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Burrough's Martian Tales Optioned
shagrat writes "One of my favorite series of books has been
optioned by Paramount. It would be produced by
those that created 'The Mummy'. I'm not sure how
that makes me feel."
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Yeah, you know, another GREAT movie with the Rock in it...
"Karma can only be portioned out by the cosmos." -Homer Simpson
Well, if they did make it a movie you can be
certain the special FX would be stellar. Hopefully they will remain true to the books
and the genre. Maybe LOTR has opened the
doors for more great fantasy and scifi to migrate to the silver screen.
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I love those books, download them from Project Gutenberg and read them on your palm!
The difference between Canada and the USA is that in Canada healthcare is a right and gun ownership is a privilege.
well if it's by the Mummy people, I'm sure they'll leave the plot untouched. AND it's almost guaranteed to have a-list actors like the Rock and Brendan Frasier in it!!! good!
I was certain these books were in the public domain. You can download them off project gutenberg. Why is a studio paying good money to 'option' them? Perhaps they'd pay me for my permission to option Hamlet.....
//Jacks told Daily Variety that three of the best-known books (which include "Gods of Mars" and "The Warlord of Mars") are likely to be made into films of a scope "akin to 'The Lord of the Rings' and 'Star Wars,' but were impossible to make before, because CGI (computer technology) wasn't there."//
So, bearing this statement in mind, are there any stories out there which still cannot be effectively made into movies due to lack of technology?
Palaces, barricades, threats, meet promises
Sometimes these movies just don't turn out. Why not make a movie based on website? Can you imagine what a movie about Slashdot or NerdTreeHouse would look like? I want movies based on websites! Are you with me?
it depends on what sort of movie you're looking for. If you want a tongue-in-cheek adventure movie, perhaps these are the producers for you. if you want something harder-edged, maybe not. on the other hand, one's previous work in the film industry isn't always a good indicator about what one can/will do.
--
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The Burroughs books are pure space opera. Of course the people who did 'The Mummy' can do them justice, they're pretty fluffy already. I think this will be really impressive if it really comes to the screen.
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I have a tendendcy to trust CNN reports for accuracy, but they refer to ERB as an English author. He was as American as applie pie and All Story magazine. Get yer facts straight, man.
All that aside, I've dreamed of seeing the John Carter series on the screen since I was a schoolboy, reading all twelve books in sequence, purchased through the Science Fiction Book Club. I knew even then that such a project would be far too expensive to ever be realized successfully (and having seen what happened to other ERB books that were filmed in the 1970s; remember "The Land/People that Time Forgot" and "At the Earth's Core?"). But now that CGI effects have made such large-scale fantasies technically possible, and the boxoffice success of similar films makes them financially feasible, I can see "A Princess of Mars" being turned into a pretty good Saturday Afternoon popcorn matinee hit, just as the Mummy films were.
I hope they don't make the entire series, though, since the books were very uneven in quality. The series was so popular that Burroughs was under a lot of pressure from the publisher to grind them out very quickly over the years and some of them are really quite poor, hitting the low point with the last one, which was supposedly completed by Burrough's son after his death and based on some very sketchy notes.
I thought copyright lasted for 50 years after death of author now. Does Project Gutenberg ONLY print public domain stuff? Maybe they have been granted right to distribute for free because the author's heirs want people reading the storys. Popularity of the story would promote the value of the movie rights.
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Somehow I don't expect we'll get to see Deja Thoris' knockers. A pity.
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You can see bits of Burroughs' influence in just about any science fiction film today. I am really excited about the possibility of seeing this stuff on the big screen, especially if it maintains the settings of the books.
I don't see any reason why the producers of "The Mummy" would be a bad choice. "The Mummy" was very much in the vein of pulp sci-fi and the old movies that arose from it. In fact, he'd probably make a super John Carter.
Who do you think WILL play John Carter?
So you think Paramount is paying for exclusive rights to a script? I don't think so. OPTION implies that someone owns the exclusive rights to produce a movie based on the novel. If the story itself is public domain, then the studio could just hire their own scriptwriter and not pay anyone for any "rights". An example would be TOMBSTONE and WYATT EARP coming out the same year, based on the same story, with their own scripts.
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At last they can try to bring the strange and wonderful characters of Barsoom to the big screen. And they're gonna need some serious digital artistry to make Deja Thoris look *half* as good as she does when Burroughs describes her. :)
I hope they get one of the great Hong Kong fight directors for this, too. Imagine what they could do with low gravity and Tars Tarkas!
With reasonable men I will reason; with humane men I will plead; but to tyrants I will give no quarter. -- William Lloyd
Sometimes treatments get made. Sometimes scripts get written. Sometimes the projects go into "pre-production," which I suspect is Hollywoodese for "We're trying to line up the funding!"
I am pretty sure I remember the ERB Mars books being optioned about twenty years back . . . vague recollections from Starlog, which seemed to specialize in drool-spewing stories about upcoming movies.
Perhaps my title isn't totally accurate. An actual option may not have been involved. I do know that Bob Clampett, creator of "Beany and Cecil" and one of the deranged guys behind the Warner Bros. cartoons, made animated-pencil-sketch segments of ERB Mars characters.
I saw stills of some of these . . . a guy riding a six-legged beastie (thark?). Kind of stylish and simple, not the lurid Frazetta type art that people seem to envision when ERB stories are mentioned.
So. Don't get your hopes up. Even if it gets made, don't get your hopes up. It could be turned into kiddie toy fodder.
My advice: Go hunt up the books. It is about time they were reprinted anyway.
Stefan
another movie with The Rock in it and another movie that doesn't do justice to the books. why screw up the books with a movie?
_
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Or Sarcasm. LOTR is the first and only book that I liked that has turned into a good movie. Perhaps you are right and it will encourage movie people to keep closer to the intent of the book. But that is not what history has taught me. Puppet Masters. Starship Troopers. Johhny Mnemonic. Etc. I think the crew that brought you The Mummy Returns will deliver eye candy, and little else. OTOH, X-Men was true to the original material...
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...save the bad plot and acting. It was pure entertainment and it was good for what it was. At least with these stories, there may be some actual substance.
So long as they don't cast Encino man.
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slow news day assholes? why would anyone subscribe to this 6 day old hash.
Clampett's work on the project happened a LONG time ago. I'm sure a Google search would turn something up, but I think it was the late 1940s.
Stefan
No wonder people dislike sci-fi so much when crap like this gets made into a movie. I mean seriously, its horrendously outdated adventure crap so its just going to be a big special effects extravaganza with no plot. Here we go with another "Scoprion King" or "Tomb Raider"
I think I've had enough of attempts to bring Burroughs to the screen...
I'm an old ERB fan myself, but let's not forget that he is the author of Tarzan. Frankly, I'm surprised that it's taken Hollywood this long to option up the Barsoom tales. As for the studios "ruining" the stories, well, they sorta ruined Tarzan too, but the end result was, in the long run, still very entertaining.
:)
We're not exactly talking great literature here. Yes, I'm a fan, but I don't delude myself. These are entertaining young-adult action-adventure stories, and as such, the creators of The Mummy seem like a perfectly good choice.
As for Deja Thoris' "nekkid bosoms", well, consider the Tarzan movies, and don't get your hopes up. If they found an exuse to cover Jane's breasts, they'll probably find an excuse to cover Deja Thoris' too. No biggie, if these are popular and produce spinoffs, eventually, a modern Bo Derek will step up to the plate and offer her hooters for the role.
Er, I meant that Brendan Frasier would make a super John Carter.
come on... IMDB is free, get the facts straight.
Yeah, I loved every minute of it. I really loved that jet/rocket powered airship in Returns. Yeah, that was...um....whats the word I'm looking for?
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that's what I get for being flippant.
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Behold the Orphan. Born into a world that is not a world. A digital being grown from a mind seed, a genderless cybernetic citizen in a vast network of probes, satellites, and servers knotting the Solar System into one scape, from the outer planets to the fiery surface of the Sun. Since the Introdus in the 21st century, humanity has reconfigured itself drastically. Most chose immortality, joining the polises to become conscious software. Others opted for gleisners: disposable, renewable robotic bodies that remain in contact with the physical world of force and friction. Many of these have left the Solar System forever in fusion drive starships. And there are the holdouts. The fleshers left behind in the muck and jungle of Earth - some devolved into dream-apes; others cavorting in the seas or the air; while the statics and bridgers try to shape out a roughly human destiny. But the complacency of the citizens is shattered when an unforeseen disaster ravages the fleshers, and reveals the possibility that the polises themselves might be at risk from bizarre astrophysical processes that seem to violate fundamental laws of nature. The Orphan joins a group of citizens and flesher refugees in a search for the knowledge that will guarantee their safety...
I am the very model of a modern major general!
Don't you think Brendan Fraser should get a few props? School Ties, Mrs. Winterbourne, With Honors, Gods and Monsters... hell even The Scout! All were what I would consider A-list acting performances. ESPECIALLY his "big break" in School Ties, as the star Jew on a christian Ivy-prep football team? It was awesome; he could have been bigger than Brad Pitt. Lord knows he looks better and is BUILT better.
But what was he thinking when someone talked him into crap like George of the Jungle and Encino Man? Pauly Shore actually passed as entertainment in this country in the dark ages of the early 90s?!? I can almost Forgive The Mummy Returns because the original was a hit and he was doing a follow-up, but he got seriously wronged by an agent several times in his career. *Cough* Dudley Do-Right *Cough*
I am a straight married man, but I don't know of a stright woman or gay man who can look into Brendan's eyes on screen, when he's laying it all out on the line, and not get all gushy inside. One of my co-workers named her son Brendan for this very reason.
Anyways, enough gushing, back to the discussion.
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Gold AND silver? wow that would be cool.
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Kind of ironic that Billy lived in Lawrence friggin Kansas, on the wrong side of the tracks!
I first read The warlord of mars series when I was 12, I'd love to see it as a movie.
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"The Last Words of Hassan Sabbah"
William S. Burroughs
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Only if Kenny from South Park plays JonKatz.
"Oh my G-d! They killed Katz! You HEROES!"
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It makes me feel icky all over.
Just like that time when Uncle Jim touched me in my private place, out behind his barn.
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If they actually make A Princess of Mars into a movie, it will be worth seeing. Edgar Rice Burroughs deserves to be known for more than Tarzan. His Martian Tales are great adventure novels.
For those who haven't read A Princess of Mars, it goes a bit like this...
John Carter is a calvary captain of the former Confederacy, prospecting in the hills of Arizona in 1866. A strange force draws him across the "trackless immensity of space" to Mars.
He first falls in with a warrior tribe of green Martians. They capture a lovely woman of the more human-like red Martians, with whom Carter falls in love. A rollicking adventure ensues, complete with radium-powered propulsion-ray personal hovercraft, arena combat, princesses and ransoms, treachery and last-minute heroics and a cliff-hanger ending to leave you weeping...
Burroughs spins a fine yarn,and his tech and storylines are already so cinematic that adaptation shouldn't be too difficult. The only thing that they probably will change is that generally the characters wear jeweled harnesses and not much else.
The other funny thing was that the plot was basically indistinguishable from his other famous series, Tarzan.
I can see why Hollywood would want to remake them, though. . .
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Burroughs used to live in my hometown: Parma, Idaho. Population 2000. Here's an article from the Argus Observer (the remaining Parma newspaper died a few years ago).
Tarzan author lived in Parma
Dawn Eden, Argus Observer, July 10, 2000
The Online News & Information Network for the Western Treasure Valley Argus Observer
For more than the past century, famous people have come and gone from Idaho. One man few people know resided in Parma for a short time was Edgar Rice Burroughs, author of "Tarzan."
Burroughs was born in Chicago Sept. 1, 1875, and first came to Idaho in the late 1800s, joining
his brothers in working at Sweetser Ranch, located west of American Falls.
Inside the Old Fort Boise replica in Parma, a historical display about Burroughs describe how he
mended fences and drove cattle at the ranch, before returning to Chicago a year later to finish
school.
After bouncing between Idaho and Chicago, and marrying Emma Hulbert, a childhood neighbor in
Chicago in 1900, Burroughs returned to Idaho for the third, and last time, in 1903.
He was invited by his brothers to rejoin them in Idaho. His brothers, Harry, George and Frank,
along with a man named Louis Sweetser, had reorganized the Yale Dredging Co. into the
Sweetser-Burroughs Mining Co.
It was written when Burroughs arrived in Idaho for the last time, his brothers were operating a gold dredge in the Stanley Basin and on the Snake River in Parma.
Parma historian, the late Lucille Peterson, once wrote that prior to Burroughs' move from
Stanley to Parma in 1903, the Parma residents began making plans for a "village government."
Peterson wrote that during the town election in April 1904, several nominations appeared on the ballot, one of whom was Burroughs, and he won by one vote 49 to 48. He served about one month.
It was published in the "Edgar Rice Burroughs Amateur Press Association" fanzine that Burroughs "had run as an independent but had still managed to secure enough votes to edge his way in.
"Burroughs recalled, I button-holed every voter that I met, told him that I was running for
office and that I did not want to be embarrassed by not getting a single vote and asking him as a personal favor to cast his vote for me, with the result that enough of them tried to save me from embarrassment to cause my election.'"
Peterson wrote she agreed that Burroughs' decision to run as an independent was probably how he got the votes. Parma, she told one of the contributing authors of the "Edgar Rice Burroughs
Amateur Press Association" fanzine, was at that time an intensely political town with two competing newspapers one Democrat and one Republican. An Independent offered an extra choice to members of both parties.
Burroughs served with the Parma town government only a short time, and after the dredging company went bankrupt, he left Idaho for the last time, moving to Utah for a job as a railroad policeman.
He eventually ended up in California where he spent the rest of his life writing.
Burroughs began his writing career when he was in his mid 30s while he was proofreading advertising for "pulp magazines" in California. It was written that his "eyes strayed to an adjoining column of the magazine, a bit of fiction, and he quickly decided that he could write imaginary tales more appealing than that one."
It was at that time he wrote, "Under the Moons of Stars," and mailed it to an All Story magazine editor, who sent Burroughs $4 for a six-part series.
In 1912, Burroughs began writing "Tarzan of the Apes." When he wrote "Tarzan," All Story
Magazine purchased it for $7, and two years later it was published as a book.
The first "Tarzan" movie was released in 1918.
The story of Tarzan begins with his parents, "John Clayton," Lord Greystroke of England, and his wife, the former "Hon. Alice Rutherford." Lady Alice was pregnant when the ship, carrying the couple to her husband's mission in Africa, sinks and the couple ends up on the coast.
Their son was born in 1888, and she passed away about a year later.
Lord Greystroke died a short time later.
Upon his parents' death, the child, named John Clayton after his father, is adopted by a gray ape named "Kala." Kala's mate, "Tublat," is jealous of the child and makes his life as miserable as he can.
By the time Tarzan, named so by Kala, is 10 years old, he has the strength of a man in his
prime, but he is far more agile.
He teaches himself to read and print in English, and when he is in his late teens, he encounters Caucasians.
Tarzan is returned to civilization by the Frenchman Paul d'Arnot, and eventually marries an American, Jane Porter.
Before Burroughs died March 19, 1950, at the age of 74, he wrote more than 20 books about Tarzan. All together, he was the author of more than 80 adventure stories.
During the years he lived in Idaho, Burroughs was not a writer, but when he became one in later years, he did not forget this region of the country and used characters and locales from the area in his stories.
In an article Peterson wrote about Burroughs, she quotes him as once saying he had not learned a single rule for writing fiction. "I wrote stories which I feel would entertain me, knowing that there are millions of people just like me.
The Old Fort Boise replica in Parma is home to the Tarzan' author Edgar Rice Burroughs
historical display. About six years ago, the display was created with the history of the
author's life in Parma. The display also contains old Tarzan' magazines and books about the famed character Burroughs created.
Copyright 2000 Wick Communications, Inc.
Title says all.
they'll put brendan frasier in as Deja Thoris
apparently the movie will be called John Carter of Mars.r s
there's a countdown to the movie at http://www.countingdown.com/movies/johncarterofma
You're thinking of the original Lost World. The Land that Time Forgot is an ERB title.
"Hardly used" will not fetch you a better price for your brain.
As I recall, around the time this story was written, Radium with the Spiffy New Thing. As I recall from my readings of the "Blahblahblah of Mars" series many, many years ago, I seem to recall that science-fictiony stuff throughout was "Radium powered", from guns that shot radium bullets to Radium-powered lights. In the "Real World", at the same time, Radium turned into a health(!) fad. The Museum of Questionable Medical Devices has bits and pieces related to this, including a box from the time labelled as containing Radium Suppositories (No joke!)
The website above has a couple of pictures of other Radium related "health" things, as well as a bunch of other rather mind-boggling things...
I hope the filmmakers KEEP the absurd "Radium" stuff in the movie, frankly (as well as any other "early-1900's sci-fi" elements of style) rather than doing something screwy to make it more "modern"...
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I haven't seen it yet, and I many never see it, but it doesn't look like there are any mummies in the movie, which is why the title is The Scorpion King.
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Maybe with all the new Slashdot advert. income, /. could buy in for a 'hot grits' shot??
Now, really, WHO would make the best Dejah? the best Princess?
I just really want to see one of the four-armed green guys!!
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Before I actually went to the site, I thought they were referring to William Bourrough's work.. Can you imagine Naked Lunch redone by the producers of The Mummy?
I'd like to see the Rock play a mugwump
..is by cramming the words through your eyes into your brain
You don't think the technology exists to bore the hell out of people for a few hours?
In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is kinky.
Until we can cheaply send a whole bunch of actors into orbit, I can't see the "Smoke Ring" or "Integral Trees" movies being made. You could try to pull of the trees with CGI, and try to do the zero-G a few minutes a time in a thoroughly blue-screened Vomet Comet, but I'll bet the result would suck.
Crap, looks like someone already got Burrough's Martian Tales. They signed and now we're going to lose our funding. Unless... Okay get this how about "William S. Burroughs's Tales of Martians?" We can get the option cheap. It'll interest sci-fi geeks, get in the arthouse crowd, and bring in the perverts. Lets get cracking on this. Props: I want to see a penis shaped raygun by next week. Writers: Get me a screenplay and then hire some temps to cut out sections and paste them on a whiteboard while wearing blindfolds. Make sure the final version has someone playing a flute with his ass.
Fake name, production manager.
Jerry Busey as ELRIC!!!
don't make me gag....
Can you seriously imagine Mr. Moorcock's dialog turned into a movie? esp the Elric books....
Now the Runestaff.... you could get that huge guy who always plays the 'wawwior' with the big chest to be Count Brass...
Project Gutenberg has all of Burrough's works available in electronic format.
Princess of Mars
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At one time I was so addicted to the Warlord of Mars series I read practically nothing else. For some strange reason my dad had a collection of the first three books in one volume sitting on a shelf in his library (aka my bedroom), and one day I discovered it. Normally, I completely ignored his books because they were mostly really boring things, but the cover caught my attention. His books all came from the book of the month club, I guess, because he didn't want to waste time finding books on his own. If I hadn't pulled Warlord of Mars off the shelf, it never would have been read and would surely have ended up at Goodwill.
I took it with me when I left home to go live in the woods for the summer after high school. It was the only thing I had to read, other than the 10 year old magazines lying around the camp I stayed at. If only I had brought all of the books in the series with me, I would have had something else to read after the first week. I ended up reading it something like 5 times that summer.
And now - this. I've always hoped they would make a Warlord of Mars movie, and I've always dreaded it. It's always a crapshoot when Hollywood gets a hold of something you cherish, except the odds are far worse than craps. Looks like they've rolled snake eyes this time. How could they do this?! How could they hand something this precious to the Mummy idiots? Their first mummy movie sucked, and the second one was one of the worst movies I've ever seen (if not *the* worst). Just watch, they'll have some dipshit like the Rock as John Carter and Pamela Anderson as Dejah Thoris. Or some doughboy like Kevin Costner and a wench like Cameron Diaz. Oh god, I feel ill.
Okay, melodrama aside, it's going to be a disaster. Why not give it to someone who makes quality action/fantasy films instead of just someone who can rake in the $$? How about Peter Jackson, who's already shown he can adapt classic fantasy to the big screen?
Anybody remeber No Holds Barred starring Hulk Hogan? I have a feeling The Mummy will be just as memorable. This does not bode well.
Trolls, it must be cool to be that bored.
I have already seen some of his stories (some chapters of one of his books, which I guess is the first) on TV. It was on the USA Network (Brazil).
USA Network is SciFi Channel, as far as I gathered, or buy a lot of stuff from it.
But if it is to became a movie, with good f/x, this is really something to look forward to.
morcego
The recent trends seem to lean towards a certain amount of plausibility required in a sci-fi movie based in our own solar system. Despite the classic value of the tales, I find it difficult to believe Hollywood's going to resurrect the "little green men" of yesteryear.
The latest stuff I can think (Red Planet for example) of builds on what we know of Mars and attempts to work in that context. Granted, occasional leaps involving super-advanced aliens are involved, but the Mars depicted is the post-Viking Mars nonetheless. The Mars of ERB does not match our current notions. Pathfinder in particular seems to have changed the awareness and depiction of Mars (and our relationship with the red planet) in fiction. I don't think a Barsoom movie could be done today any more than Lucky Starr and the Oceans of Venus. I could be wrong -- after all, The Martian Chronicles was produced not long after Viking...
The thing that made this book so great was Ray Bradbury's amazing prose. Without it, that book would have been nothing more than pulp sci-fi.
Those words filled the storys with adventure, wonder, longing and fear.
It would be very hard, but not impossible to transfer the heart of this book into film. The best we can hope for is that there's some wonderful director out there who loves the film and ends up making it.
I remember that 80s version (w/ Rock Hudson) and it was a pretty much a joke. I love this book and would be sad to see it hacked up again. Especially when the images I get from the prose is far better than anything they could come up with.
Then I did a search and found this link to a yahoo auction and was sadly disappointed to find that the whole series isn't worth more than fifty bucks. Wow. I guess I'll just keep them.
I don't see anyone else commenting on the 1979 miniseries of the Martian Chronicles. I remember watching it at the time, and I wasn't terribly impressed. I haven't read the books, though. Does anyone else remember the miniseries?
Thankyou VERY much indeed!
**>>BELCH