Great Adaptations - Based on a Novel by What T Dickens
I’m running a workshop at Aye Write next Friday, along a screenwriter I know well, Sergio Casci, and a producer I know almost as well but haven’t slept with yet (Claire Mundell of Synchronicity Films).
The three of us have been working on a film adaption of my thriller, The Devil’s Staircase, for 107 years. All going well, it’ll be filmed later this year.
The process has been fascinating – from finding the right producers, deciding who should write the screenplay, enticing a hot director (still top secret), and now – choosing the cast.
It’s scary, though. What if I hate it? What if it’s nothing like the book? Who will I blame? Even scarier, what if it’s nothing like the book and I love love love it?
My favourite adaptations are probably from short stories, like Stephen King’s The Shawshank Redemption and The Mist, perhaps because there’s just too much material in a full novel. And so many adaptations get it wrong, stuffing it all in no matter what, or leaving out the crucial element that glued it together.
I’m curious – what are your favourite adaptations?
And which ones made you scratch at your eyeballs? (Captain Corelli springs to mind for me...)
