Good Omens to be a film (Terry Pratchett)

[DCBastien]

Good Omens to be a film

I've recently heard that Good Omens is to be made into a film, with Terry Gilliam directing and Alan Rickman cast as Aziraphale (though I'd have pegged him as more Crowley?)

I can't wait! I think it would stand the adaptation really quite well. Obviously Pratchett and Gaiman's writing styles mean that some of the jokes will be lost, but what can you do with different media? *shrug* reckon there'll be a way around it, or is the big screen just too different?

Anybody heard anything else?

 

[Dave]

Terry Gilliam will make a good job of Directing, but from past performance it will flop at the box office.

 

[DCBastien]

Ever the optomist....

......Perhaps. There will be quite a lot of fan support I think, esp. for Gaiman's name... and A.R. too I reckon. Plus, as a premise, I think it could be quite winning.

But then I'm biased as hell cos I can't wait to see it!

 

[Dave]

Any idea why they have chosen to do this book?

If you think that something will be lost in the screenplay, surely some of the other books would be easier to convert. Also I know that there is already a popular 'Mort' theatrical play which ought to be very easy to film.

yes there are a lot of Alan Rickman fans about, most of them are here at Ascifi

 

[DCBastien]

*g* No, I don't know of one I think could be much better. The writing style of TP means that you just *can't* get it all over without a narrator or v/o really. Or perhaps put someof it into the mouths of the chars.

I think this was possibly done because it's TP and NG so has twice the possible reader-pull. Say just-TP fans and just-NG fans... perhaps.

Mort, I think, was the first to be treated like that but not the only one. Wyrd Sisters also, and others unless I'm mistaken. As well as some for TV- animated ones.

Perhaps they are testing the ground for more of either NG or TP's work? More films = good!

I won't say no to AR as Azi either *g*

 

[Dave]

More optimistic now....

Scifi Wire -- Gilliam Has Good Omens

Terry Gilliam told SCI FI Wire that his proposed big-screen adaptation of Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman's Armageddon comedy-fantasy novel Good Omens isn't entirely dead, but is currently on life support. "It's expensive is what it is," Gilliam (Time Bandits) said in an interview. "And we didn't get the money to do it."

Gilliam added, "Unfortunately, I think our timing was rather bad, because we turned up in Hollywood in November of 2001 talking about a comedy film about the apocalypse. That was just bad timing. At the moment it's languishing. Nobody's quite got their act together to get it financed right now."

Gilliam described the story as right up his alley. "Anything that has to do with good and evil, heaven and hell, the Antichrist, angels and devils and the apocalypse I've always found interesting," he said. "On top of that, to have a comic version of all that is great. It's a wonderful book, incredibly funny and it's actually full of too much stuff to put onto film. But the basic tale [is filmable]."

Gilliam said that the story deals with the representatives of good and evil, who exist side by side until the Antichrist is born. "Which means that in 11 or 12 years, that's the end of it all," he said. "But these representatives of good and evil have gone a little soft on Earth. They like the little things about humanity and the Earth, and they agree to work together for once and raise the kid, hoping that nurturing might overcome his nature. Come his 11th or 12th birthday they realize they've made a big mistake: They raised the wrong kid. The Antichrist somehow got swapped at birth and is somewhere out in England. So they've got to find it and stop Armageddon. It's very funny and full of great characters. I wrote the script with Tony Grisoni, who did [the abandoned] The Man Who Killed Don Quixote with me. Hopefully, we can get it done at some point."

As I thought, Terry Gilliam is ideal for this. He thinks so too. But he says it is expensive -- all his films are expensive and go over budget -- that is the problem.