Iain M Banks' Culture To Be Filmed? That's the plan anyway... Source: Variety
The British production company Film and Music Entertainment, in partnership with director Dominic Murphy (White Lightnin'), have just announced several future projects, including an untitled Bronte film (Charlotte? Emily? Anne?) and Jesus Christ Airlines, about a heroic pilot in Biafra. But most tantalising is A Gift From the Culture, based on a short story by Iain M. Banks, originally published in Interzone and collected in Banks' The State of the Art.
Murphy is writing the script, which if it sticks to source will be about a refugee from Banks' complex utopia The Culture, living undercover on a world that the anarchist socialist intergalactic colonial empire (yes, it's contradictory, we know) has just noticed, and being blackmailed into a violent act using a Culture-specific weapon.
Banks' sci-fi novels (he also writes dark "mainstream" fiction without the M, notably The Wasp Factory and The Crow Road) are fat and full of ideas, and, we'd have thought, pretty resistant to screen adaptation. Banks himself has been equivocal on the subject in the past, although he has joked that he'd be willing to make any compromise necessary, including sticking on a happy ending, to see his mental space opera Consider Phlebas given the $200m Hollywood treatment.
Focusing on a short story is a modest and sensible approach then, but we'll still believe this when we see it.
I think if they were going to go down the short story route the novella The State of the Art would be a better option. From a budget perspective it makes sense being set on Earth and would be a good social satire being centred around a Culture Contact agent going native. ... Read More
Consider Phlebas could be a brilliantly dark twisted (medium budget, im talking district 9 level here) sci-fi movie. Could the scene on the beach with the grotesque cannibal be included? YES! but i think we all know whats going to happon. strip out all individualisum about the Culture's... umm.... culture and make a straight up vauge sci-fi romp in order to get the hardcore fans on board from the name alone. Keep your hands firmly on the reins Banks! ... Read More
But I thought that Against a Dark Background would be the most easily filmed due to it's episodic nature, it also occured to me whilst reading Matter that he was thinking of a movie when writing it. But seroiusly the culture is too evolved for Movie Ececs to buy in to, it would be a shame to water it down to their level ... Read More
I'm sure i heard ages ago that the Player of Games had been optioned... anyone else heard that or am i just going crazy?
I think either that, Use of Weapons or as someone else said State of the Art would be good kicking off points. ... Read More
Let's not be too hasty. Sure - chances are it will not end up the movie each individual culture fan would like to see. Also, that short story most definitely does NOT have a happy ending. But at least it is a plan to use brilliant source material, instead of "Tetris - the Movie" or a hip-hop remake of "Citizen Kane". Give them a chance and some kudos for quality intentions... ... Read More
Please just stick to making half decent TV movies of his contemporary fiction. None of it is going to translate to the big screen properly. Dakes 69, is right though. The best chance they have of getting the Culture on-screen is Use of Weapons. Or the short story The State of the Art. State of the Art would at least introduce Diziet Sma and give her a background in a way Use of Weapons doesn't. Even so, I will pray they don't do it. ... Read More
