The Prince of Nothing: TV series

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Wilshire

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« on: August 26, 2016, 12:43:28 pm »
Not a film but:

https://rsbakker.wordpress.com/2016/08/25/still-idiosyncratic-yet-verging-on-mainstream/

TV rights, apparently.




As requested, a fresh topic for the possibility of this: according to Bakker on his blog (link above):

Quote
And with details forthcoming, it looks like we have a deal for the television rights to The Prince of Nothing… there’s not much I can say yet, except that the more books I can sell, the greater the chance of seeing the series on the screen! Time to pull out the purple tuxedo…
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Bolivar

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« Reply #1 on: August 26, 2016, 03:53:53 pm »
I assume it's targeting one or more of the premium movie channels. There's just no way to bring the content of these books to television unless it was late night cable or something.

His comment sounds like there's some contractual mechanism for the show contingent on sales. I hope he didn't get screwed over in the agreement. As others on the blog mentioned, I'm worried about the rights sitting on a shelf while there's other groups out there that may otherwise be interested.

Wilshire

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« Reply #2 on: August 26, 2016, 03:58:49 pm »
I'm not confident in Bakker's (or his agent's) contract negotiating skills, based on how botched his Overlook books have been through the years, and how terrible the rollout of TGO has been in Canada (still not in the shelves as of this posting, even though its been out for 3 months). So, I fully agree with those concerns.

Scifi Syfy channel is doing Hyperion, and I fully expect that to be mediocre at best. Maybe he's selling the rights to Scifi Syfy as well, that way they can ruin both my favorite series all at once and I can put these dreams of grandeur to bed.

Hopefully though, HBO or Starz or whatever premium channel picks it up and they give it a fair shake. It'll need some creative scripting to get through all the internal dialogue, all the different POVs in the first book, the background info stuff, fixing the pacing to work better for a TV fandom... It'll take a lot of work - lets hope whoever is buying the rights is interested in doing that work well.
« Last Edit: August 26, 2016, 04:43:48 pm by Wilshire »
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Bolivar

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« Reply #3 on: August 26, 2016, 04:10:03 pm »
Wilshire, it's spelled SyFy! (so cool)

That's crazy they're doing Hyperion, I know Bradley Cooper's been trying to get that going for years (he probably would have preferred a film). I don't know if you saw the Dune mini series they made out of the first three books but I actually enjoyed it a lot, it was certainly much better than the David Lynch film. A lot of people seem to like the channel's current output of original series', so don't fear to hope against hope!

Actually when you look at their latest output it would make total sense that they've locked down the Prince of Nothing.

Wilshire

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« Reply #4 on: August 26, 2016, 04:15:36 pm »
Wilshire, it's spelled SyFy! (so cool)
Oh man, thanks for that. Wouldn't want to be left out of the cool kids klub (^ ^).

That's crazy they're doing Hyperion, I know Bradley Cooper's been trying to get that going for years (he probably would have preferred a film).
I'm worried about it, but maybe they'll do a good job.

I don't know if you saw the Dune mini series they made out of the first three books but I actually enjoyed it a lot,
Haven't seen, but I dont think it was critically acclaimed :P


 it was certainly much better than the David Lynch film.
I'm not sure it could be worse. That was... unwatchable - at least for me, trying to watch it a couple years ago for the first time.

A lot of people seem to like the channel's current output of original series', so don't fear to hope against hope!

Actually when you look at their latest output it would make total sense that they've locked down the Prince of Nothing.


Yeah I was being semi-serious with Syfy, but I'm so not ready to hope for real. Maybe if we can slide some TSAers onto that screen-play writers list, I'll allow for some slight hope :) .
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Redeagl

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« Reply #5 on: August 26, 2016, 04:28:45 pm »
I don't think that Syfy will buy this series knowing the challenges that awaits them.They don't have the budget for it. It must have been one of the bigger channels,say Showtime or Starz.
« Last Edit: August 26, 2016, 05:13:59 pm by Redeagl »
“The thoughts of all men arise from the darkness. If you are the movement of your soul, and the cause of that movement precedes you, then how could you ever call your thoughts your own? How could you be anything other than a slave to the darkness that comes before?”

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Titan

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« Reply #6 on: August 26, 2016, 08:55:46 pm »
I'm almost done with my first re-read of the "Prince of Nothing" trilogy, and I've been mulling about how it could be adapted for a TV series. There is some amazing stuff in there that just screams for a cinematic/televised treatment, and it could be great... if done well.

BUT... There are some SIGNIFICANT challenges.
 - The raping and misogyny would have to be dialed back a LOT, even if this was for HBO/Showtime/Starz.
 - The vast number of characters and locations would probably need some trimming. For example, it would simplify things to merge the Sumna location into Monemn.
 - How do you present Kellhus POV? With voice-overs? Sherlock-esque text overlays? Just great acting?

I would love to see this done well, as a deconstruction of the typical Crusade narrative, set in a mostly middle east inspired setting. (In my mind I read the Nansur empire as being inspired by the Byzantine empire, with the Kianese as very Persian)
« Last Edit: August 26, 2016, 09:00:48 pm by Titan »

Redeagl

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« Reply #7 on: August 26, 2016, 09:41:40 pm »
I'm almost done with my first re-read of the "Prince of Nothing" trilogy, and I've been mulling about how it could be adapted for a TV series. There is some amazing stuff in there that just screams for a cinematic/televised treatment, and it could be great... if done well.

BUT... There are some SIGNIFICANT challenges.
 - The raping and misogyny would have to be dialed back a LOT, even if this was for HBO/Showtime/Starz.
 - The vast number of characters and locations would probably need some trimming. For example, it would simplify things to merge the Sumna location into Monemn.
 - How do you present Kellhus POV? With voice-overs? Sherlock-esque text overlays? Just great acting?

I would love to see this done well, as a deconstruction of the typical Crusade narrative, set in a mostly middle east inspired setting. (In my mind I read the Nansur empire as being inspired by the Byzantine empire, with the Kianese as very Persian)
Hmm I don't think that your second point is valid. GOT has far more characters and locations so that shouldn't be a problem.
“The thoughts of all men arise from the darkness. If you are the movement of your soul, and the cause of that movement precedes you, then how could you ever call your thoughts your own? How could you be anything other than a slave to the darkness that comes before?”

- Chronicler of the Chroniclers

Titan

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« Reply #8 on: August 26, 2016, 09:53:25 pm »
I'm almost done with my first re-read of the "Prince of Nothing" trilogy, and I've been mulling about how it could be adapted for a TV series. There is some amazing stuff in there that just screams for a cinematic/televised treatment, and it could be great... if done well.

BUT... There are some SIGNIFICANT challenges.
 - The raping and misogyny would have to be dialed back a LOT, even if this was for HBO/Showtime/Starz.
 - The vast number of characters and locations would probably need some trimming. For example, it would simplify things to merge the Sumna location into Monemn.
 - How do you present Kellhus POV? With voice-overs? Sherlock-esque text overlays? Just great acting?

I would love to see this done well, as a deconstruction of the typical Crusade narrative, set in a mostly middle east inspired setting. (In my mind I read the Nansur empire as being inspired by the Byzantine empire, with the Kianese as very Persian)
Hmm I don't think that your second point is valid. GOT has far more characters and locations so that shouldn't be a problem.
Yes, but as has been pointed out in the old "The Prince of Nothing (Film)" thread (that I just discovered)  :-[, in GOT you started with few locations and grew from there - whereas PON (Book 1) starts with the characters spread in many places, gradually moving towards each other only to meet up at the end of book 1. That many locations could be problematic for the first few episodes.

I'm not saying it is impossible, but it will be more challenging to adapt than GOT.
« Last Edit: August 26, 2016, 10:03:45 pm by Titan »

Callan S.

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« Reply #9 on: August 26, 2016, 11:45:03 pm »
No 'Boasting about movie rights being bought is like boasting about buying a lottery ticket' caveat this time? Or is TV far more likely to happen than a movie?

Wilshire

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« Reply #10 on: August 27, 2016, 03:11:52 am »
Yep, lots of challenges for sure. Hopefully the people that are involved will make intelligent decisions. It likely won't be able to play out exactly like the books, so it'll be a challenge to stay true to TSA and make it interesting to a wider audience.

Also, how far away is selling rights from production? Does money actually change hands? That's a win for the author then, even if it's not made. Maybe it'll fund the writing of TSTSNBN.
« Last Edit: August 27, 2016, 03:14:59 am by Wilshire »
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Callan S.

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« Reply #11 on: August 27, 2016, 04:44:23 am »
I think any money would really just be a reservation payment at this point.

From what I've heard about the GOT adaption, I hope they don't do bizarre changes - like the underage sex being made into rape or the incest sex being...made into rape. It's like any time the GOT producers had their own sense of normal challenged, they had to make it rape.

Cynical Cat

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« Reply #12 on: August 27, 2016, 06:08:04 am »
Most rights deals involve some money changing hands just for sitting on the rights.  So Scott got paid even if they end up doing nothing with it.  Now it won't be big Hollywood money (that might happen if they make a series and it is successful), but it will be real money.  A lot of these things end up never getting made, so don't get your hopes up yet, but this is an entry in the plus column on whether or not Scott can continue to be full time writer and support his family.  Even if no series comes of this, it is a good thing.

As for who is doing it, I can't write off Syfy after the job they did with The Expanse.  The Magicians was also pretty good, but it doesn't require the same kind of resources that The Expanse does and they did a good job of it.  It could be any number of channels really.  Even if it goes to series it probably won't start until Game of Thrones is ending and GoT's success is probably one of the things helping to push interest in Scott's work.  As for Hyperion, it can really only work as a series.  Can you imagine how badly a movie would have to butcher the pilgrim's stories in order to include them in under three hours?  It's a miracle that Snyder was able to bring in Watchmen under three hours and still be fairly faithful.  Hyperion would be impossible.  The Soldier's Story alone is going to eat up at least an hour to do it right.

The Sharmat

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« Reply #13 on: August 27, 2016, 08:30:37 am »
Not interested unless it's animated. Live action would take a giant budget to do it justice. Animation...still big, but less so. of course, then there's an even smaller market...

Wilshire

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« Reply #14 on: August 27, 2016, 10:00:19 am »
Yeah to be honest I'd more likely to watch it if it was animated. I watch a lot more animated shows than not. But I hope for great success regardless.
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