Kathy Bates
One huge fantasy of mine is to have Maven made into a movie, starring Kathy Bates as Maven and Susan Sarandon as Fiona, produced by Jerry Bruckheimer and directed by Gore Verbinski.
Might as well dream big. Some movies are actually more entertaining than the book, although that’s not the way to bet. I thought the changes made to the Lord of the Rings series, especially the expansion of the female characters, was a great improvement over the original, which I’m fairly sure would not be published now without copious cuts.
Then again, I’ve read the unexpurgated version of Stranger in a Strange Land, and every editorial cut of Heinlein’s rants were righteous. I’d love to see someone—maybe the Wachowski brothers or Silent Bob–make Stranger into a movie. What a great uproar that would make among the fundies.
One movie that did a wonderful job portraying a book was the Princess Bride, although the bride never made it to princess. Even after many watchings, the phrasing, the casting, even the colors are perfect. I was on a panel discussing this movie at ConCarolinas, and everyone in the audience had a favorite phrase from this movie that was used in daily conversation.
A lesser known movie/book combination was Peter Beagle’s The Last Unicorn. While some of the layers were flattened, the oveall story worked very well and the artwork was beautiful. The only unfortunate part was the singing of the unicorn/princess voiced by Mia Farrow. The soundtrack by America is lovely too.
So I dream on, hoping to build the kind of audience that would support such a venture. They say it only takes 1,000 raving fans. Only 986 to go. Become one.
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