Friday 3 July 2009

The Prince of Nothing to become a TV mini-series?

I'm surprised this news hadn't made more of an impact. According to Scott Bakker, producer/director Chris Weitz, director of The Golden Compass, had expressed an interest in developing The Prince of Nothing as a cable TV project (not dissimilar to A Game of Thrones for HBO) and had gotten as far as planning to film a pilot before the project was shelved due to the economic slow-down. Currently the project is on hiatus but will be revisited in 2010, presumably after Weitz's current project, the Twilight sequel New Moon, is released.

Interesting news. Given the considerable barriers to Game of Thrones getting on-air that HBO are slowly overcoming, Prince of Nothing is an even vaster, more daunting challenge. The battles are much larger, much of the narrative has the protagonists travelling with an army numbering in the hundreds of thousands, there are vast magical battles between sorcerers and the subject material is very dark and sometimes disturbing. Getting this on screen would be very impressive.

10 comments:

MatsVS said...

Dear lord, can't they ever just leave anything alone? It is my sincerest wish that the great decadent Hollywood rape&consumerism-mobile crashes and burns long before this ever becomes reality.

Anonymous said...

I had heard nothing of the sort, until I read your post, moments ago over on sffworld. I, too, am skeptical that this series can translate to the small screen. But, after the success of Dexter, perhaps it's not such a large hurdle after all.

Anonymous said...

Clarification: I was using Dexter as an example of questionably appropriate television programming.

Anonymous said...

I really like this series alot, but I just cant see it. I didn't think Golden Compass was all that bad an adaptation, but I just can't see how PoN could be done. I mean GG Kay's Lions has been stuck in dev hell for 5 years and its 1 book with no magic.

Unknown said...

For some reason I'm getting the feel that it would be actually easier to adapt in terms of FX. I mean, no magical creatures, to start off; and the castles and buildings are less distinctive, which would make finding locations easier, and there's much less main characters than in ASOIAF (the lead + secondary characters are around 10, everything else are figurants). I imagine magical battles are relatively easier to handle with CGI in comparison because they don't need to be that realistic. I also assume crowds can be done by "multiplying" the number of figurants (even if the result isn't as good as with real crowds). Didn't Rome do that a lot
What would be difficult is the offensive nature of some of the source material, given that it's often worse the ASOIAF... then again, Twilight is fairly offensive and that didn't seem to pause a problem x_x

Unknown said...

At least there is a chance the source material will be finished before the show caught up to the most recently published book.

Anonymous said...

I think this can be done well, as long as they treat it seriously and get some decent actors in (and not just the latest big name or pretty boy).

As someone mentioned above, I do worry that they won't be able to fully capture the content because of the level of sex and violence in the books.

Would they even want to do TWP? I mean, it takes place almost entirely in a desert.

Ryan said...

I love Prince of Nothing, but it also ends up being... really interior. Lots of what is going on is interior monologue. Somebody else mentioned Dexter, and they do a lot of well done interior dialogue but there is definitely a limit on how much you can get away with and still have a television show. I think this series would push that edge.

Brett said...

I agree with Ryan. A huge part of the book is seeing what is going on Kellhus's head, then comparing it to what is going on in the other characters' heads. So, for example, Kellhus might be thinking about how he's possessed someone, while that person sees him as a sympathetic, friendly, prophetic figure.

So, how do you do that in a miniseries? It would be difficult to do it - you'd have to have Kellhus and probably Achamian doing an overvoice in certain parts.

Anonymous said...

This sounds like a horrible idea, to me. I love these books. They are amazing and the battles and interaction between characters are excellent. The level of sex and violence gives it a very powerful and savage feel to it while being much more than just a book about killing and screwing. I don't care what director you use, which high budget actor. No one can match the book version of Kellhus. I can see huge failure in trying to portray Achamian or Cnaiur or even Esmenet.