Goin’ for the movies

It all started when Jim Winter posted a screed a few days back about what restrictions he’d put upon those enterprising folks who might want to adapt his Nick Kepler novels for the screen:

Now, I realize a bad movie is one of the risks of selling your film rights. I accept that. However, I do have some conditions that have to be met, like all percentages are based on the GROSS, not the NET. (Remember Forrest Gump? Top grossing film that summer? It turned a profit until the author asked for his cut. “Two percent of the net? Oh, we, um… lost money on that. Yeah.”) Another is that they cannot change the setting. I write about Cleveland. The stories are set in Cleveland, and I’ll damned if I allow someone to put “Based on the novel by James R. Winter” in the credits if the goddamned thing is set in Miami and shot in Toronto.

And then there’s the question of directors. I have a Forbidden List. This list is not open to discussion or negotiation. Period. These directors are simply forbidden to have anything to do with a film based on my work. This is why I mentioned Catwoman. The director, Pitof, tops the Forbidden List. Basically, Pitof took the outline of the original Spiderman movie, moved some things around, and forgot to write a script around it. Result? No character development and a lot of really bad editing. The quick cuts he uses give me headaches.

Not to be outdone, the newly agented Ray Banks follows up with his thoughts on the matter, agreeing with some of Jim’s points but disagreeing about an overall “Forbidden List.” He sums things up in his typical go-for-the-jugular style:

Hopefully within the next decade I should have enough books out there to garner a wage I can live on. That’s the point. Not that I have any particular artistic principle, but that I want the books out there in as many people’s hands as possible. And I want to be paid for it. It’s the best job in the world, and I’ve hit the second interview stage. But you don’t go asking when’s the earliest you can take holidays in a second interview.

Damn, ain’t that the truth.

Personally, I can’t much disagree with the “take the money and run” approach, because Hollywood’s going to mutate and distort the original book even if they do their best not to do so. A 400 page manuscript is a totally different animal from a 120-page screenplay, even–perhaps especially–when the author is doing the distilling. Roger L. Simon adapted his first Moses Wine novel, THE BIG FIX, for the big screen, but even that movie wasn’t a complete retelling of the original story–things had to change, some things were cut, other things added. The overall result worked for the most part, but it was no verbatim translation of the book by a longshot.

As a final thought, I’m reminded of a story about what Joseph Koenig (who will eventually be featured as a Disappeared Author here) allegedly said when he heard the news from his agent, Knox Burger, that his second novel, LITTLE ODESSA, had been optioned by Tri-Star as a vehicle for Demi Moore.

“Demi who?” said Koenig.

Burger: “Demi Moore. They’re grooming her.”

Koenig: “How much?”

Burger: “A hundred thousand option against five hundred thousand.”

Koenig: “She’s perfect for the part!”