Reviews & Revues
Apologies again. The reviews will return. Life can sometimes conspire against me.

However, I noticed an ad on the bus ride home recently, leading me to realize that I’ve completely ignored one adaptation completely – musical theatre. A number of works have been adapted, from comic books (Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark) to alternate interpretation of a character from a movie adapted from a book (Wicked). It’s not a new idea – Andrew Lloyd Webber made his career adapting other stories to stage musicals, including Jesus Christ, Superstar and Phantom of the Opera. However, the source has changed.

The ad mentioned earlier was for Young Frankenstein: The Musical, based on the Mel Brooks movie parody of Frankenstein and other horror standards. Today’s musical is more likely to adapt from pop culture. Among the properties mined are Evil Dead and Disney’s Lion King and Beauty and the Beast. The switch to theatre brings in a different restrictions than in other media. There is no post-production to add in CGI. There are no second takes.  There are no multiple camera angles. The stage adapation has to be able to take the existing work and boil it down so that the invisible fourth wall is believable.

Looking Forward
It’s an adaptational summer movie season. Coming soon, The Avengers, taking Marvel Comics’ Ultimate Avengers and bringing it to the silver screen. The movie follows a string of hits, including Iron Man, Captain America, and Thor. Two characters won’t be in it, Ant-Man and Wasp, and it appears that they’re being replaced by Hawkeye and Black Widow. Also now being advertised, Men In Black III. Given the length of time since the second movie, I’m hoping the existance of the movie means the writers had what they thought was good idea for a story instead of an exec saying, “Let’s exploit the franchise.”

Future Plans
One thing I have been trying to find is a work that didn’t successfully adapt a work but was still popular enough to be considered a success, either financially or critically.  Real Steel looks like it’d fit the bill; the original short story was about human boxer taking the place of his broken down android in a robot boxing league while the movie was more heart warming for the family. Other suggestions will be welcomed.

Next week, Lost in Translation will return . . .

A new feature of Lost in Translation, reporting on various remakes and adapations in the works.

JK Rowling’s publisher has announced the title of her next book, The Casual Vacancy. The book will be Rowling’s first non-Potter book and will be out September 27 this year.

A Game of Thrones has been renewed for a third season. The third season will only cover a portion of the third book, A Storm of Swords. The showrunners acknowledge that A Storm of Swords couldn’t be properly covered in ten episodes, and they will be trying to fit in the action from A Feast for Crows and A Dance With Dragons as those two novels take place during the same time frame. HBO’s co-president Richard Plepler is willing to give the series the time to develop properly, as long as George R.R. Martin is willing. (Now this is how to adapt an epic novel series properly.)

A Short Circuit remake is in the works. No production start has been announced.

Part of the Sony collapse? Sony Pictures will be remaking Sabrina the Teenage Witch as a live-action superhero movie. The biggest change seems to be changing the focus of Sabrina living as a witch among mundanes to Sabrina learning to cope with her powers.

A movie promotes physical activity! Thanks to The Hunger Games, more people are looking into archery. The movie has earned over $300 million at the box office, making it the second fastest to cross that line. Only Avatar was faster to break that mark.

Next week, back to the reviews.

Blogcritics has a an article, Seven Terrific Films That Are Truly Poor Adaptations, that relates well to this column’s interests.  It goes to show that it is possible to not follow the original work and still have a movie that is entertaining and thought-provoking.

You’ve got your story idea. You want to make it big. You hear the call of Hollywood. What’s next? As seen here at Fan To Pro, Hollywood might not be your first step. The vagaries of the business and the sheer competition just to be noticed can be off-putting. And, as can be seen in the line up of upcoming movies, Hollywood isn’t taking many chances on original work without a big name behind it.* There are other options, though.

Make it big elsewhere
Since the trend these days is in adaptations, reboots, and remakes**, you need to make it big somewhere else. Ideally, you’ve already had a hit that can be remade or rebooted, but that’s something very few people can really do, since both involve already being part of the Hollywood system. That leaves creating something that can be adapted. Write a best-selling book or create a popular game, video or otherwise. The skies the limit. About the only medium not adapted yet is the webcomic***, but it’s just a matter of time.

Ideally, you’ll have a strong plot, memorable characters, drama, comedy, and a heart-warming moral. Given some of the upcoming adaptations, like Battleship, they’re not needed. However, without a major toy company publishing your game for several generations, those elements help. There are other items to consider, though. For one, think about how the work could be adapted in the future. If a Hollywood studio were to release it as a PG-13 film, would your work suffer? Not all works have gone that route, but age ratings may play a part in getting noticed. For a movie, the ideal rating is PG-13, allowing younger viewers in while still keeping an older audience’s attention.

However, not all works become a movie. Some become television series, a longer format that allows for a more intricate plot and greater details. Going with the traditional broadcast networks still requires an eye to the age ratings; certain words aren’t allowed before the watershed and others just aren’t allowed at all. However, cable specialty channels aren’t as handcuffed. What can only be hinted at on a broadcast network can be shown cable. The need for Nielsen ratings isn’t as great, either. Cable channels look at subscriber numbers, and if a show brings in new subscribers just to see that show, the channel is happy.

Adapt somewhere else
However, the competition is still stiff and the gatekeepers’ decision making makes about as much sense as a cat with a Ouija board. Still, you want your work adapted. Look outside the US. Many countries have a thriving entertainment industry and are looking to fill time slots and tax deductions. Take a look at how other countries approach entertainment and give your work the needed slant. The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation has a lot of Canadian content, as expected. A story with a Canadian slant could get their interest.

As an added bonus, making it big elsewhere may get Hollywood interested. Many popular TV shows in the US were adapted from foreign works, including All in the Family (Til Death Do Us Part), The Office (The Office), and Three’s Company (Man About the House). Movies have also been imported and remade; for a while, Japanese horror movies were getting Hollywood remakes.

Look elsewhere
And, sometimes, even getting noticed is impossible, even with the ideal work. All is not lost. Comic books, video games, tabletop games, all of these media have adapted works, even between themselves.**** With such cross-adaptation, Hollywood may even notice.

Hopefully, this will help get a work adapted well by the Hollywood machine. Never hurts to try.

Next week, a surprise.

* Possibly not even then. George Lucas had to guarantee the distribution costs of Red Tails, the movie about the Tuskegee Airmen, because no studio would even bite at the movie otherwise.
** Without this trend, there would be no Lost in Translation.
*** Technically, Order of the Stick has been adapted into a board game, but that’s outside Hollywood.
**** Oddest one could be the DC Comics adaptation of TSR’s Gammarauders board game.

Over half a million Macs have been infected by the Flashback virus.  The virus creates a botnet designed to steal personal information.  A new variant was found over the weekend that takes advantage of a vulnerability in Java that Apple released a patch for today.

Takeaways:

– Keep up to date on patches, especially when online.

– Don’t get cocky about whatever platform you’re running.  For a while, Mac enthusiasts laughed at how vulnerable to viruses Windows was.  Now, the Mac is as vulnerable.

-ScottD

A teaching aide was suspended for not showing her employer her Facebook account.  As mentioned a few times here at Fan To Pro, employers have been demanding access to interviewees’ Facebook passwords.  This may be the first time that an already employed person has been suspended for it.  The original complaint came about when a photo was posted to the aide’s Facebook page and was seen by a parent who was a friend of a co-worker.  The principal demanded access, the aide refused and was thus suspended after having union representation denied.  The aide is now going after back pay through legal means.

Remember, according to Facebook’s Terms of Service, sharing a password is a violation.  The image in question was taken when the aide was not working.  And, while teachers and teaching aides appear to have more scrutiny on them by the community, they, too, deserve privacy like we all do.

–Scott D