Producer Graham King has set up Dan Simmons' award-winning science fiction book series "Hyperion Cantos" at Warner Bros., with Trevor Sands on board to adapt the first two books as one feature. King is producing via his GK Films banner.
The first book, "Hyperion," won the Hugo Award for best novel in 1990, while the second, "The Fall of Hyperion," was nominated for a Nebula Award for best novel.
"Hyperion" deals with a space war, with most of the action taking place on a planet named Hyperion, known not only for its electricity-spewing trees but also for the Time Tombs, large artifacts that can move through time. The tombs are guarded by a monster called the Shrike, which impales people on metal trees.
King acquired the rights to the series several years ago, but its structure, inspired by Boccaccio's "Decameron" and Chaucer's "Canterbury Tales," and its multiple timelines made the task of adapting it into a feature unwieldy and challenging.
Brought in by GK Films' Grey Rembert and Gail Lyon, Sands won over the execs by taking a selective approach to the two novels' multiple points of view in a way that managed to coherently and unconfusingly tell the story.
Lynn Harris is overseeing at Warners.
Sands co-wrote and directed the 2002 indie "Inside," starring Jeremy Sisto. Other writing credits include the Sony sci-fi project "Resurrection," Dimension's "Six Billion Dollar Man" and an adaptation of David Brin's sci-fi novel "Startide Rising" for Paramount and producer Mace Neufeld.
He is repped by Endeavor and manager Jewerl Ross.
Borys Kit reported from Los Angeles; Gregg Goldstein reported from New York.
Both the background and the current information on this project are – as always – more complicated than represented in the studio press release. Dan fills us –
“All of four of the Hyperion Cantos novels and my novella “Orphans of the Helix,” which is also set in the Hyperion-universe, were purchased for a six-figure sum by Graham King’s company IEG – International Entertainment Group – about three years ago.
“The original idea that sold the film – or franchise of films -- was based on a treatment I wrote and it was pitched and presented by two able young screenwriters. In that approach, I had deconstructed all four of the Hyperion novels so that the messiah-character of Aenea and her lover and protector Raul Endymion would have a presence in all of the films, including the first one – Hyperion. Their love story would be the continuous thread that would connect the three or four films of a Hyperion Cantos movie franchise.
“It was the actor Leonardio DiCaprio who first showed active interested in this idea for the film andfor some time there was discussion of him doing the film with director Martin Scorsese. The first draft of the screenplay was written two years ago – not by me – but producer Graham King didn’t go with that approach and the project stayed inactive since then (even to the point of my contractually not being able to announce the details of the purchase of the books.)
“Now Graham King Films has joined in partnership with Warner Brothers to make the film version of Hyperion. As you can see in the Hollywood Reporter release above, one approach now being discussed is to combine the first two novels – Hyperion and The Fall of Hyperion – into one film (rather as Peter Weir combined two Patrick O’Brian books to make the film “Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World”) – but as is always the case in the early days of such a project, everything is in flux.
“While writer Trevor Sands has been brought aboard by Graham King for early work on story concepts, there’s been no final selection of either a definitive screenwriter or director yet.
“However, there is one director I know to be under consideration who would be wonderful for “Hyperion: The Movie.” I’m not at liberty to mention his name yet, but this director knows the Hyperion Cantos novels very, very well and has a strong sense of the cinematic potential of literary SF. Indeed, one of this director’s upcoming films is a much-anticipated reworking of an SF-movie classic.
“Those who know movies and movie-making know that there’s never a guarantee of a project being completed until the last shots are in the can – and even then some films are never released. But the Graham King Films – Warner Brothers announcement of the Hyperion Cantos purchase and their plans to go ahead with the “Hyperion” movie is a huge step forward.”
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THE TERROR Chosen As Shirley Jackson Award Final Nominee
Dan recently received the following e-mail. –
Dear Mr. Simmons,
Congratulations! "The Terror" has been voted a 2007 Shirley Jackson Awards nominee in the category of Novel.
In recognition of the legacy of Shirley Jackson's writing, and with permission of the author's estate, the Shirley Jackson Awards have been established for outstanding achievement in the literature of psychological suspense, horror, and the dark fantastic.
The Shirley Jackson Awards are voted upon by a jury of professional writers, editors, critics, and academics, with input from an esteemed Board of Advisors. The awards will be given for the outstanding work published in the preceding calendar year in the following categories: Novel, Novella, Novelette, Short Story, Single-Author Collection, and Edited Anthology.
Bios for each nominee may be included on our website, www.shirleyjacksonawards.org.
Within the month, all nominees will be notified about the location and date of the award ceremony, and we hope that you will be able to participate in this exciting event.
We invite you to visit our website www.shirleyjacksonawards.org for the complete list of nominees on or after May 1. If you have any questions, please feel to contact the administrator, JoAnn F. Cox.
This was a particularly strong year for dark fiction, and we are delighted by this excellent final ballot for the inaugural year of the Shirley Jackson Awards. Again, congratulations!
#
As all readers of quality horror fiction know, Shirley Jackson was the author of The Haunting of Hill House, We Have Always Lived in the Castle, the much-anthologized short story “The Lottery,” and many other classic works of psychological horror.
“Shirley Jackson has always been my favorite horror novelist,” says Dan. “Her The Haunting of Hill House may be the only piece of horror fiction that truly and deeply frightened me and every time I reread it I’m more in awe of her talent and ability. I’m delighted that The Terror has been chosen as a finalist for the Shirley Jackson Award.”
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DROOD Cover from Little, Brown
Click here to enlarge
Little, Brown, Dan's publisher for The Terror, has just revealed their proposed cover for Dan's next novel, Drood, currently scheduled to go on sale in January, 2009.
Drood, in the tradition of The Terror, is a unique mix of history, biography, and dark fantasy, but where The Terror dealt with an actual doomed Arctic expedition in 1848, Drood looks at the lives and secrets of Charles Dickens and his novelist friend Wilkie Collins in the period 1865-1870. History records that Dickens was in the terrible Staplehurst train accident of 1865 and suffered injuries - both physical and psychological -- from which he never recovered. He died suddenly on the fifth anniversary of that accident on June 9,1870.
Drood fictionally explores the dark secrets that came to obsess both Dickens and Wilkie Collins during those five years -- secrets that not only ended their long friendship but brought each writer to the brink of murder.
"I love the proposed cover for Drood," said Dan. "It conveys the brooding anxiety and dark sense of threat that I attempted to put into every page of the novel. Writing The Terror made me feel cold, even in the summer. But something in Drood has actively made me shiver from fear of the dark and this cover captures some of that sense of dread.
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The Terror on 2007 Top Lists
 Dan's Arctic adventure-dark fantasy novel The Terror was on a variety of Top 10 lists for 2007, including Entertainment Weekly's Top 10 Books of 2007, USA Today's Top 10 Books, Stephen King's "Top 10 from My Reading in 2007" list also quoted in Entertainment Weekly, and was # 1 on Amazon.com's "2007 Top 10 SF and Horror Novels" list.
The Terror was also in the Top 12 of all books rated by Book Sense, the journal of independent bookstores.
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"This Year's Class Picture" On Stage in France
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Dan's multiple prize-winning short story "THIS YEAR'S CLASS PICTURE" (about an older elementary teacher, Miss Geiss, who continues teaching, even though her students are now zombies) was produced as a stage play in Paris in the fall of 2007 by Violetta Wowczak. There were thirty performances throughout the month of October and into early November. Interestingly, reviews -- including one by the theater-reviewer for the national French teachers union -- were quite positive. Dan regrets that he was unable to attend the opening night, especially since this was the first time any of his work was transformed for the theater.
Ms.Wowczak recently said that the play," La Jour de la Photo de Classe", may well see other performances throughout France, possibly at Imaginales in Epinal, May 22-25. Dan would be honored to attend one of them and would even brush up on his French language skills so that he could pretend to follow along.
Visit Cie Violetta Wowczak site
Click here to enlarge
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Carrion Comfort Optioned by Costa Gavras, Screenplay Finished,
French Film Possible, Tautou Interested
 For several years now, Dan's epic tale of mind-vampirism, CARRION COMFORT, has been optioned for the screen by the family of famed French film director Costa Gavras, who did the paranoid political thriller "Z" in 1969. This January, the Costa Gavras group has renewed a final option on CARRION COMFORT and announced that a French language version of the screenplay is complete. Alexandre Gavras is slated to be the director of the film version of CARRION COMFORT, and they also inform us that Pathe likes the screenplay and is considering a Greek coproduction partner. According to the Gavras group, internationally famous actress Audrey Tautou -- known to worldwide audiences for playing the title character in the award-winning French film Amelie(2001) and also Sophie Neveau in The Da Vinci Code (2006) -- is currently reviewing the screenplay in connection with a lead role.
The Gavras group has announced that they hope to begin principal photography in September of this year.
Wikipedia says of the elder Costa Gavras --
"Costa Gavras is known for merging controversial political issues with the entertainment value of commercial cinema. Law and justice, oppression, legal/illegal violence, and torture are common subjects in his work, especially relevant to his earlier films. Costa Gavras is an expert of the “statement” picture, an art form slowly vanishing from the studios of cut-throat, capital-driven cinema. [ Note -- the Wikipedia writer's phrase, not Dan's. He likes cut-throat, capital-driven Hollywood cinema. Some of his best friends are cut-throat, capital-driven, Hollywood-cinema types. Dan hopes someday to be a . . . well, you get the idea.]
Wikiepedia goes on -- "Gavras has repeatedly explored political terrain. In most cases, the targets of his work have been right-of-center movements and regimes, including Greek conservatives in and out of the military in "Z," and the U.S.-supported authoritarian governments that ruled much of Latin America during the height of the Cold War, as in State of Siege and Missing."
Dan says of a possible Costa Gavras film adaptation of CARRION COMFORT -- "I remember seeing 'Z' while I was in graduate school at Washington University in St. Louis in 1970 and I thought at the time that it was a brilliant political thriller. It caused viewers to be paranoid about everything. Since CARRION COMFORT is a novel filled with justifiable paranoia -- it turns out that "they" are out to get us -- a Gavras-family connection to a French film version of this epic novel might lead to a very interesting project. I look forward to seeing what develops"
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DAN TO WRITE FANTASY TALE SET IN JACK VANCE UNIVERSE
Despite the fact that Dan has won the World Fantasy Award twice, the British Fantasy Award, a Japanese Fantasy Award for Best Novel, and various other awards with "fantasy" in their headings, some of you may know that he feels that he's never written a "real" fantasy story or novel.
That will change this year.
George R.R. Martin and Gardner Dozois have asked Dan to write a story or novelette or novella for their upcoming proposed anthology of tales set in Jack Vance's "Dying Earth" universe and Dan has accepted . . . with pleasure.
"I respect the fact that most of the world thinks of Harry Potter when they think 'fantasy,'" says Dan. "For me, quality fantasy will always be Jack Vance and his The Dying Earth tales. I'm excited to be invited to that universe and look forward to attempting a piece of fantasy that will honor the tremendous quality that Jack Vance set as the standard in his Dying Earth stories."
Here are some of the details as forwarded in a letter to Dan from George R.R. Martin:
"Gardner and I have put the finishing touches on the proposal for the anthology we're calling SONGS OF THE DYING EARTH, and have turned it over to Ralph Vicinanza, who represents Jack Vance and will be handling this one on both the foreign and domestic fronts. We got a wonderful response to our invitations; Jack Vance is truly a writer's writer, and has had a profound influence on several generations of fantasists.
Our lineup of writers is pretty impressive, we think. In alphabetical order:
Glen Cook Michael Shea
Terry Dowling Robert Silverberg
Phyllis Eisenstein Dan Simmons
Ray Feist Jeff Vandermeer
Neil Gaiman Paula Volsky
Elizabeth Hand Howard Waldrop
Matt Hughes Liz Williams
Tanith Lee Tad Williams
George R.R. Martin Walter Jon Williams
Michael Moorcock John C. Wright
Mike Resnick
Gardner and I are hopeful that the publishers will be as excited about this anthology as we are. It should be a terrific book.
We'll keep you posted.
George R.R. Martin"
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Podcast of Rick Kleffel's January 31 Interview with Dan
While in San Francisco on tour for THE TERROR at the end of January, Dan went to the NPR headquarters there to do this one-hour interview with Rick Kleffel of California's KUSP radio. Kleffel's "The Agony Column" features podcast and broadcast interviews with some of the top names in imaginative fiction. This interview focuses on THE TERROR but also includes conversations about writing SF, researching for a novel, the demise of Joe Kurtz, and other topics.
To hear this podcast, please click here to reach the Agony Column Archives and scroll down to Simmons's interview on 1-31-07 to download it in either MP3 or Real Player format. |
