Paramount Options Ray Bradbury’s ‘The Martian Chronicles’

COMMENTS (7)

• And once they announce the writer it’ll include describing the classic work as a cringe inducing “Reimagination” of Bradbury’s work. Ugh.

  Comment by JJ — Tuesday April 12, 2011 @ 3:00pm PDT  Reply to this post

• Unfortunately it’s going to take a good screenwriter to get this collection into feature shape. The original short stories are amazing and have powerful thematic throughlines, but they don’t have a particular central character or condensed timeframe plotting. I hope a screenwriter can somehow crack the best of both worlds. Existential contemplation with some actual brisk plotting. Not going to be easy. Hopefully the movie version is at least somewhat recognizable and not just stealing a recognized book title, which is what will probably happen. Wish someone would take a crack at adapting The Long Rain or Frost & Fire from the Bradbury canon. Both could be amazing features.

  Comment by comersuerte — Tuesday April 12, 2011 @ 3:31pm PDT  Reply to this post

  • Agree completely. It’s not going to be an easy job.

    I hope that whoever they hire takes a look at the old NBC miniseries. While it had its problems, they were at least partially successful in capturing the elusive tone of the book.

    Something about Rock Hudson’s acting meshed perfectly with Bradbury’s somewhat bland characterizations–and I say that with nothing but admiration for Bradbury’s work. He’s a far better poet and storyteller than he is a dramatist.

    Comment by Hobbled — Tuesday April 12, 2011 @ 5:49pm PDT  Reply to this post

• Bradbury is an amazing writer, and that fact he’s not received a Nobel Prize for his body of work is simply criminal.

  Bradbury is also an incredibly decent human being. I hope he’s being well compensated for the rights.

  I pray they don’t completely screw up his work.

  Comment by LordJiggy — Tuesday April 12, 2011 @ 4:37pm PDT  Reply to this post

• They are optioning the wrong Bradbury book; Dandelion Wine would be a wonderful film.

  Comment by Nude on Thin Ice — Tuesday April 12, 2011 @ 5:18pm PDT  Reply to this post

• There was something eerily intriguing about the 70′s mini-series which had the luxury of covering a lot of ground over the course of a few nights. The book/collection was mesmerizing – love to see the house based on the Poe stories etc. An episodic approach to the movie with some great actors would be idea along the lines of Sin City. And for some strange reason, I want to see the Coen Brothers write and direct it.

  Comment by John Maritato — Tuesday April 12, 2011 @ 8:53pm PDT  Reply to this post

• Danny Boyle would be a great choice to write and direct “The Martian Chronicles”. I thought he did wonderful things with the sticky existentialism of “Sunshine”, not to mention the mind-blowing visuals. Can’t wait to see how he would handle the Martian-human interactions and the eerie landscapes of an extinct Martian civilization that somehow co-exists with human explorers. If Boyle is unavailable, the only other possibility is Kubrik’s ghost.

  Comment by rob byrnes — Sunday June 19, 2011 @ 6:04pm PDT  Reply to this post