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Some classic books out there, but can you beat 'Catcher in the Rye' for a contender as a film that SHOULD be made or do you leave a classic like that alone?

Catcher wouldn't work as a film as it's mainly insular. All the stuff that works well on the page and might translate on screen has already been pillaged by film-makers. Instead of the great bored teenage rebel you'd end up with a wise-cracking Ferris Bueller. And you wouldn't like that at all, Ace.

Films that should be made? I'm still waiting for a decent film of the King Arthur legends (not involving the Pythons), a movie of Thomas Keneally's A Victim Of The Aurora (a scarcely disguised retelling of the Scott expedition), and for someone to do a proper version of Dracula---Lugosi was crap, Lee was good but the films he was in tried not to offend anyone, Langella tried but was up against a scenery-munching Olivier, and if anyone in the Coppola version had been acting as well as Tom Waites it might have been fine; someone has to knock old Max Schreck off the pedestal as best screen vamp.

CITR? Best left alone - not a narrative that lends itself to cinema well, as many tomes written in the first person tend to have. You'd never catch it :~)

Aside from that, Patrick Suskind's Perfume may well show up on the screen - he sold the rights for an enormous sum after the death of Kubrick, whom he'd previously insisted should be the only one allowed near it. Money talks, as ever. Also the King/Straub opus The Talisman is in the works - although this reader would prefer to see Straub's Koko brought to life. And whatever happened to the plans David Lynch had of filming DM Thomas' The White Hotel. That would've been astonishing. A big screen, whistles-and-bells War of the Worlds would be much appreciated too - are you reading this, Mr Jackson?

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"Let's do it..."

I guess you mean Peter not Michael.

Mart

I did indeed. Wrist? consider it slapped. Cracking book, of course.

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"Let's do it..."

whats this catcher in the rye about wasnt it mark chapmans fave book,he was kinda obsessed with it.