? Maybe all the publicity department needs to know is this: "From the screenwriter of Ghost."
4. The Dogs Of Babel by Carolyn Parkhurst
The Internet Movie Database lists this spooky novel about animal-human communication as "in development." David Fincher comes to mind as the right director for Carolyn Parkhurst's tragic story about a man whose need to find out whether his wife's death was an accident or a suicide leads him to try teaching his dog, the only witness to the event, to speak. Nicolas Cage or Liam Neeson would work as the husband, an academic who cloaks his increasingly bizarre research under the veneer of objective scientific curiosity. And maybe William Wegman could lend one of his Weimaraners for the dog—that heartbreaking look of "What are you doing to me, master?" will have audiences getting out their handkerchiefs.
5. The Road by Cormac McCarthy
Excited for Will Smith's upcoming post-apocalyptic flick I Am Legend? Bah… look how clean and sharply dressed he is, driving luxury vehicles around—that isn't apocalypse! Better hold off two years for Cormac McCarthy's The Road. The Pulitzer-winning novel doesn't hold back anything in its gritty tale of an Earth turned to wasteland and populated by scattered bands of cannibals. But science-fiction fans shouldn't expect Mad-Max-esque action: The Road is a slow-paced, dismal affair with little dialogue and heavy focus on the minutiae of survival (mostly looking for food and trying to stay warm); a successful film adaptation would mirror the measured desperation of The Pianist. With Viggo Mortensen reportedly starring and John Hillcoat—who already has one excellent trek-through-wasteland movie under his belt with The Proposition—directing, The Road should be a dark, harrowing journey that redefines the doomsday-film landscape.
6. Jernigan by David Gates
Self-destructing midlife suburban males have made for some terrific films, American Beauty perhaps the most notable. But while that movie portrayed its protagonist's breakdown through near-slapstick (boss-blackmailing, smoking pot with teens), Jernigan—a Pulitzer Prize finalist—resonates with believability. Peter Jernigan is a widower, father to a teenage son, and (increasingly) an alcoholic, and his inability to handle any of these aspects of his life leads to a depressingly rapid downfall. The wisecracking Jernigan is much more likeable than, say, Nicholas Cage in Leaving Las Vegas, making a Jernigan film easier to sit through; Jernigan's biting sarcasm would also get more intelligent laughs than American Beauty's cheap sight gags (i.e., faux fellatio). Why should David Gates' 1991 novel be adapted now? Well, it's been 14 years since Robert Downey Jr. was nominated for Best Actor, and it's time he got his Oscar props—this would be just the movie to do it.
7. A Confederacy Of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole
The history of the often-almost-filmed A Confederacy Of Dunces offers a tantalizing exercise in imagining greatness that might have been, overshadowed only by the prospect of what else John Kennedy Toole might have written if he hadn't committed suicide in 1969. The Pulitzer-winning cult classic has been attempted on several occasions, with John Belushi, John Candy, and Chris Farley all named at various points to step into the oversized shoes of hyper-neurotic intellectual man-child Ignatius J. Reilly, along with such talents as Buck Henry, Stephen Fry, and Richard Pryor in key roles. Most recently, director Steven Soderbergh and Will Ferrell were attached to the movie, which was cancelled in 2005 amid lawsuits, then reportedly revived again, but apparently now dead in the water. Adapting Dunces' bilious satire, rich in bizarre description and interior monologue and so essentially suffused with the spirit of 1960s New Orleans, would be difficult in any case—although Terry Gilliam did just fine with the similarly challenging Fear And Loathing In Las Vegas. Post-Katrina, capturing the spirit of New Orleans on film as well as Dunces did on the page seems almost impossible, but maybe all the more important because of it.
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