Stories and Movies

If any of you are like me, there are some book series that you love and appreciate, and perhaps have read more than once in your lifetime. For me, these include:

• The Dark Tower Series by Stephen King
• The Wheel of Time Series by Robert Jordan
• The Sword of Truth Series by Terry Goodkind (pen-name?)
• The Ender Series (which includes the books with Bean, and excludes the books with Ender following “Ender’s Game”) by Orson Scott Card
• Dies the Fire Series by S.M. Sterling

What’s cool for me, is that recently i’ve read that some of these have been optioned to be produced as movies/TV Series.

First off, the Dark Tower. Stephen King sold the rights for the series to J.J. Abrams for 19 dollars. Not a lot of money, but quite a significant number in the books. Anyways, this post by IGN writer Ryan (McClaneRCA) tries to determine if he think it would be better as a major motion picture, or a TV Series. Also, he proposes possible actors, some in jest, but some that would seem like good ideas.

I would be totally cool with Abrams Directing this movie/series of movies/television series. And if it had to be on TV, i would hope it could be an HBO series, so that the story could stay as true as possible.

I suppose if Abrams is doing this, then Giacchino will be his composer. Which is fine, I suppose. This story feels like an all-genre-encompassing type story and with Lost, I think Giacchino would be fine with that, as long as he calls me to be one of his lackey orchestrators. Hell, he should spread the love, and just make a call. But even more than Giacchino, I would love to see Eric Serra compose for this film.

I read the other day at variety.com that Universal Studio optioned the rights for the wheel of time series in a ‘seven figure deal’… a far cry from 19 dollars making it a lot harder to profit. The post says that they will begin by making the first book “The Eye of the World” and will hinge the creation of the remaining 12 books on how well the first movie does. Scary because even though LOTR did really well, those books were the original fantasy story (well, maybe not the original, parts of the bible are pretty fantastic). Do enough people love this story, that would make it worth it for the studio, even if studios are the greediest bastards ever.

As far as film composers go, I would like to see John Debney, or maybe Danny Elfman. I know that Howard Shore would be perfect for something like this, but to me his will always be the sound of LOTR, and i don’t want to see any cross cutting. Brian Tyler might be good for this too, but, i don’t think some computer generated sounds or pads/beats would fit well in a world like this or the Sword of Truth.

According to the Wikipedia site for the “Sword of Truth” series, production began in May of this year, with a planned premiere on ABC Nov. 1st. This show is being directed by Sam Raimi, with Terry Goodkind involved in the process the whole way.

Apparently this trailer was put together in a couple days. There are portions that are cool looking, then there are portions that look very Xena-esque. For the sake of the story, i sincerely hope that the show is really unlike Xena. The subject matter and content is very mature and hard to imagine how ABC will pull it off. I know i have to have faith because of Goodkind’s involvement, but its hard to see this on a Disney affiliated channel.

I couldn’t find any information as far as the composer for this film, so i will just assume its me. Which means i have to get to work… only a couple months to air. Can i get some help? Anyone?

Ender’s Game was a great book. And if the movie is done right, i will be very, very happy. However, if this movie ever gets made, that’s a whole other question. This movie has been in pre-production for a long time, with multiple rewrites of the script, and now lost the director orginally committed. I won’t go into it all, but this blog seems to keep pretty up-to-date…kindof anyway.

A movie like this would be perfect for a John Powell…or even Steve Jablonsky. I prefer the former for originality, but i don’t hate Jablonsky, or his score for Transformers.

Dies the Fire is the first book in a series written by S.M. Serling, that so far consists of 4 books, with at least 2 more to come. This series is awesome. Its a much better and more interesting story than “The Postman”, except, no guns. Also, coincidentally, the story takes place in Oregon (mainly) which is where Kevin Costner’s character is trying to get in his world.

If this were ever made into a movie, i would love to see James Newton Howard handle the music. His themes are usually very beautiful, and i know that the setting of this story would fall nicely into a James Newton Howard world.

All of these things make me wish in my itty bitty heart, that perhaps, if i were a bit older…maybe more experienced, maybe even in the universe of hollywood film-scorers…maybe i could score/have scored any of these, because believe me, i would love to be even a small part. However, I’ve always maintained (at least in my mind) that i would like to create a suite for the dark tower, or the wheel of time…however, if there are soundtracks for these, it would be very hard to make it happen, and still have people be ‘into’ it.

You know, maybe instead of writing this I should sit down and write some music.