The LOTR TV Serial by Tosh

[Passdagas the Brown]

Question.

Has there been an attempt to get Tosh's wonderful TV serial treatment, or a version of it in a proposal, in front of any networks?

http://thehalloffire.net/forum/viewforum.php?f=21

Obviously, there are significant legal and general life obstacles that can and will get in the way, but I wonder if it is worth trying to get in front of the right people...

I seem to remember some TORCers being involved in high levels of either the movie or television business...any other possible avenues?

I ask for transparent reasons. I am so viscerally disappointed in the fact that I may have to live the rest of my life with only a Peter Jackson version of Middle Earth on the big screen, that I truly want to see something else. In light of the overwhelming success of the adaptation of what I think is a lesser, but equally sprawling fantasy story (Game of Thrones), a TV serial by a responsible network would seem to be the perfect solution.

Though if HBO picks it up, we may have to get prepared for the Goldberry-Bombadil bathtub sexposition scene...

[Lusitano]

This is my current hope for a faithfull, satisfactory, brilliant adaptation of Lotr. Not a feature film, but a serialized, three seasons long, tv adaptation.

I have come to firmly believe that, after what HBO has done with another fantasy series, this is the way to go, if we want a full and faithfull adaptation, including things such as the scouring of the shire or bombadil, etc...

Its certainly more likely that a lot of the things that werent done due to time constraints or "cinematic adaptational reasons" wont be present at this table.


I have nothing to do with the people you mention but would always support any move towards this direction.


Perhaps a joint venture between BBC, RAI, Irish Board, HBO and others would be a way to properly finance and bring this to creation.


Fingers, very crossed.

[kzer_za]

If it happens, it won't be for a long time, especially with how ingrained the movies are into popular culture now. Probably not until the copyright expires.

[yovargas]

I'd love to see someone try......in 20 or 30 years. Anything before that would be too close to the movies, IMO.

[Alatar]

I dunno. They rebooted Spiderman again last year, probably within 10 years of the Tobey Maguire reboot.

Superman has had 2 attempts at a reboot in 10 years.

The Batman movies rebooted within 20 years?


Hmm, lemme check the dates:

Spiderman 2002
Spiderman 2 2004
Spiderman 3 2007

Amazing Spiderman 2012
Amazing Spiderman 2 2014

That's a really short cycle. 10 years between start of each reboot, only 5 years gap between the last film of one series and the first of the next series.

Batman 1989
Batman Returns 1992
Batman Forever 1995
Batman & Robin 1997

Batman Begins 2005
The Dark Knight 2008
The Dark Knight Rises 2012

This is longer, 16 years between series, and an 8 year gap

Superman 1978
Superman II 1980
Superman III 1983
Supergirl 1984
Superman IV: The Quest for Peace 1987

Superman Returns 2006
Man of Steel 2013

If we call Superman returns a reboot, then we have 28 years between Superman and Superman returns, then only 7 years between SR and Man of Steel. However, if you consider Superman Returns to be an unofficial sequel to Superman and SII, ignoring the last 3 fiascos, then you have a movie series that arced from 1978 - 2006 and was rebooted in 2013.

So, lets ignore The Hobbit and the Rankin Bass Return of the King for a moment.

The Lord of the Rings 1978

The Fellowship of the Ring 2001
The Two Towers 2002
Return of the King 2003

That's a 23 year gap, but its safe to say that Bakshi's LotR was hardly a blockbuster that people wanted to replicate.

I think, conservatively speaking, that we'll see a LotR reboot within the next 15 years. Assuming there's no complications with the rights.

[kzer_za]

I had a feeling someone would mention Spiderman. Comic book adaptations generally aren't the same as novels. There are decades of different storylines and even different versions of the characters to draw on, so the reboots can be quite different even if they use the same characters. There's only one Lord of the Rings story.

But if the next two Hobbit movies are so bad that they kill the public good will toward Jackson's LotR (and they'll probably be flawed, but I don't expect that), then we might see a reboot a little sooner than otherwise.

[Alatar]

Ok, so you don't want to treat it as a Genre movie? What about as a classic?

Pride and Prejudice

Film and television

1938 Pride and Prejudice Curigwen Lewis Andrew Osborn Michael Barry

1940 Pride and Prejudice
Feature film Greer Garson Laurence Olivier Robert Z. Leonard Aldous Huxley
Helen Jerome
Jane Murfin

1952 Pride and Prejudice
Television miniseries Daphne Slater Peter Cushing Campbell Logan Cedric Wallis

1957 Orgoglio e pregiudizio
Television miniseries Virna Lisi Franco Volpi Daniele D'Anza Edoardo Anton An adaptation in Italian.

1958 Pride and Prejudice
Television miniseries Jane Downs Alan Badel Cedric Wallis

1961 De vier dochters Bennet
Television miniseries Lies Franken Ramses Shaffy Cedric Wallis
Lo van Hensbergen An adaptation in Dutch.

1967 Pride and Prejudice
Television miniseries Celia Bannerman Lewis Fiander Joan Craft Nemone Lethbridge

1980 Pride and Prejudice
Television miniseries Elizabeth Garvie David Rintoul Cyril Coke Fay Weldon

1995 Pride and Prejudice
Television miniseries Jennifer Ehle Colin Firth Simon Langton Andrew Davies

2005 Pride & Prejudice
Feature film Keira Knightley Matthew Macfadyen Joe Wright Deborah Moggach

Looser adaptations

"Furst Impressions" (1995), an episode of the children's television series Wishbone, is based on Pride and Prejudice. Wishbone plays the role of Mr. Darcy.
In the 1997 episode of science fiction comedy Red Dwarf entitled "Beyond a Joke", the crew of the space ship relax in a virtual reality rendition of "Pride and Prejudice Land" in "Jane Austen World".
Bridget Jones's Diary (2001) borrowed its basic plot elements from Pride and Prejudice, and the character of Mark Darcy (played in the film by Colin Firth, who played Mr. Darcy in the 1995 television Pride and Prejudice) is named in deliberate homage to the original character.
Pride & Prejudice: A Latter-Day Comedy (2003) is an independent film adaptation set among Mormons in Utah.[5][6]
Bride and Prejudice (2004) is a Bollywood-style film, directed by Gurinder Chadha and starring Anupam Kher, Aishwarya Rai and Martin Henderson.
Lost in Austen (2008) is a four-part British fantasy television series in which Amanda Price (Jemima Rooper), a devoted Janeite, trades places with Elizabeth Bennet. Gemma Arterton and Elliot Cowan starred as Elizabeth and Darcy.
A 2008 Israeli television six-part miniseries set the story in the Galilee with Mr Darcy a well-paid worker in the high-tech industry.[7]
The Lizzie Bennet Diaries (2012-2013) is a YouTube adaption in which Lizzie Bennet (Ashley Clements), a graduate student explains her life through the video blog format alongside her sisters Jane Bennet (Laura Spencer) and Lydia Bennet (Mary Kate Wiles) and her friend Charlotte Lu (Julia Cho).[8][9]

[Alatar]

Or how about Anna Karenina?

Film

1911: Anna Karenina (1911 film), a French adaptation directed by Maurice André Maître.[1]
1914: Anna Karenina (1914 film), a Russian adaptation directed by Vladimir Gardin.
1915: Anna Karenina (1915 film), an American version starring Danish actress Betty Nansen.
1918: Anna Karenina (1918 film), a Hungarian adaptation directed by Márton Garas.
1927: Love (1927 film), an American version, starring Greta Garbo and directed by Edmund Goulding. This version featured significant changes from the novel and had two different endings, with a happy one for American audiences.
1935: Anna Karenina (1935 film), the most famous and critically acclaimed version, starring Greta Garbo and Fredric March and directed by Clarence Brown.
1948: Anna Karenina (1948 film) starring Vivien Leigh, Ralph Richardson and directed by Julien Duvivier.
1953: Anna Karenina (1953 film), a Russian version directed by Tatyana Lukashevich.
1960: Nahr al-Hob (River of Love), an Egyptian movie directed by Ezzel Dine Zulficar
1967: Anna Karenina (1967 film), a Russian version directed by Alexander Zarkhi.
1974: Anna Karenina (1974 film), a Russian version directed by Margarita Pilikhina.
1985: Anna Karenina (1985 film), a U.S. TV movie starring Jacqueline Bisset and Christopher Reeve, directed by Simon Langton.
1997: Anna Karenina (1997 film), the first American version to be filmed on location in Russia, directed by Bernard Rose and starring Sophie Marceau and Sean Bean.
see also Anna Karenina (soundtrack), the soundtrack of the 1997 film
2012: Anna Karenina (2012 film), a British version by Joe Wright and starring Keira Knightley.

[Elentári]

I had a feeling someone would mention Spiderman. Comic book adaptations generally aren't the same as novels. There are decades of different storylines and even different versions of the characters to draw on, so the reboots can be quite different even if they use the same characters. There's only one Lord of the Rings story.

But if the next two Hobbit movies are so bad that they kill the public good will toward Jackson's LotR (and they'll probably be flawed, but I don't expect that), then we might see a reboot a little sooner than otherwise.

There's only one LotR story, and the benchmark has been set to do it over 3 films (minimum)...would Studios feel that sort of commitment is too much of a risk?

[Alatar]

See my posts above Elen. Classic movies gte remade all the time. The only reason nobody remade Tolkien before was because it wasn't seen as lucrative. I suspect that has now changed.

[kzer_za]

Literary classics like Les Miserables, Pride and Prejudice, Anna Karenina, Shakespeare, etc. are in the public domain. Plus there has never been a single screen version of these works that became a cultural phenomenon like LotR. I think new versions of LotR could happen eventually, but I don't think it's that likely before the copyright expires.

While we're on the subject of other Tolkien adaptations, though, I think a stage play that focuses on the Scouring could be really neat.

[Elentári]

See my posts above Elen. Classic movies gte remade all the time. The only reason nobody remade Tolkien before was because it wasn't seen as lucrative. I suspect that has now changed.

Yes, but they are all single film versions of famous books...my point was that to "reboot" LotR surely after Jackson's treatment a studio has to commit to at least a 3 film project to do the book justice.

[Jude]

The only reason nobody remade Tolkien before was because it wasn't seen as lucrative. I suspect that has now changed.

I think also the technical difficulties account for the delay in filming it (different heights of different races, the sheer length of the book(s), the development of CGI technology, some of which was specifically invented for the PJ movies).

[Voronwë the Faithful]

I think people clamoring for a remake are likely to be sorely disappointed if it does happen. In order for their to be a sufficiently different take to justify a fairly quick reboot, it would either have to be considerably more true to Tolkien, or considerably less. For all of the complaints, by Hollywood standards Jackson's films are quite faithful to the source. A reboot is likely to be much less so.

[Elentári]

Agreed, V...and in view of this, I actually think that a HOBBIT remake is more likely. Whether or not Jackson's TH is a phenomenal success, once his "expanded" version is out of the way, film makers might be tempted more easily to offer a different take - either a single film version of the book only, or more streamlined 2-film version with the DG/WC subplot.

[Frelga]

Agreed, also, which is why I agree with PtB - the next screen version is likely to be a TV production, inspired by the success of the Game of Thrones series. A season per each book - The Hobbit and the 3 LOTR books?

We may need to be careful what we wish for, though. The TV version added sex and violence to GoT, which is already awash in both. Do we want to see a "gritty re-imagining" of Tolkien?

[Alatar]

Hey, nothing wrong with a bit of pervy hobbit fancying!

(And I won't complain if Arwen and Éowyn decide to mud wrestle for the hand of Aragorn...)

[yovargas]

I dunno. They rebooted Spiderman again last year, probably within 10 years of the Tobey Maguire reboot.

Superman has had 2 attempts at a reboot in 10 years.

Bad examples as both were waaay too soon IMO! Especially the Spiderman one as the Raimi versions were hugely popular.

The Batman and Superman ones make a little bit of sense since the prior entries hadn't been particularly well liked (see Batman & Robin). When you're talking about movies that really hit the nail on the head and become both critical and cultural phenomenons, reboots usually are much farther apart. See how long it took for someone to try new versions of iconic films such Oz or Psycho or King Kong.

[Alatar]

Oh I dunno. Batman and Batman Returns were hugely popular, as were Superman and Superman 2. King Kong was remade in the 70's with Jessica Lange before PJ finally got to make his version. Also, Movies like Mighty Joe Young were considered to be Kong-alikes.

But realistically, if there's gonna be a LotR remake I would expect something along the lines of a Game of Thrones HBO epic.

[yovargas]

Oh I dunno. Batman and Batman Returns were hugely popular...

But then Batman & Robin happened.