How enthusiastic are you about a WoT Movie?

[RAND AL THOR]

If a WOT movie is ever made, how enthusiastic would you be about watching it?

 

Personall, I likely would not watch it. I dislike books being turned into movies because MY 'visual view' of the characters is lost, as the Thin Inkeeper mentioned recently in another thread.

 

Several have been very disappointing. Harry Potter, Narnia have been let downs. LOTR was great but that is really an exception.

 

I also heavily dislike the fact that storylines are changed in movies to make it more exciting.

 

If a WoT movie is made though, I would likely wait for a LOT of positive comments from you guys on this site before watching it. ;)

 

EDIT: Sorry about Narnia. IT is a typo. I found narnia to be great. I mean to say the Golden Compass-that book was great but the movies really sucked. I guess I expected too much.

[Ahaz Flagg]

I would love to see a well done Movie on this, the issue would be, who could make it?  No one that I could think of, not and stay true to the books.  Any movie of WoT would have to be a digital movie, which I think would benifit the movie maker, as it would allow them to do all the things that make this series so good.  The thing that I think would never get this off the ground is the fact that are 12 books, each book could fill enough for two long movies, no company would be willing to spend the kind of cash to make these movies and stay true to form.  I do not think that they would allow the movies to made any other way.  So I will have to stick with the movie i make in my mind while reading the books.

[Guest Dreadlord]

I think it would be ruined completely if made into movies. Theres no way they would find the right actors and as always with films made from books they would leave bits out that would leave us disappointed.

 

Has anyone heard about Terry Goodkinds Wizards First rule, aparantly theres going to be a TV series made on it. WFR is a story on its own (the other books are spinoffs with the same characters) and I heard that the TV series for Wizards First Rule would be 20-odd episodes. Wizards First Rule is about the same size as the average WoT book. Can you imagine how many episodes WoT would end up being if they made it into a TV series? Hundreds. And judging from the fact that they would probably show only one episode a week, we would be watching the series for years.

 

I just cant see it being good enough either way.

[Almearafan]

I would personally LOVE to see a movie / mini-series made out of the series.  But there would be a LOT or ground to cover, and unfortunately a LOT would probably get cut.

 

[sombrastewart]

No, I'm not interested in seeing this series made committed to film...

 

How in God's name was Narnia a letdown?  They were extremely faithful adaptations.

[Shaidar_Rannow]

Though I am not willing to condemn a film not yet made I dont think I would watch it, at least not in theaters. Seriously though, I have definately come to terms with the fact that it more than likely will not happen. If it did they would do a sup par job and it would ruin the series totally. Though it could be done with animation, I am not sure I like the idea of the books being adapted to any type of film since the creator died.

[Bob T Dwarf]

The Rule-of-Thumb for movies and TV is that one page of script equals one minute of film.

 

A number of these books run to over 700 pages in Hardcover.

 

If entirely faithful to the books, and assuming tight editing, and assuming that everything given to exposition about places and wardrobe wouldn't occupy screen time, that'd still be four plus hours worth of film per book.  Twelve books for the entire series.  48 hours plus of film.  Probably more like 60 hours.

 

With decent production values, quality CGI, a properly competent cast and crew, it shouldn't take more than one or two billion dollars to shoot that much footage.  Whether either we or the cast and crew would live long enough to see it to completion is the question.

 

So, who's up for it?  I got about 39 cents in my pocket to help out with that budget.

 

 

 

[RAND AL THOR]

How in God's name was Narnia a letdown?  They were extremely faithful adaptations.

 

I am EXTREMELY SORRY!!! I loved Narnia- I was thinking of the Golden Compass.

 

The Golden Compass movie was just %$#@&*!

His Dark Materials trilogy is one of my most favourite series and I was SO looking forward to the movie and-it-was-HORRIBLE!

 

Apologies again for the error: Narnia was great!

 

I'll go back and edit it. Thanks for helping me spot the error sombrastewart!

[RAND AL THOR]

Theres no way they would find the right actors and as always with films made from books they would leave bits out that would leave us disappointed.

 

ABSOLUTELY TRUE!

[FootstepsofDeath]

Honestly, it would be pretty amazing if done right. However, I think they should do it in cartoon or anime style. Preferably anime. The characters drawn and detailed in that style because if they find a crappy actor for Rand then the whole thing is crap. Also, it'd have to be extremely long. I think they'd definitely break it up into a bunch of movies. They'd also need someone to direct it that is an OBSESSED fan of the books. Hell...I think if I directed it, it'd be very good, or just about anyone here that REALLY loves the series.

[sombrastewart]

How in God's name was Narnia a letdown?  They were extremely faithful adaptations.

 

I am EXTREMELY SORRY!!! I loved Narnia- I was thinking of the Golden Compass.

 

The Golden Compass movie was just %$#@&*!

His Dark Materials trilogy is one of my most favourite series and I was SO looking forward to the movie and-it-was-HORRIBLE!

 

Apologies again for the error: Narnia was great!

 

I'll go back and edit it. Thanks for helping me spot the error sombrastewart!

 

I was terribly confused by that.  :)

 

Honestly, it would be pretty amazing if done right. However, I think they should do it in cartoon or anime style. Preferably anime.

 

No, please.  Honestly, I believe that would turn off a great many people, myself included.  Restricting what is supposed to be a broad-base appeal to a style that historically (in terms of film) doesn't go with the genre wouldn't be a good move.

[RAND AL THOR]

One key reason why I think a WOT movie would not be popular it this:

There is only one book left to come out.

 

eg Harry Potter- several books were still due for release when the first movie came out. Since then, the releases of the consecutive books has kept HP popular among fans-and so the movies too made some money. Now, after the last book is out- expectation and interest are dropping. HP mania is over. I really am not looking forward to the last remaining HP movies.

 

The same would likely happen to WOT but on a much worse scale since there are TWELVE books and each one is LONG.

 

I can't forsee any director with any brains at all doing this.

[Nightstrike]

I would love to see a TV-series (or maybe a series of WoT movies). I could even take some adaptation to screen story-telling. I love the books, but I'm well aware that adaptations would be needed. I don't know who could do the WoT justice, though. I'm sure there must be a lot of capable people out there. I think the major obstacle for making me happy about such a project would be the producer's budget. Lots and lots of splendid special effects would be needed - and that doesn't come cheap!

[The true source]

i think the only way it work with all the massive material to cover would be if another george lucas showed up and did it like they did star wars. I havent read any of the star wars books but as far as lots of material they had lots of moivies and the turned out pretty well.

[Jonn]

I'm with Bob in that the major obstacle here is simply the staggering cost and the logistics.

 

For example, HBO spent over 100 million U.S. on the series Rome, just on the first season.

 

In my mind it yielded mixed results. While at times it did feel quite epic, you could tell that there was a strain in certain areas such as huge crowd scenes and CGI with the proper scope. You mostly had contained shots of a lot of people in a small space suggesting that there are more just off screen. Not acceptable when you're doing an epic about a civilization. Also battle scenes were short and similarly contained with rarely a shot that involved more than a few hundred extras with horses.

 

Also from HBO you had the miniseries Band of Brothers. Now, this series was overall, excellent, with scope that worked, special effects and top of the line costumes, good acting and writing. A home run. I read the notes about it and the budget for that project was $12 million per episode, but this was back in 2000.

 

I have my qualms about the film and television industry and how it's been basically gearing the industry to be exclusive to those with the connections and money to produce projects. To me the technology should have caught up by now so that filming digitally would be more cost-effective. One gets the impression that the industry is inflating the costs in order to hedge profit, and keep independent participation in check. This is unfortunate.

 

There are artists out there with vision and creativity with no recourse but to trust that the ones with the money are going to believe in that vision and be fair to the project. Yet the astronomical costs involved hang over any project like a sword above the neck. These arts are rapidly becoming dominated not by artists, but bankers and power-brokers, whose best interests lie in hiking up the production costs in order to maintain ultimate control of the product.

 

We can see example even in book publishing. Even innocuous as Brandon Sanderson presents it, there are already signs of interference between RJ's final vision of A Memory of Light and the publishing company. He simply suggested what he thought might occur, but Sanderson hinted that if the book ran longer than he expected, the publisher might split the work into two volumes, regardless of the fact that Jordan, in some of his final comments to his fans, ardently pushed to release the final book in one volume. Again, the cost is set up to dictate what the artist is capable of doing, not because it isn't possible, but because of what the distributor thinks is profitable for them. 

 

So, my point is, it's not that it isn't actually physically feasible to do the project. It's just not profitable the way the industry operates.

One would think that after the success of Lord of the Rings and how groundbreaking their production methods were, that a project like The Wheel of Time would be a no-brainer for consideration, but I actually think that the industry pretty much sunk these hopes by releasing so many of these fantasy movies at once, saturating the market. Same thing happened with the Matrix. Soon everyone copied the style of that first Matrix film until basically everyone was over the sci-fi kung fu action genre.

As it stands now, there's only so many films you can stand to watch involving magic and the word "epic", with swords and evil lords to vanquish.

 

I really do think that the world is missing out on fantasy with a more adult sensibility, that treats the story like a history. The wheel of Time reshapes and challenges the motifs of the genre while staying true to it.

 

As for a series based on Wheel of Time...My initial estimate would be that season one could cover the whole of book one within 10 hours and might cost up to $120-150 million.

 

If costs stay the same, as Bob projected, you're looking at around 2 billion dollars to produce the entire series. So, yeah...

[Guest Dreadlord]

QUOTE

I really do think that the world is missing out on fantasy with a more adult sensibility, that treats the story like a history. The wheel of Time reshapes and challenges the motifs of the genre while staying true to it.

UNQUOTE

 

I agree completely. Wheel of Time is obviously aimed at the more adult reader, someone who is more likely to pick up on the hints and hidden meanings etc. Another thing that makes the set so good, so NOT-fairytale-like is the way RJ didnt use any of the standard fantasy words for magic and such like. There is no "magic" and "casting spells," no "wizards" or "witches" etc that isnt an easy thing to do, to avoid all the usual words, and since reading the set all the standard words seem to childish now

[Corbett]

I would definatly go see the movie but for the sole purpose of being pissed off and being able to tear the movie apart. It is kinda like an obsession for me. I go to movies knowing that they are goin to be bad and I do it just to be pissed off and tell everyone near me how they messed it up. My family hates it. OH! Eragon was one of the worse book to movie adaptaions ever.

[Snowy Dawn]

Corbett writeth: ``I would definitely go see the movie but for the sole purpose of being pissed off and being able to tear the movie apart. It is kinda like an obsession for me. I go to movies knowing that they are going to be bad and I do it just to be pissed off and tell everyone near me how they messed it up.''

 

Perhaps you are going to the wrong movies? Did you have the same reaction to, for example, <i>Citizen Kane</i>? Does this reaction only arise from bad movies adapted from fantasy books?

[Razor]

If there was a movie, it would cut out a lot.  I do not see a movie for each book.  That would never happen.

[maximuswynn]

Nobody better amke a movie or I'll beat them sensless!They'll demean the books and that's herecy.

[Corbett]

I have not seen Citizen Kane, but the sick thing is that I really like to do tear the movies apart. Its what I do.

[Lille]

I believe Jonn hit it spot on there.

 

I can say I wouldnt be to optimistic about it if there was a movie or TV series made out of the books, im sure i would watch it but not with high expectations thats for sure ;P  Look what they did both to the Harry Potter movies and especially Eragon. Horrible.