The Culture Series by Iain M Banks.
There's too much detail and too vast a story for it ever to be made into a piece of film media (alongside Banks' wishes that it never be made into one)
this post was submitted on 16 Sep 2025
38 points (100.0% liked)
movies
2115 readers
274 users here now
A community about movies and cinema.
Related communities:
- !television@piefed.social
- !homevideo@feddit.uk
- !mediareviews@lemmy.world
- !casualconversation@piefed.social
Rules
- Be civil
- No discrimination or prejudice of any kind
- Do not spam
- Stay on topic
- These rules will evolve as this community grows
No posts or comments will be removed without an explanation from mods.
founded 8 months ago
MODERATORS
How about Waps Factory? That would be a great movie.
Or is this a different Iain Banks... I feel like I tripped on this before.
Not to worry, caught me out as well a couple of times. It's the same author, he used 'Iain M. Banks' for his scifi work and 'Iain Banks' for regular eathbound fiction.
Wasp factory would make for a magnificent film, if only there were directors alive that had the chops to make a film worthy eh.
A biopic of Rasputin by Wes Anderson
World War Z, made as a documentary/re-enactment style mini series. Could make it beat for beat almost identical to the book.
I just want a streaming anthology series based on the book. Every episode is a different story. I don’t mind if paths cross from time to time, but it shouldn’t fall into the traps of “Walking Dead” or the film version, where it follows the same group of people all the time. You could do some really creative storytelling set in the same universe if you hired a different writer and director each episode.
Movie/TV adaption of the comic Saga. It will never happen because Vaughn has said it's the one comic of his he would never let be adapted.
I always wanted an adaptation of Jonathan Stroud's Bartimaeus Sequence trilogy, particularly the first book The Amulet of Samarkand. Various production companies have been sitting on the rights for over two decades now, but there continues to be no sign of any movement on it. Although, seeing how Disney butchered its adaptation of Artemis Fowl has made me reconsider whether I want this to happen.
Another I've long wanted is a film set in the universe of The Secret World, though perhaps it would better suit a TV series as was once planned.
A feature-length movie set in the Armored Core universe. Amazon/MGM did a very short film as part of the Secret Level anthology, and it was damn awesome.
unicron vs galactus, recent movies featuring either of these enemies were quite a disappointment.
also wrapping up SGA, sgu with a movie, but the showrunners are very hesitant to write any sg related works right now.
I would love to sell my trilogy, Dante's Darkness, starting with Winds as a six episode mini series. Yes, the writing is rough, but the story is fun and power creep but not overwhelming. Unfortunately, I wrote about the end of the world right before shit went really South. Remember your UV anal cleansings, folks!
Silent Hill. Written, directed by, and starring David Lynch.
I'd love an X-Men film based on the proper comic book life of Lady Deathstrike, rather than the bastardisation we got in X-2.
However I can understand it would be far too gory.
As a longtime Warcraft fan, I'd like a movie about Arthas (the Lich King) and I want Fassbender to play him because no one plays a character like that as believably as he does.
Basically a good guy who eventually goes full evil yet you still want redemption for him. (Spoiler: he does not get one)
“Blood Music” would be such an amazing body horror/scifi movie to put out right now. Post covid that book hits way harder. Alex Garland would be my producer of choice. Oscar Isaac as Virgil, Stellan Skarsgard as Dr Bernard.
I think Anathem by Neil Stephenson could be a great 2 season series, if you approach it with Andor level writing and dedication, and fully commit to the twist with subtle character design.
Well, it was Legend of Zelda; but after that last Mario movie, Nintendo is actually making one. So then it was Dark Souls, but they are making a movie of that too!
Though I have major doubts about either being anywhere close to what I imagine they could be.
All I have left is the Neuromancer series and Beyond the Mountains of Madness. Both have attempts at a film adaptation but either they were straight up killed or are stuck in production hell.
Anything else is entirely made up in my own head, so will likely never get made unless I come into a lotta money before I die.
Apple is making a Neuromancer mini-series
Is it stuck in production hell? I coulda swore I heard that was the case like 3 or 4 years ago. BMOM also is supposedly in the works, and starring Tom Cruise, but I haven't heard anything about that in several years.
I think it got delayed a bit by the actors/writers strike a couple years ago, but the first couple on-set photos have leaked, so I'm pretty sure it's happening.
The Dark Tower
A full adaptation of Lord of the Rings that's true to Tolkien's vision.
What big shifts would occur between the originals (which I read as a teen but that was ages ago) and the Peter Jackson trilogy? Coles notes for thekkids who didn't pay attention.
Is it pronounced Jandalf?
Frodo and the party at Weathertop - in the books Frodo shouts Elbereth's name as a war cry and stabs at a wraith, rather than cowering and falling down as in the film.
Ent moot results and dramatic reversal - in the books, the Ents knew what Saruman had been up to and decided to go to war at once. They didn't passively decide to do nothing then change their minds.
Faramir bringing Frodo and Sam (and the ring to Osgilath). In the books, Faramir recognized the threat the ring posed and let Sam, Frodo and Gollum go on with their quest without hinderance.
The books had no nonsensical scene with Gollum framing Sam for illicit lembas consumption.
The books had no stupid dwarf tossing jokes.
While Aragorn has periods of self doubt in the books, none of these inhibited him from taking action. In the film he has a long sequence of scenes where he's basically paralyzed by self doubt.
No scourging of the Shire in the films. These scenes were crucial to showing just how much each of the hobbits had developed as characters and in what ways.
I could go on, but hopefully these are sufficient to illustrate the point.
The films were great with respect to casting, cinematography, art design and location. Jackson and Boyens seemed to have forgotten however that Tolkien was the master and they the students with respect to writing.
Thanks for the detailed response!