From personal experience and discussion with other informed voices in the film community, I’ve developed a shorthand set of thumb rules: ten film commandments, my decem praecepta. This series of articles breaks down what I’m on about.

Continuing on:

“5. Remember the source material to keep it holy.”

💀

Whether it’s for an adaptation, a franchise reboot, or a movie sequel, an intellectual property (IP) has intrinsic value, aka someone believes they can wring more profit out of it. The problem most often comes down to art vs. money, but if you’re trying to capitalize on the existing fanbase, why wouldn’t filmmakers be charged with doing everything in their power to make those fans happy and create a blockbuster hit?

A big one for novel adaptations is transferring story locations; for practical films, this may be a cost-saving measure, but story nuances are lost. Antlers was based upon a short story set in West “By God” Virginia, but the film transferred the setting to Oregon… exactly where you’d expect an Appalachian wendigo to be lurking in an abandoned coal mine, right? Worse yet, rewriting a supporting role to replace the main character because a name actor was hired, even if it makes no sense at all; the protagonist in Those Who Wish Me Dead in the novel is the boy Conner — the title is from his POV — but his character was gutted to an empty husk when Angelina Jolie was cast.

There’s also the reimagining by a director or filmmaker, which writers like Harlan Ellison (rightfully) take personally: “I hate when a director says to me ‘Here’s how I envision this scene.’ Excuse me?! It’s right here in the script — I ‘envisioned’ it FOR you. Do what I wrote. If you want to ‘envision,’ you should become a writer. Where the f*** were you when the page was blank?” It can get weird, too, like the live-action Super Mario Bros with Lance Henriksen as (not kidding) King Bowser and Toad (short for “Toadstool”) becoming a lizard man instead of a mushroom. Ever see Ang Lee’s Hulk? Don’t.

Novelist Stephen King famously disliked Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining, among other things for purging Jack Torrance of his humanity to focus on the monster, never mind leaving the real monster — the Overlook Hotel — entirely intact. After the sequel was published, director Mike Flanagan not only made a superior film with Doctor Sleep but retconned Kubrick’s film to make Jack less of a monster and put the Overlook down for good. Often a keen understanding of the source material improves translation to film, especially for those extra-thick King novels like The Stand that otherwise would never fit into a film’s runtime.

There are many properties ripe for an audience that have never seen the cinematic light of a theater, like The Chronicles of Amber, Wendy and Richard Pini’s ElfQuest (finally getting the ball rolling after 40 years), and why hasn’t anyone licensed “Thundarr the Barbarian” as a post-apocalyptic franchise? Even the best ideas could do with a modern rework with today’s filmmaking technology; while we loved Michael York, be honest: isn’t it time for a proper Logan’s Run movie?

Disclaimer: these are my opinions; feel free to articulate your own. 💀

Up next:

“6. Honor the filmography of thy father and thy mother.”

---

---