Benevolent Misanthropy

• Ray Kroc bioflick — Kroc took the fast food idea, purchased from the McDonald brothers, and basically invented modern franchising. But what you don’t know is what a badass he was. The McDonald brothers reneged on an agreement with Kroc. After a few years, they were supposed to sell the original McDonald’s to Kroc an retire. They changed their minds and refused. Kroc, being quite canny, didn’t fight this too much, except to sue them to change the name of their restaurant, since McDonald’s was now an independent corporate entity and its name was a trademark. They changed it to “The Big M”. Then Kroc opened a new McDonald’s across the street from it, and drove “Big M” out of business.

  Bad. Ass.

  The Production Executive says: You want to say the founder of the McDonald’s empire did what to the McDonald brothers!? Oh, sure, they’ll license the McD’s logo and name to that project.

• Double Star — Arguably Heinlein’s finest novel (note the adverb before kvetching in comments), this political thriller includes kidnapping, impersonation, murder, dismemberment, back-room maneuverings, and racism. Very cinematic. But the way I want to make it… well, let the Exec say it:

  The Production Executive says: You want to do a 1950s skiffy book without updating it? What are you smoking, boy? No computers? Silver art deco rocketships with fins? Slide rules in space? Dude, I’ve never even seen a slide rule, okay? And what do you mean by “special effects that resemble Forbidden Planet“? Is that a movie I’m just supposed to know or something?

• Nevil Shute war stories. I had a crazy idea several years ago to do a John Ford on these — recurring cast, different characters. Ewan McGregor would be my pick for a lead in most of them, and the books I’d be most interested in would be Landfall, Pied Piper, Most Secret, and The Chequer Board. Pastoral is an excellent book, but would be quite difficult to make for the screen.

  The Production Exec Says: No villain? Whaddaya mean “no villain”? … “The war” is the villain? Okay, so who do you think will play the character of “the war”, Willem Defoe? And where are the car chases, the derring-do, all the reasons people watch war flicks in the first place?

• The Demolished Man. — Everyone loves Alfred Bester’s two masterworks (the other is The Stars My Destination), and they seem naturals for big budget event films. The hooks are superb (how do you commit murder in a society of telepaths and get away with it?), the pacing breathless, the backgrounds and details baroque, the characters unforgettable. (You haven’t forgotten The Gilt Corpse, have you? Thought not.)

  This won’t get made by me because either someone else will beat me to it, or I’ll never be trusted with such a brobdingnagian budget, or because my planned solution for visualizing telepathy onscreen won’t present enough eye candy (mostly).

  (I’d love to do Stars, but the climax scares the bejeebus out of me. How to show it and make it both interesting and comprehensible — not to mention different from 2001: A Space Odyssey.)

• The entire Flandry series. Find a rakish 18 or 19 year old actor, and make a SF thriller with him each time he hits the appropriate age, right through his mid-60s.

  The Production Exec says: What color is the sky in your world?

• Three Men in a Boat (To Say Nothing of the Dog) — Is it possible not to love this book? It’s both a pip and a lark, a source of unending amusement and smiles. Any reasonably gifted comic actors would have a ball with the roles.

  The Production Exec Says: The whole story is three weird guys getting in a boat, with a dog, and traveling a small distance? Buddy, as a friend, stay away from the eightballs. And what kind of f***ed up name for a dog is Montmorency, anyhow?

• A non-revisionist western. — When was the last time the good guys were good, the bad guys bad, and justice served?

  The Production Exec Says: The Railroad company are the good guys??? You want to show Indians as primitive savages!?!?!?!?!?

  (Hey, you can’t go by me, I want to do a cowboys–vs.–zombies flick, too.)

• Lord Jim. — It’s been filmed before, it’s essentially non-cinematic, but what the production exec says is:

  Classic literature as SF? Right on!

  (Real reason: Don’t want to spend the rest of my life having Conrad fans and scholars tell me at length how stupid and naive my interpretation was.)

• A Braver Thing — The late Charles Sheffield’s brilliant novella is one of my very favorites. It would make a capital drama with meaty parts for two talented actors. It explores adult themes of life, death, responsibility, and obligation in an adult manner. The final fade to black, just before one man makes the most important and responsible decision he has ever made, will move anyone who sees it.

  The Production Exec Says: Do both the guys need to be British? Does their first love need to be scientific research. I grant that the suicide by asphyxiation was good, but weren’t his reasons more than a little… abstract? Audiences don’t want to think these days, they want to be entertained.

• Startide Rising — Space opera! Intelligent dolphins! Space battles! Planetary crashes! Alien political wrangling! A Trojan Seahorse!!!

  The Prod Exec Says: A budget the size of the national debt! Special Effect problems to make George Lucas weep. No resolution to the central mystery!

(Still on hiatus.)