adaptation, shows and films that the lure of adapting so-called “unfilmable” books for the screen remains as strong as ever. No matter how successful — or not, as anyone who’s watched the “Breakfast of Champions” movie knows all too well — any adaptation of a book people believed couldn’t be done nonetheless appears to be such an accomplishment that filmmakers can’t help but look for subjects to aim their attention towards.
With that in mind, here are some of the few remaining untouched unfilmable masterpieces left in the world of genre literature to explore for yourself in their original form, while you still can.
PaulasRick
The Kilgore Trout Story
Ubik by PK Dick
I already had to watch the death of Artax when I was a kid. If I had to see Huan’s death on screen in Silmarillion I would just never go to the movies again.
Dune has been adapted over a dozen of times into live-action, games, and comics. STOP. It is beyond adaptable.
The player of games
PiersPlowmanB
Suprised infinite jest isn’t on there.
The man who folded himself! Amazing!
infinite jest
Transmetropolitan
No one has suggested the Bible? 🤔
Imagica
CS Lewis Space Trilogy
Illium and Olympus by Dan Simmons. It would be magnificent in its failure 😅
Whatever they do they should NEVER try House of Leaves. That one is truly impossible and would just suck very hard.
Didn't get Dune at all!🤔
Did you know that people who are not white men also write books? Some of them unfilmable?
Always here for The Gone Away World (though should there be any women on this list, yes)
Ulysses.
Infinite Jest would pose some challenges
Infinite Jest as a 100-episode tennis anime
Honestly I’d love to see them attempt an adaptions of house of leaves, the main problem is there’s too many elements to adapt into a movie so maybe if someone were to pick up the show scripts the author wrote it could be done
The Silmarillion… yeah, you can't film that. You could film (with a lot of work) several of the stories that are in SIL. But that would just be a collection of those stories. You going to film a narrator reading of the names and characteristics of the Valar?
Have people claimed Dune was unfilmable? That's dumb. It's not the easiest maybe, but very far from unfilmable. Hell, as far as live action, Wheel of Time is much worse than Dune, and they are working on that.
Finnegan's Wake. (Directed by Quentin Tarrantino)
I think a film adaptation of S. would be hard to do right unless you made the movie the audio commentary (remember those?) But onr could make a great House of Leaves that simply focused on the core horror story and cut everything else
Honestly, I'd be somewhat curious about adaptations of Karl Ove Knausgaard, as I'm not so sure I would otherwise expose myself.
*places Gravity's Rainbow on table* *adjusts lighting setup* *positions camera* Aaaaand.... ACTION! *book has already skittered away* DAMN IT
Here Hollywood
The Dark Tower apparently
The Gone-Away World what a book!
Anything Warhammer
Let's have a Malazan Book of the Fallen movie series. 10/13 books, over 600 characters, dozens of Warrens and holds, diverging timelines, elder gods, dragons, aliens, should be easy
At the mountain of madness by Lovecraft would be sweet, but probably too hard to film
Golding's The Inheritors or Pincher Martin.
'Australia's Long-Term Emissions Reductions Plan.' Good luck finding content, filmable or otherwise ☹️
Digital Cash
House of Leaves is basically designed to not be translatable into any other medium
Blood Meridian would be brilliant
I would have picked Trouble on Triton over Dhalgren, I’d love to see someone with a big budget attempt that
This could be so raunchy (at first).
I'd love to see them try
I've still got a copy of Analytical Mechanics by Grant Fowles that I had for my Physics degree. Wouldn't make a particularly good movie.
Hyperion!
Hey FlintstoneRocky and dadwroteaporno, it's your time to shine!
Any women? No? Lol
John Dies at the End
The ONLY way I would ever be okay with Hollywood getting their filthy paws on the silmarillion is if they made it a miniseries of sorts (like 3 40 minute eps per story). Too much unique (as in not related to the rest of it) content and worldbuilding for a movie or two to handle
Valis
Blood Meridian should always top these lists.
Finnegan's Wake
I’d heard that said about “A Confederacy of Dunces.” The funniest book I’ve ever read yet there’s a lot of internal monologue that I don’t know would translate.
Not sure how you’d film in 2nd person. Maybe it’s all POV shots.
The entry for House of Leaves is basically an argument for why it would be a bad book to adapt - and it's completely correct.
The Silmarillion is basically an encyclopedia for the love of god no
The Forever War Snow Crash The Diamond Age The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant
atlas shrugged but with a TON of money this time instead of table scraps. really go nuts with it
Ulysses. 80 percent of it would be voice-overs of the characters' inner monologue as they go about the day
'Art of the Deal'
The Anarchist’s Cookbook
did you know that women also write books
Headline Writer: “Should try to adapt” Article Writer: ‘Nah, don't bother’ (if you needed any more proof that the headlines are always crafted by an editor, and not the writer...)
Blaise Pascal's 'Pensees'
Your writer doesn't appear to know any non-male writers. Would you like some better recs?
Anything by Gene Wolfe should be left alone.
Some books only work as books. Leave them alone.
A shame no one has done a proper adaptation if Dune yet. Yes, I saw it. C'mon man.
Critique of Pure Reason please.
- the second book of Aristotle's Poetics - Gaius Julius Caesar's Oedipus - Lucian's Medea - Septimius Severus's autobiography - Thomas Kyd's Ur-Hamlet - Nashe & Jonson's The Isle of Dogs - Milton's Adam Unparadiz'd All in the public domain ;-)
The Domesday Book
Gravity rainbow
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