I've read the book twice, and, I've recently heard of this news. And while I'm well aware of Syfy's reputation (they've fallen far from the days when I would watch Twilight Zone marathons on it), I am willing to defer judgment until they at least start filming, especially since potential film adaptations of classic books start up and die stillborn far more often that one might think; people have tried and failed to adapt it many times (needless to say, the group sex may make a faithful adaptation difficult.) Hell, they did a damn fine adaptation of Dune... even if it was in 2000.
I've even read a script of a planned adaptation in 1995 written by Heathers' Daniel Waters as a potential vehicle for Tom Hanks (who would almost certainly have been too old to play Michael and too young to play Jubal) and focuses far too heavily on the more philosophical first half, with the more story-driven later half starting 4/5 of the way through.
Read more here.
Apparently, Waters couldn't finish the book, and apparently decided to do the Dixon Steele in In a Lonely Place method of having a friend read it and explain the plot to him. This may be a good idea for, say, a Mickey Spillane book with bugger-all in the way of literary merit, particularly in an era where in-name-only adaptations of such novels were the norm, but for a book with such a big fandom decades later, covering lots of intelligent themes in an era where audiences are more likely to be bothered by that is disgraceful.
Of course, however, I recently saw a trailer for another film that, for the first minute or so, I was sure was a bastardised adaptation of Stranger in a Strange Land.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x73-573aWfs
Fortunately, it was not. Let's hope Syfy's version sticks truer to the novel than either that trailer or Daniel Waters' screenplay. And hopefully, they actually put more effort in this than they did for Sharknado.
I've even read a script of a planned adaptation in 1995 written by Heathers' Daniel Waters as a potential vehicle for Tom Hanks (who would almost certainly have been too old to play Michael and too young to play Jubal) and focuses far too heavily on the more philosophical first half, with the more story-driven later half starting 4/5 of the way through.
Read more here.
Apparently, Waters couldn't finish the book, and apparently decided to do the Dixon Steele in In a Lonely Place method of having a friend read it and explain the plot to him. This may be a good idea for, say, a Mickey Spillane book with bugger-all in the way of literary merit, particularly in an era where in-name-only adaptations of such novels were the norm, but for a book with such a big fandom decades later, covering lots of intelligent themes in an era where audiences are more likely to be bothered by that is disgraceful.
Of course, however, I recently saw a trailer for another film that, for the first minute or so, I was sure was a bastardised adaptation of Stranger in a Strange Land.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x73-573aWfs
Fortunately, it was not. Let's hope Syfy's version sticks truer to the novel than either that trailer or Daniel Waters' screenplay. And hopefully, they actually put more effort in this than they did for Sharknado.
Comparing the Universal Oneness of All Life to Yo Mama since 2010.
![[Image: harmlesskitchen.png]](https://i.postimg.cc/yxR97P23/harmlesskitchen.png)
I was born with the gift of laughter and a sense the world is mad.
I was born with the gift of laughter and a sense the world is mad.
