DreamWorks Picks up Neil Gaimans' Interworld

Lisandro writes to tell us Geeks of Doom is reporting that author Neil Gaiman recently announced DreamWorks has optioned the film rights for his upcoming novel, 'Interworld'. "Gaiman said that in 1996 he began working with Michael Reaves on the idea for a story 'about a boy who finds himself in the middle of a war between two equally powerful forces, who joins a super-team consisting of versions of himself from different alternate realities to try and maintain the cosmic balance.' Soon after, the idea was pitched to DreamWorks and other studios, but was turned down."

Comments

Confused

[wiggles]

I am most likely not alone in not knowing the significance of this. It made the front page, but I've never heard of either the author or the novel -- and I'd like to think I'm fairly up on this type of thing. Could someone who knows please enlighten us as to what the big deal is here?

Okay... So let me get this right

[Colin Smith]

The premise of the novel is that it's better to have a permanent, eternal and unwinnable war between two opposing forces than it is to join one side, defeat the other side and have a subsequent eternity of peace?

Re:Okay... So let me get this right

[TheRaven64]

Depends on the weapons the war is fought with. An economic 'war' fought between rival corporations, for example, is better than a monopoly in a lot of ways. The Cold War, with the associated accelerated rate of technological growth, was almost certainly better than a McCarthyite or Soviet super-state.

Re:Movie futures

[TheRaven64]

I've been saying for a long time this is how TV should be made. Make a pilot, and put it out for the public to view. Set up an escrow fund where people who like the pilot (or, if it's an established writer / producer like their other work) can put up some cash. If it reaches the amount needed to make the series within a given timeframe then the funds are released and the series is made. The final product is then released for download to the people who paid for it, who can then distribute it as they want (you're paying for the item to be created, rather than for the copy, because that's the thing that has the real value).

Copyright would still protect you from derived works, so if the series is successful then people are likely to be willing to pay for a sequel and the original author is the only one who can make it.

Re:hopefully...

[Ganesh999]

I can't agree with the implied criticism of "MirrorMask". I simply loved it, so did my wife.

Sure it lacked mass appeal; it was very much an "art-house" feel, and the cast of only 7 or so people ensured that the film felt more like a screenplay (not necessarily a bad thing in my opinion - check out "Dogville").

But the plot was inventive and quintessentially Gaiman, and the acting was top notch. Costumes and sets were simple but well thought out, and seeing Dave McKean's usual style of artwork transformed from the static page to cgi was absolutely jaw-dropping; it felt like 3D, somehow.

Weirder, both the wife and I had really powerful, lucid dreams that night. How many blockbusters can you say *that* about?

Original.

Conrad