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

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: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.