Why Has No one in Hollywood Tried to adapt any of Banks Culture Novels ?

B

BAYLOR

There Are Always new Things to Learn.
Joined
Jun 29, 2014
Messages
24,306
I think they would make great films or better yet , they make great tv shows. Wy hasn't Hollywood tried to do them? :unsure:
 
I'd love to watch them but there would be a couple of issues. It would take an absolute shed-load of money to do them right, and they might not have enough crashbangwallop to bring in a mainstream audience, à la Star Trek or Wars. It would also be difficult to convey the humour and world-building.
 
No, it wouldn't cost that much. It's the location filming and big name actors that cost a lot. It would be mostly studio and less CGI than you think. Comparable to Babylon 5 costs.
Too Niche
Too little action
Too introspective
Too much obsession with AI and Resurrection devices, which spoils the books and adds nothing that Hollywood needs.
There is plenty of SF more suitable for cinema or TV and fact is most of it is pretty niche from Hollywood POV. Most of their SF has been really Space Opera, Space Fantasy, Space Soap or Horror.
 
Ray has the answer. As much as I would love to see The Culture in film or on TV, it would be nearly impossible to get it done and have mainstream viewers watch and enjoy it. I doubt there's a screenwriter that would even attempt it at this point in time.
 
An "inspired by" Space Opera series like a better done version of Andromeda / Crusade might work (best elements of those). But not at all actually doing the books.
 
I'm enamoured of it. I may try writing it. I can always abandon it. It doesn't have to be Niven's Ringworld nor Iain M. Bank's Orbital. Perhaps more like James White's Federation world, but each ring orbital plate is different culture.

I might consider curved plates that have a counter-weight about 1km or more away. Fake gravity by spin around barycentre with the counterweight, or maybe a twin plate. Eclipse would be at best every few minutes, if rotation radius is enough.
 
Last edited:
I'm not so certain a wobbly plate would be a good idea structurally speaking. The mass might not be great enough to avoid going to pieces. But I would love to see your ideas come to fruition!
 
Vince W said:
I'm not so certain a wobbly plate would be a good idea structurally speaking
Click to expand...
It would be enormous.
The problem is that there is no even hypothetical material to make Niven's Ringworld OR Banks's Orbitals out of. Perhaps like Niven & Banks, simply ignore the problem.
 
a movie would be a terrible idea. A TV series, though. Hmmmmm

I would imagine that Mr. Banks would not like his work to get the Hollywood treatment.
 
Rodders said:
a movie would be a terrible idea. A TV series, though. Hmmmmm

I would imagine that Mr. Banks would not like his work to get the Hollywood treatment.
Click to expand...

I would absolutely love to see this .(y)
 
I love(!!!) Banks, but I think I'd prefer to see his books stay books.

A TV series might be cool, but I think it would fail to truly demonstrate the scale of Bank's world. I also worry that some elements would come across as hokey. In essence, I think that the Culture might not translate to screen very well -- TV or movies.

Now the Expanse series, on the other hand, is perfect for TV. The scale is smaller and the plot is more linear. I'll be curious to see if SyFy pulls it off.
 
I would love to see a trilogy of big, long films (as in The Lord of the Rings), based on one of Iain's 'Culture' novels but agree that the scale of his stories is probably too vast for a standard film. I enjoyed the recent adaption of The Martian but when you see what they had to cut out & how thinly they had to reduce the detail in the book to make their film, well, with Mr. Banks' works they would struggle. Perhaps, rather than do one of his books, a Culture-based film could be made? Retaining the style of characters, the humour, the darkness, the Ships & Droids & Habitats, etc. but a new story designed for film. It's a wonderful Universe he created & the Culture is an interesting civilisation, there's clearly scope for more great adventures based in it.
 
Although I would love to see the Culture on screen, I don't think it will ever happen for reasons stated above. Something like 'the Nights Dawn' trilogy on the other hand... far more accessible for a BSG-ish TV series.
 
I once interviewed him. He said he'd be fine with Hollywood giving Phlebas a happy ending as long as he could see his big action scenes up on screen. He also said the rights to The Player Of Games was bought by Morgan Freeman's production company and that would probably be the easiest to be adapted but the Culture isn't that well-known in the US so they'd struggle to get the finance to make it
 
Dave Barsby said:
I once interviewed him. He said he'd be fine with Hollywood giving Phlebas a happy ending as long as he could see his big action scenes up on screen. He also said the rights to The Player Of Games was bought by Morgan Freeman's production company and that would probably be the easiest to be adapted but the Culture isn't that well-known in the US so they'd struggle to get the finance to make it
Click to expand...


A happy ending would have ruined the story which is something that Hollywood is good at.
 
Last edited:
You must log in or register to reply here.
Thread starter Similar threads Forum Replies Date
Robert Zwilling Hollywood Writers Go On Strike Technology 0
S Lovecraft and Hollywood H P Lovecraft 9
M Interesting article on what happened to Princess Monokone in the US and the differences in outlook between Hollywood and Studio Ghibli Anime and Animation 7
P Can hollywood hacking be done well? Writing Discussion 11
WaylanderToo Get you some Hollywood! General Film Discussion 2

Similar threads


Back
Top