Pratchett Friday

[tealin]

YES OH YES:

The Hollywood Reporter announces that this year’s adapted screenplay writer Simon Beaufoy, winner for Slumdog Millionaire, has joined DreamWorks to fashion the script for the long in development Truckers. Although the Reporter states that nothing is known about the story line, those following the Studio’s progress must assume that this is indeed the first in Terry Pratchett’s Bromeliad Trilogy, which DreamWorks optioned some years ago. Beaufoy’s assignment to the film suggests that he has the British slant necessary to adapt Pratchett’s work to the screen. DreamWorks are certainly looking for a new franchise: the author has sold over 30 million books and, if successful, Truckers could well be followed by the other titles in the trilogy, Diggers and Wings.

via Animated News

Please please please please please please please don't make it standard Dreamworks fare ... pleeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeease. Keep your grubby cheapening hands off it, Mr Katzenberg! Back! BACK I say!

Comments

[noodledaddy.livejournal.com]

I had a sneaking suspicion that would elicit a response from you. I'm also glad they are not squeezing all three books into one.

[elucreh.livejournal.com]

Oh my god, I am so scared

[jesskat.livejournal.com]

I know it's been in development hell for quite a number of years already. This is the umpteenth time they say they're greenlighting the project again. It may be forgotten again. The bit about Dreamworks "looking for a new franchise" does scare me a bit, because it's so true.:/ They don't look for good scripts, they look for franchises. I hope Pterry has at least some say in the process, although I doubt it...

[twirlynoodle.livejournal.com]

I've been keeping track of it since I was in college but beyond the initial rights-purchase and subsequent ripples there hasn't been much activity on the Truckers front at all. Every time I met someone who works at Dreamworks I'd ask them what they knew about it but I only ever got variations on the theme of 'bwuh?' I was VERY pessimistic for a while, and glad that I wasn't hearing anything because that meant they weren't in the process of butchering it, but this ... feels ... I don't want to say 'like a good sign' but ... the man has demonstrated he can adapt a book into a very good movie. I just hope they let him DO HIS JOB and don't bully him into making another Dreamworks movie. :P

A friend of mine who used to work there said they don't know how to make good movies* – when by chance one of them turns out good, they don't know how they did it, so they just keep making it over and over again.

[jesskat.livejournal.com]

Personally I'm worried they'll cut out or sanitize one of my favorite aspects of the book: Gurder's crisis of faith and his coming to terms with everything he thought he knew being wrong. Religious themes, especially in children's movies, are often the first things to be bowdlerized so as not to offend any fragile young minds (see The Golden Compass). I'm afraid they're only going to concentrate on the Nomes being cute, silly little creatures (in typical Dreamworks fashion) and ignore the deeply human themes the story poses. So yeah. Not really sure how to react to this news.:/

On a related note, I haven't heard anything in a while about the Wee Free Men movie which was supposedly going to be directed by Sam Raimi. Was that a Dreamworks project too?

[mellifluous-ink.livejournal.com]

On a related note, I haven't heard anything in a while about the Wee Free Men movie which was supposedly going to be directed by Sam Raimi. Was that a Dreamworks project too?

Is that '9'? With the tiny people in a post-apocalyptic steampunk earth?

[fani.livejournal.com]

Noooope. Wee Free Men is about rude blue men resembling Scottish people and a girl who's a witch

[twirlynoodle.livejournal.com]

I wouldn't be surprised if they cut Gurder's crisis of faith (or at least make it less prominent) because not only might it be interpreted as a bit preachy but his arc really goes across all three books ... it would require much more advance planning than I'd expect of them to work it in effectively. I do hope they at least keep the allegorical level that makes the story about mankind's place in the universe, and sort of the history of space exploration and its effects on society and philosophy. It'd be a lot harder to root that out of the story because it's so thoroughly woven into the fabric of it, but this is Dreamworks... while killing the Arnold Bros Est 1905 aspect would eliminate about 80% of the gags (and they love gags) I wouldn't put it past them. Anyway, that's partly why I'm encouraged by this writer, because he's smart and will, I hope, 'get it,' and if he gets in an argument with Jeffrey Katzenberg he can wave his Oscar in his face and say 'where's yours, bigshot?' Katzenberg's been after an Oscar since Beauty and the Beast got nominated for Best Picture. Not that you'd be able to tell.

[jesskat.livejournal.com]

Didn't Shrek already win the Oscar for Best Picture, though? Not that it really makes much of a difference, but it's probably the only thing that keeps Katzenberg and co. thinking that all they need to do to win another is to keep repeating the same formula over and over. Kung-Fu Panda, from what I've heard, seems to be the first slight deviation from that formula and it was probably WALL-E's biggest contender at the Oscars last year. Wonder if they'll learn anything from that?

[twirlynoodle.livejournal.com]

Not Best Picture ... it won Best Animated Film but not Best Picture. Of course it could be argued that that's as high an award as an animated film is likely to get ... but that was YEARS ago!

According to a bloke I met at the pub a colleague of mine, KFP largely escaped direct Katzenberg meddling because he was preoccupied with Bee Movie at the time, which may or may not be relevant to its actually being a good movie...

[jesskat.livejournal.com]

D'oh. I meant Best Animated Feature, not Best Picture.

[twirlynoodle.livejournal.com]

P.S. I should also mention that it won the Oscar back when everyone was madly in love with CG and it had such realistic skin and cloth omg! Also somehow it beat Monsters, Inc which ... well, I leave it up to you what drugs the Academy were smoking.

[fani.livejournal.com]

KUNG FU PANDA IS LOVE :)

[mellifluous-ink.livejournal.com]

OMG I only hope it's as good as El Dorado because that would make it AWESOME.

[twirlynoodle.livejournal.com]

Haha, dude, the only thing El Dorado's got going for it is the characters. (Well, and the animation, but as one of my past directors once pithily said, 'it's got the best animation money can buy.') The story is a mess. Of course I've watched it so many times now that I don't even notice anymore, but I hope Truckers is BETTER.

[mellifluous-ink.livejournal.com]

Aww, I thought El Dorado was amazing. ;_;

[salamandersoup.livejournal.com]

KATZENBERRRG! >:|||

Alsooo, did you know there's going to finally be a Discworld convention in Arizona? IT'S TRUE. http://www.nadwcon.org/

[twirlynoodle.livejournal.com]

I did know this! I am kind of thinking of going but I'm waiting to find out what my job situation is after Frog.

Even though ARIZONA + SEPTEMBER = DEATH

But, you know, that would just be a cameo appearance. HAAHAAAA.

IN DENIAL

[fani.livejournal.com]

LALALALA~~LALALALALALALALA~LALALALALALALA~~~

[ardys-the-ghoul.livejournal.com]

I haven't read the Bromeliad yet. Probably won't for awhile, considering the enormous pile of stuff I still need to read for class.

I do love Pratchett's work, though, so the idea of a movie based on his stuff intrigues and frightens me all at once.