Gilliam Hopes For Good Omens

[fringey]

Director Terry Gilliam told SCI FI Wire that he doesn't yet have a project lined up to follow his latest film, Tideland, but that he's still hoping to direct a big-screen version of the fantasy novel Good Omens by Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett. "I've been working on it for quite a while, but it's a big budget," Gilliam said in an interview. "I was doing this before The Brothers Grimm, before Tideland, but it needs A-list stars to work—to get the money is what I mean—and none of the A-list stars are right for the part. That's what's frustrating."

Good Omens is a satirical book that deals with the appearance of the son of Satan heralding the End Times and the efforts of an angel and a demon to thwart them to preserve their comfortable positions on Earth.

"It's an angel and devil and the Antichrist and the apocalypse," Gilliam (Brazil) said. "It's a comedy. Neil and Terry wrote it together years ago, and we've adapted it, and it's really good. It's fantastic. Here's my beef with Hollywood. Before The Brothers Grimm, we went out to Hollywood to get [Good Omens] made. We had raised $45 million from the rest of the world, and we needed $15 [million] out of Hollywood. I had two actors, Johnny Depp and Robin Williams. I couldn't get $15 million out of Hollywood with those two people. They said, 'Johnny, nah, he does those European art movies, Chocolat, The Man Who Cried, Robin. His career is finished.' And now there's Pirates of the Caribbean. The world turns just like that. I'm waiting to see the [new] Barry Levinson film [Man of the Year] with Robin. I'm told it's really sharp. I hope it works, because Robin's brilliant; he's just made some bad choices, that's all. ... I can't stand that place [Hollywood] because of that. I need their money, though." —Ian Spelling

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I won't express that the obviously less than smart option of making a statement like "I hate Hollywood." and then expecting them to give you money isn't likely to work. Oops. Just did.

However, I would love to see this get made. I generally think Gilliam's films are great and the book was awesome. It's a natural match IMHO. Hope someone can come up with the cash to back it.

Patrick
a.k.a. Fringey, The Fringe Element
"A life lived without passion is a life not lived.

[fringey]

I agree Jamie. I liked The Brothers Grimm, but didn't love it, ya know? Fear and Loathing was a very niche audience film and Tideland just didn't appeal to me.

Patrick
a.k.a. Fringey, The Fringe Element
"A life lived without passion is a life not lived.

[svecica_PREV (deleted)]

hrm...while part of me thinks "I loved that book. It would be cool." ... the much larger portion of my brain hopes it doesn't turn into a movie because I have yet to read a book BEFORE seeing a movie and not be, at the very least, thoroughly annoyed with the movie.

- Svecica

[svecica_PREV (deleted)]

even so, when a story is designed for a specific format it's just not going to be the same in another. A good book takes you through the mind of the characters. Pages of text can be spent setting mood and background that takes a split second of sight on screen and so looses all it's depth. In the same way, a good movie will introduce you to sights and sounds that fall flat when reduced to words. Even a good writer would have to introduce elements that simply weren't in the movie to make it into a good book.



- Svecica

(ps- please forgive typos or spelling. I've a sprained wrist and typing it once was more than enough.) ;D

[fringey]

I agree with both of you. LOL I DO think there have been some good adaptations, but there never truly has been a perfect adaptation that wasn't missing something. I may have mentioned it before in another thread, but Stephen King talked about this in an introduction to the new version of The Stand they released in the late 80's. He said that, basically, whenever someone reads a book, they get a movie of it in their mind. When someone adapts it for film, it will never match the version you had in your mind, so it will never be as good.

Patrick
a.k.a. Fringey, The Fringe Element
"A life lived without passion is a life not lived.