Networks are too caught up in franchises--I think they'll learn (as loathe as I am to admit it, even the fact that the Once Upon a Time spin off is being billed as a limited series seems to foretell this.)

An Easton Ellis campus based series could work really well--as you say, without his involvement. I trust you were joking about Silas Marner, but a Middlemarch based piece would as well (actually with all the UK Downton obsession, I'd be shocked if this isn't in the works already.)

Rob Thomas is doing a modern-day Les Mis.

http://www.deadline.com/2013/08/present-day-take-on-les-miserables-from-rob-thomas-lands-at-fox-with-penalty/

I had NO idea about the "Les Miz" update, Carl. Rob Thomas is only producing, though, which has me feeling tentative for some reason.

You know, Eric, George Eliot's "Middlemarch" would be PERFECT as the basis of an ongoing, serialized drama. And if not "Middlemarch" specifically, then I'd love to see any dramatic series about life in a provincial English village around the same time period (as the old, rural customs were giving way to the industrial and the "new"). It'd take a lot of period research, but I think it'd be the best marriage of period/historical drama and trashy soap opera since "Downton Abbey".

Edited October 13, 201312 yr by Khan

I trust you were joking about Silas Marner

Half-joking. "Silas Marner" is a great story, but since everything these days seems to be set in a dystopian society....

I'd also be interested in someone adapting Maurice to a series (with some changes, like his lusting after the family doctor's nephew - no real need to have that now) - seeing Downton Abbey-style production values with a lush gay melodrama would fascinate me. And seeing a Clive/Maurice/Scudder triangle, which the movie and book never went into...I know, realistically, that would never have happened, but secretly, I always wanted to see it.

Lord of the Flies, as a season-long mini-series.

Any of Thomas Hardy's novels, especially Far From the Madding Crowd and Tess of the D'Urbervilles.

Also, MTV or ABC Family or The CW or whoever needs to get on creating a modern combination of Go Ask Alice and Jay's Journal.

It would be tough for me to see anything but the Julie Christie/Alan Bates Far From the Madding Crowd. I know the movie got a mixed response, but they were so beautiful, as was the cinematography.

I'd like to see a modern day spin on "The Lottery."

South Park spoofed it a couple seasons ago in the episode "Britney's New Look." I know that's not what you meant but you should check it out -- top notch satire.

My answer is "I, Claudius" as an HBO or Showtime series. I LOVE the original 70s miniseries so much, and on some levels a contemporary remake with an actual budget wouldn't be able to equal it, but it's still something I'd love to see. They could be less faithful to the novel like "True Blood" was in order to make it run for years and years.

Thomas Hardy is exactly who came to mind for me too--probably cuz I just finished a paper on Tess. But that would be so depressing... Hrmmm

MTV did a horrible rock musical of Wuthering Heights about ten years back re-using Jim Steinman songs (I kid you not...)

I'm all about drab, depressing English countryside drama lol I remember A&E airing the 1998 LWT Tess mini-series in the early morning hours one week when I was in high school, and I watched it, thinking I'd stumbled upon some unknown British soap. This was before I'd actually read it or known that it was a novel.

Frankly, I'm surprised no network has seized upon a chance to turn the "Arabian Nights" into a series. You have the framework (Scheherazade tells her stories for "1001 nights"), the hook or gimmick (she must keep Shahryar entertained -- OR SHE'LL DIE!!!), and a plethora of mini-arcs (each of her stories, lushly dramatized -- perhaps by a sort of repertory company of actors, "American Horror Story" style).

It could be part soap opera, part romantic drama (as the king and his new bride play that will-they-or-won't-they game), part adventure, part mystery (are the stories Scheherazade telling clues that point to some diabolical plot or conspiracy?)...it could have a little bit of everything.

Your Arabian Nights idea instantly makes me think of a similar set-up for The Canterbury Tales, though I guess "Wagon Train" kinda touched on the theme of a group of people traveling together with each episode focusing on one individual traveler.

These are not considered literary classics, but someone needs to do something one or more of Lois Duncan's canon of YA horror novels. With the current obsession with the genre, particularly among teens and twentysomethings, it's surprising that we haven't seen any new adaptations of her stuff. Of course, a few of her books have already been done for TV or the screen -- I Know What You Did Last Summer (she hated it), Killing Mr. Griffin (she loved it), Stranger with My Face, Summer of Fear -- but most of those strayed away from the source material considerably.

Oh, my gosh -- "The Kidnapping of Christina Lattimore," by Joan Lowery Nixon. Now THERE is a YA novel that could be adapted for a series. Same could go for "The Other Side of Dark."

Oh! Wait! The Madeline L'Engle novels! Anyone remember those? "A Wrinkle in Time" and all the sequels? And what about Susan Cooper's "Dark is Rising" stuff? Anyone else think THOSE could make good source material for a series?

Edited October 13, 201312 yr by Khan

With dystopian novels & shows being extremely popular right now, I think they should do a miniseries on Brave New World or Fahrenheit 451. These (along with Lord of the Flies as aforementioned) are classic novels for the genre.

I'd add Madame Bovary, Dracula, and Lolita too-a telenovela/miniseries-esque show.

So funny because last Spring I did my undergraduate capstone on Brave New World, Lord of the Flies, and Catching Fire, an ecocritical analysis on all three works.

Edited October 13, 201312 yr by Nothin'ButAttitude

And what about Susan Cooper's "Dark is Rising" stuff? Anyone else think THOSE could make good source material for a series?

Love, love, love those books! And you're right, they have the potential for an awesome series.

The book "The Dark Is Rising" was of course made into a movie a few years ago, probably to try and capitalize on the Harry Potter-movies, and it was absolutely awful. I can't find the words to describe how disappointed I was after seeing it. They had removed so much of what made the book so good, and it had turned into the most awful piece of Hollywood trash imaginable.

So if they were to make a series of the books they would have to stick much closer to the actual source material. If not, I'd rather they just leave them alone.

1984

Flowers in the Attic

Farenheitt 451

Othello

Catcher in the Rye (Ok, I know it will be impossible but......)

DUNE

Edited October 13, 201312 yr by allmc2008