While it was a worldwide success and displays some bold and ambitious storytelling that could look amazing on screen, it always seemed that there was little chance of David Mitchell's best-seller "Cloud Atlas" ever making it to screens. Indeed, Mitchell himself told the New Yorker recently, "As I was writing 'Cloud Atlas,' I thought, 'It's a shame this is unfilmable.' "
But never underestimate the ambitions of filmmakers, because today sees the release of the movie version of "Cloud Atlas," a multi-year, big-budget labor of love from the three filmmakers: Andy and Lana Wachowski ("The Matrix") and Tom Tykwer ("Perfume"). Featuring an all-star cast of Tom Hanks, Halle Berry, Jim Sturgess, Bae Doona, Ben Whishaw, Jim Broadbent, Susan Sarandon and Hugh Grant, the film's been wildly divisive among critics, some praising it as one of the best films of the year, some, including ourselves, calling it an ambitious failure, or worse.
But whatever you think of it, Tykwer and the Wachowskis seem to have demonstrated once again that there's no such thing as "unfilmable." And to celebrate that, as we did with the release of David Cronenberg's "Cosmopolis" a few months back, we've put together another five so-called "unfilmable" novels that made it to the screen, and five more that either nearly did or are still on the way. Read on below, and let us know any unfilmable favorites of your own you'd like to see on screen in the comments section.
5 That Were Made
"Tristram Shandy: A Cock And Bull Story" (2006)
Of all the unadaptable works of fiction that actually have made it to the screen, Laurence Sterne's novel "The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman," published in nine volumes between 1759 and 1767, might have been the toughest nut to crack. Ostensibly the biography of a fairly ordinary man, the titular Tristram, who sets out to narrate his own life from birth, the pleasures of the novel comes from the way that Shandy constantly procrastinates and gets sidetracked, to the extent that he's not even born until Volume III. It can be a frustrating (but rewarding) read, but the digressions are such that no one had ever really thought to turn it into a film. Until Michael Winterbottom, Steve Coogan and screenwriter Frank Cottrell Boyce, the team behind the great "24 Hour Party People," decided to have a go. Their version, "A Cock And Bull Story" (or in the U.S. "Tristram Shandy: A Cock And Bull Story") is a meta-fictional delight that sees Coogan, as himself, taking the lead in more traditional adaptation of the novel, directed by Winterbottom surrogate Mark (Jeremy Northam). Mixing scenes from the film-within-the-film, and behind the scenes shenanigans featuring a who's-who of British talent like Roger Allam, Naomie Harris, Gillian Anderson, Dylan Moran and, best of all, Rob Brydon (whose part grows as production on the fictional movie continues, setting up a rivalry that would continue to bear great fruit in "The Trip"), it's a loose, shaggy-dog of a movie, which is exactly how it should be. Though Winterbottom and co. barely scratch the surface of the novel, it's as true in spirit as you could ever ask for, despite — or more accurately, because of — its inventions and in-jokes.
"The NeverEnding Story" (1984)
As one Lionel Hutz once told one Homer Simpson, "Mr. Simpson, this is the most blatant case of false advertising since 'The NeverEnding Story.' " Obviously a film could never hope to accurately live up to that title, but even then, Wolfgang Petersen's well-loved 1984 fantasy takes plenty of liberties with its philosophically minded source material, so much so that the original author sued (unsuccessfully) to stop production and took his name off the film. Michael Ende wrote "Die unendliche Geschichte" in 1979, the story of an overweight, bullied boy who finds his way to the magical world of Fantastica, where he joins with a strange collection of characters to battle the oncoming Nothing, caused by human lies. Inspired by the anthroposophical movement, which talks about a comprehensible spiritual world attaniable through the development of imagination, inspiration and independent thinking, it's pretty heady stuff for a novel ostensibly for children. And that, along with the fantasy elements, including shapeshifting characters and will o'wisps, led most to believe that it could never be filmed. But the book's success at home and abroad (it was translated into English in 1983) saw it picked up by German producers Bernd Eichinger and Dieter Geissler, who set it up as the most expensive ever European production up to that point. Ende was initially behind the adaptation, but when his approved director was fired, and script changes were made that simplified the second half of the film into a more traditional fantasy narrative, Ende tried to sue to stop the release. His bid failed, although he successfully took his name off the opening credits of the film. When released in 1984, the film took $100 million worldwide from a $20 million budget, and became one of the more successful home video releases of the VHS era, inspiring two sequels that Ende was presumably equally unhappy with. The writer passed away in 1995, but in 2009, it was announced that Warner Bros., Kennedy/Marshall and Leonardo DiCaprio's Appian Way company were teaming for a reboot that aimed to capture more of the novel's 'nuances.' But producer Kathleen Kennedy told us last year that "It's not meant to be," with rights issues causing difficulties.
"Perfume: The Story of a Murderer" (2006)
Movies can do sight well. Movies can do sound well. What the medium has traditionally not been particularly good at capturing, bar a few experiments with scratch 'n' sniff and Smell-O-Vision, is scent. Which for a novel like Patrick Suskind's "Perfume: The Story of a Murderer," that evolves around a young French man born without body scent but an acute sense of smell, who becomes a serial killer in the search for the perfect odor, is somewhat problematic as poetic description of scent works well on the page, but is hard to capture on screen. Suskind himself seemed to believe that was the case, as despite the book becoming a world-wide smash, he refused to sell the rights to anyone but Stanley Kubrick or Milos Forman, who never expressed an interest. Eventually, his producer friend Bernd Eichinger (who, yes, had also been responsible for "The NeverEnding Story") managed to convince him, and writer Andrew Birkin ("The Name Of The Rose") began an adaptation, with Tom Tykwer — who would go on to make "Cloud Atlas" — hired to direct after getting the thumbs up from Suskind. At the time, one of most expensive German movies ever made, Tykwer assembled an impressive cast, with Ben Whishaw in his first lead role, and Alan Rickman and Dustin Hoffman in support, and he certainly produced a handsome-looking film. It's a surprisingly faithful adaptation, all told, but Tykwer never finds a way round the problems that were inherent all along — that he had a quiet and unlikable protagonist, and that there was no effective way to make a film about scent work on screen (although a limited 15-piece perfume collection inspired by the film, ringing in at about $700, was released alongside the picture). An admirable stab, but not an entirely successful one.
"The Lord of the Rings" (2001-2003)
Despite being one (or indeed three) of the most successful fantasy novels of all time, it seemed for decades that J.R.R. Tolkien's epic "The Lord of the Rings" would never reach the screen — the giant armies, fantasy creatures and sheer length all seemed to suggest it wasn't possible. Not that it stopped people from trying. In 1957, a few years after the release of the novel, Forrest J. Ackerman, creator of the magazine Famous Monsters of Filmland, paired with Morton Grady Zimmerman and Al Brodax to pitch Tolkien on a three-hour film adaptation of the books. The writer was initially excited, but disliked their script, and the project was scrapped early on. A decade later, a 12-minute cartoon film from artist Gene Deitch was screened, but nothing more came of it, and United Artists picked up the rights in 1969. The intention was for The Beatles to star in the film, with Paul as Frodo, Ringo as Sam, George as Gandalf, and John Lennon as Gollum, and Stanley Kubrick was briefly courted to direct, but the director couldn't be convinced, and Tolkien eventually nixed the idea of the band starring. Soon after, John Boorman ("Point Blank") was hired to work on a script, which departed from the source material a fair bit (a sex scene between Frodo and Galadriel?), but it was ultimately a change in studio management that saw that take doomed, though Boorman would later successfully reuse some of the themes in his "Excalibur." Middle-Earth finally made it to screen in animated form, with a Rankin/Bass take on "The Hobbit" in 1977 preceding Ralph Bakshi's 1978 "The Lord of the Rings" the first of a two-part take. The film did reasonably well, but not well enough, and United Artists decided not to proceed with the second film (the story was completed with Rankin/Bass's little-seen 1980 "The Return of the King"). The next few decades saw little progress, until long-time Tolkien fan Peter Jackson became convinced that CGI technology would make the film possible, and managed to set up an adaptation at Miramax. When his remake of "King Kong" fell apart in 1997, Jackson moved ahead with the project, writing a two-part screenplay which would have had a total budget of $75 million. But when Miramax realized the film would likely have cost double that, Bob Weinstein suggested making a single two-hour version, or not doing it at all. Jackson managed to convince New Line to step in (with studio head Bob Shaye declaring it should be three films, not two), and the rest, as you might have noticed, is history…
"Lolita" (1962) & "Lolita" (1997)
One of the undisputed masterpieces of 20th century literature, when it was first brought to screen by Stanley Kubrick in 1962, it carried the tagline: "How did they ever make a film of Lolita?" The answer being, for the most part, that they probably shouldn't have, either then or in the 1997 Adrian Lyne-directed remake, because neither quite crack either the brilliance of Vladimir Nabokov's prose, or the shocking nature of the subject matter. Published in 1955, and promptly the center of a storm of controversy and outrage, the novel sees Humbert Humbert narrate the tale of his infatuation, and ultimate sexual affair, with the titular 12-year-old girl. Astonishingly written, with one of the great sustained narrative voices in fiction, the subject matter understandably made many shy away, but ultimately the success of "Spartacus" saw Kubrick land the job, with Nabokov himself writing a script (most of which was abandoned, though Nabokov retains credit). It's not a terrible attempt — Kubrick retains the playful nature of the writer's prose, and he's as faitfhful as he can be, but he's crippled by the censorship restrictions of the time, and by a somewhat dodgy performance of 14-year-old star Sue Lyons. Kubrick would later say that, if he'd known how much the censorship would interfere, he "probably wouldn't have made the film," while Nabokov said in an interview that the film may turn out as, "The swerves of a scenic drive perceived by the horizontal passenger of an ambulance." 35 years later, Adrian Lyne, director of "Fatal Attraction" and "9 1/2 Weeks" who in theory had much more freedom, set out to make a more faithful version, only to find American distributors shying away — the film eventually aired on Showtime. Which turned about to be an appropriate home for it. Lyne gets good performances from stars Jeremy Irons and Dominique Swain (even if she's wildly unconvincing as a 14-year-old), but Lyne misses much of the point of the book, turning it into a sincere and somewhat trashy potboiler.
5 Still On The Way
"Winter's Tale"
One of the most praised novels of the 1980s (it received multiple votes in a New York Times poll to find the best novel of the last 25 years in 2006), Mark Helprin's bold, ambitious "Winter's Tale" seems, on the surface, to be a risky choice for any director, let alone a first-timer. After all, its story, which centers on Peter Lake, a thief on the run from a criminal gang who falls in love with a dying woman, includes the apocalypse, rainbow bridges, resurrection, reincarnation and a flying, time-travelling white horse. We're sure that it's thwarted plenty of others since its publication. But over the last year or so, Akiva Goldsman got rolling on his long-in-the-offing adaptation of the novel, which is now shooting with Warner Bros. set to release in 2013. It's a passion-project for the Oscar-winning screenwriter of "A Beautiful Mind," who's been working on the project since 2009, and for the longest time it seemed that it wouldn't happen, but Goldsman managed to bring in A-list collaborators Russell Crowe and Will Smith to play small roles (villainous gang leader Pearly Soames and a judge, respectively), with Colin Farrell and "Downton Abbey" star Jessica Brown-Findlay taking the lead roles with Jennifer Connelly, William Hurt, Eva Marie Saint, Matt Bomer and more also on board. It's the kind of thing that could either be transcendent or a disaster, and with the man behind screenplays for "Batman & Robin" and "The Da Vinci Code" in charge (helming for the first time, no less), we'd lean towards the latter in theory. But actually, Goldsman's done some great work in recent years on TV series "Fringe," which shares some thematic links to "Winter's Tale," so it's possible we could turn out to be pleasantly surprised by this one.
"At the Mountains of Madness"
Although he's one of the most influential and important horror writers in history, the work of H.P. Lovecraft hasn't made much impact on the movies. There have been a few fairly loose adaptations — "Re-Animator" is probably the best known, but none have really caught the imagination of the moviegoing public. However, Guillermo del Toro looked poised to change that, with an adaptation of one of Lovecraft's best known novels, "At the Mountains of Madness." Detailing an Antarctic expedition that uncovers a huge alien city built by ancient, evil Elder Things, it's a bleak and gory tale on a huge canvas. Del Toro's been working on the film for some time, originally setting it up at Warner Bros., who ultimately failed to pull the trigger on the film, concerned about the cost. But after the success of "Pan's Labyrinth" and bailing on "The Hobbit," del Toro got his project going again at Universal, planning to make a $150 million, 3D version, with James Cameron producing and Tom Cruise looking likely to play the lead role. But suddenly, after a string of other ambitious flops, Universal got cold feet, telling del Toro that they wouldn't greenlight the film at the required budget without a guarantee that he'd cut it down to a PG-13 rating. A heartbroken del Toro moved on to "Pacific Rim," with the hope of returning to 'Madness' one day, but the outlook has become bleaker over time, with the director suggesting that the premise of "Prometheus" might have marked "a long pause -if not the demise- of ATMOM." As of the summer, del Toro hadn't seen the film, but let's all hope that Scott's botched sci-fi epic hasn't put him off.
"Ender's Game"
Violent, epic science-fiction has been all the rage of late, but violent, epic science-fiction starring a cast of children? That's a harder sell, and the principle reason why it's taken a few decades for "Ender's Game," the seminal work by sci-fi writer/homophone/climate change denier Orson Scott Card to reach the screen. Set in a future where Earth is at war with a bug-like alien race known as the Formics, a group of children, including the titular Ender, are sent into orbit to train to be soldiers of the future. Card always resisted overtures from Hollywood, but embarked on a screenplay in the late 1990s after founding his own production company, and the film was set up at Warner Bros. in 2003 with future "Game of Thrones" writers David Benioff and D.B. Weiss set to rewrite the screenplay and Wolfgang Petersen directing. But for various reasons, not least the difficulties of assembling a cast of children and putting them into combat, that version stalled. But in the last few years, it's finally reared up again — Card set up a new script with Odd Lot Entertainment, with "Star Trek" writers Bob Orci and Alex Kurtzman producing, and "Wolverine" helmer Gavin Hood writing and directing. An impressive cast has been assembled — "Hugo' star Asa Butterfield in the title role, with Abigail Breslin and Hailee Steinfeld among the younglings, and Harrison Ford, Ben Kingsley and Viola Davis as their tutors. Filming wrapped earlier this year with a release scheduled for next November. The bankruptcy of effects company Digital Domain has caused some issues in post-production, but we should be finding out whether Hood and co. have pulled off a difficult job around this time next year.
"The Sandman"
Along with Alan Moore and Frank Miller, Neil Gaiman was responsible for the creative rebirth of comic books in the 1980s, and his epic "The Sandman" is, along with "Watchmen" and "Maus," one of a handful of genuine masterpieces in the medium, a Greek tragedy of staggering scope and invention. In theory centering on Dream, one of the Endless who represent abstract concepts (also including Death, Despair, Delirium, et al.) as he escapes a half-century of captivity and goes about rebuilding his realm, its 7-year run was as much about the nature of storytelling as anything else, with issues ranging from Shakespeare's England to a parallel world where a teenager is elected president. Given its success, filmmakers were always going to come calling, and after "Pulp Fiction," that film's co-writer Roger Avary was hired to direct a film at Warner Bros. with "Aladdin" (and future "Pirates of the Caribbean") writers Ted Elliot and Terry Rossio writing a script. And they did a solid job, combining the first two graphic novels into a narrative that was faithful, and yet its own beast, and Avary started talking about things like Jan Svankmeyer as influences. But hairdresser-turned-producer Jon Peters ("Wild Wild West") balked, fired everyone and commissioned his own script from William Farmer, who would later go on to fuck up "Jonah Hex" too. That draft leaked, causing fury on the Internet, and even Gaiman weighed in to call it "…not only the worst 'Sandman' script I've ever seen, but quite easily the worst script I've ever read." The project flatlined. Such is the scope of the tale that even a trilogy of films wouldn't necessarily do it justice; an HBO miniseries might be more viable, but likely too expensive. Nevertheless, "Supernatural" creator Eric Kripke was hired by Warner Bros. Television to develop a small-screen version, although Kripke said the following year that the project was on hold again. We suspect we'll see a version of "The Sandman" on screen one day — perhaps Gaiman's new "Sandman: Year Zero" series will see a spike in interest — but it'll take someone with real passion for the project to get it done.
"Paradise Lost"
An epic, ten-thousand-line poem from the 17th century about war in heaven, the creation of the world, and the fall of man, generally deemed to be one of the most important and brilliant pieces of art ever created? Yeah, that's definitely a good choice to turn into an mega-budgeted action movie. And yet Alex Proyas' mooted film version of "Paradise Lost" got within a few weeks of going before cameras before Warner Bros. came to their senses. Obviously, John Milton's poem is full of drama, from the three-day war between God's angels and the forces of Lucifer, to the expulsion of Adam and Eve from the Garden of Eden. But it still seemed to be a stretch for writer Stuart Hazeldine and director Alex Proyas ("Dark City," "I Robot") to turn it into a mega-blockbuster. Set to include heavy mo-cap elements, with wu-shu fight scenes (as one potential star Benjamin Walker told us), and backing from Warners and Legendary Pictures, the film would have starred Bradley Cooper as Lucifer, with Walker as the archangel Michael, Djimon Housou as Abdiel, Casey Affleck as Gabriel, Camilla Belle and Diego Boneta as Eve and Adam, Callan McAuliffe as Uriel, Dominic Purcell as Moloch and Sam Reid as Raphael, it's was only weeks away from shooting last December when Legendary put the Australian shoot on hold, citing script issues and budgetary problems. The shoot date was delayed to June 2012, but this February, the film was cancelled altogether. Could it be resurrected one day? Perhaps, though likely not with Proyas and this cast on board. For now, "Paradise Lost" will remain unfilmable…