Okay, this is my third consecutive attempt at writing this post, with each of the two previous attempts sucked mysteriously into the ether. Which is strangely appropraite, actually.
Variety has just broken word that Martyrs director Pascal Laugier will not be shooting the announced remake to Hellraiser any time soon, after all, despite initial word to the contrary. Though Laugier is still attached to that project it's going to have to wait a while if he's actually going to do it because what he's actually going to do next is an adaptation of China Mieville short story Details.
Now, for the unfamiliar, Mieville is one of genre fictions very finest writers. I hestitate to call what he does fantasy, exactly, because it fuses in a lot of other elements but it's closer to that than anything else and whatever you call it Mieville is just brilliant. Details is a bit of a surprising choice to bring to the screen as it's a fairly abstract story and will need a good deal of expansion to get up to feature length but it's a fascinating, Lovecraftian bit of work that Laugier - who is also writing the script - seems very well suited to. More as we get it ...
** UPDATE **
A further bit of news on this. Though neither has particularly been presented as such in the official press releases apparently the deals for both Hellraiser and Details are development deals only at this stage. Though Laugier is actively working on both neither has reached the go ahead stage yet and he can't offer any sort of comment on which - if either - will go ahead first because at this point nobody knows. And considering that there are some unannounced irons in the fire as well there's a fighting chance that neither of these will end up being Laugier's next. That said, the prospect of Laugier doing Mieville still makes Todd a happy boy.
I'm a big fan of China Mieville myself. His worlds are very rich. I would love to see someone attempt Perdido Street Station as a miniseries. Hell, why not have a whole series set in his New Corubuzon world. If HBO can take on a fat book like The Game of Thrones, to me the New Corubuzon world is actually more down to scale. The Scar would be something awesome too. I haven't read his short fiction but I'll look that up right away.
I'd love to see someone tackle Crobuzon but my hunch is if someone were to tackle a Mieville novel Un Lun Dun and King Rat will both come first.
I really doubt PERDIDO could be filmed unless they made it into a couple of animated movies. Live action would be insanely expensive and with a book this weird expensive equals changes made to make it more appealing to the mainstream. And honestly, if they make a PERDIDO movie I'd rather have one with the human/bug sex scenes and appaling/wonderful stuff intact. Thank you very much.
One must also consider the ending of Perdido when adapting it to film or television. I felt like I lost a piece of my soul when I finished that book. Regardless...a series would be amazing if done right.