Streamings, Take Note: 5 Book Series Fans Want To See Adapted For TV
It's time to take risks.
Current trends in Hollywood suggest that showmakers prefer to rely on old, beloved IPs.
Disney+'s Percy Jackson and Star Wars, Max's Harry Potter, Prime Video's The Lord of the Rings, Summit Entertainment's Twilight, and other shows based on fan-favorite source material suggest that major filmmakers are not willing to take risks.
Meanwhile, there are plenty of print stories that take a fresh look at the fantasy genre and could bring something new to the table. For example, here are five series of novels that readers would love to see adapted for television.
The Dark Is Rising Sequence by Susan Cooper
Published from 1965 to 1977, this five-novel coming-of-age fantasy series features a well-developed universe in which the battle between good (The Light) and evil (The Dark) takes place. Both ordinary and magical kids (belonging to the ancient race of wizards, the Old Ones) are caught up in the fight.
In 2007, there was an attempt by 20th Century Fox and Walden Media to make a live-action movie based on the series called The Seeker. But the adaptation strayed too far from the source material and failed at the box office.
The Chronicles of Prydain by Lloyd Alexander
The teen fantasy pentalogy, which ran from 1964 to 1969, is inspired by Welsh folklore and mythology and features many unique races and creatures. The protagonist of the series is a boy with a mysterious background and big dreams of becoming a hero.
Disney once had its eye on the series and even created the 1985 animated film The Black Cauldron, loosely based on one of the novels. However, the film was a box office failure.
The Culture Series by Iain M. Banks
If done right, the 1987-2012 Culture series could provide enough material for a long, gripping TV show. The 10-novel series is set in a utopian space society where humanoid aliens live in artificial habitats scattered throughout the Milky Way galaxy.
As an advanced civilization, the society strives to civilize the galaxy, which leads to numerous moral dilemmas that are depicted in ten books, all of which feature different protagonists in different situations.
In 2018, Amazon acquired the rights to the first Culture novel, but the adaptation was canceled for mysterious reasons.
The Revelation Space series by Alastair Reynolds
Adapting this series would require a good team of writers, as it consists of over 20 novellas and short stories published since the 1990s. They all take place in the same universe of a highly advanced technological future where human society hasn't changed too much morally and the science is real and believable.
Probably because of its complex nature and the large budgets required, there has never been an attempt to adapt the series for television.
Magic Tree House by Mary Pope Osborne
The long series of children's books about two American siblings who travel through time and space with the help of magical books found in a mysterious tree house would make a great Disney+ series that could also appeal to adults.
So far, only the 2012 Japanese animated film based on the series has been made, leaving plenty of opportunities for Western studios to create a live-action adaptation.