Monday 30 November 2009

Hollywood Babble On & On #404: When Is An Adaption Not An Adaption?

Welcome to the show folks...

I'd someone to explain something to me.

You see I saw this story at Sci-Fi Wire about how they're going to do a TV series on the Syfy(llis) channel.

Nothing strange there, but then I read about the details of the show.

The show will be called
Haven, and be about an FBI agent battling the forces of evil in a quaint Maine town housing people living with supernatural curses.

Okay, small town
X-Files, I can see it, nothing too odd about that.

Then is says that the story is based on King's novella The Colorado Kid.

That's the weird part.

You see, The Colorado Kid, isn't about FBI agents and curses, it's about two old men who run a village newspaper telling the story of an unsolved mystery, that may or may not be a crime, to a young intern. It doesn't even have much to do with its own cover, let alone with this show.

How that becomes a TV series about the supernatural is the real unsolved mystery of this piece.

I think SyFy went up to King, and said:
"We want to paste your name on a new show, a sort of X-Files with clam chowder kinda thing. Do you have a book that isn't already optioned?"

"The Colorado Kid."

"We'll take it!"

"But it's not supernatural---"

"Don't stink up the air with facts, here's a truckload of money."

"What facts? Take it away."
That's what I think, what do you think?

1 comment:

  1. You ever seen the movie "Next" which is "based on 'the Golden Man' by Philip K Dick"?

    The things it had in common?
    The main character's name.
    The main character's power. (sort of, really a half point there)

    Yet it still retained the "license" or something from the original short story.

    Sometimes I wonder if these guys pick up a story, INTENDING to adapt it but executive meddling causes 1 thing to change... then another... and another... until you're left with an end product nothing like the original.

    Meanwhile, stories which really REALLY should be given credit are ignored.

    Tis an upside down world.

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