Scripts I'd Like to Rewrite

Tom of The One Year Push was also tagged by Ismo and opted not to tag four more bloggers, but instead to ask scriptwriting bloggers to list the 4 films they would like to rewrite. I like making lists but can't think of 4 at the moment so here are 3:

Creep: I'm not a huge horror fan by any means, and my taste in horror veers towards the psychological horror/thriller. Still, I love the simplicity of a good, classic horror set up, like Halloween, The Shining or The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. Most of these are actually surprisingly light on the guts and gore. Anyway, I loved the idea of a horror set on the London Underground. The tube is scary and uncomfortable and I'm glad I don't have to use it too much anymore. But Creep was so disappointing. The first problem was that the lead character was a hateful bitch I wanted to die. Not a good start. And then killer was revealed far too early, rather than building up the suspense. And he was called 'Craig'. Not scary. If I were to rewrite it, I'd try to crank as much tension from the situation as possible, before revealing the killer. A bit like in The Descent, where there is already a lot of jumps and scares just from the fact these idiotic women are crawling around in tiny caves in the middle of nowhere. And I'd try to make the lead character someone the audience might actually want to survive!

The Warriors: I really didn't expect to like this, but I loved the idea, the central characters were nicely contrasted and it was a lot more tense than I thought it would be. Strictly speaking, what I'd want to do is remake it, because it is obviously very dated now, but I think it could be updated very effectively.

When Brendan Met Trudy: This was written by Roddy Doyle (The Commitments) and so I had high expectations. It suffered from trying too hard to be wacky and funny, without bothering to develop the characters and it was poorly structured. I'd go back to square one with the central relationship, and develop the story from there, but somehow magically maintain Roddy Doyle's wit!

Now, since, as I said I like making lists, I'm going to throw another one back out there to my fellow scriptwriting bloggers. Feel free to share your dream adaptation project. They can be book, comic, play or true story. Here are mine:

The Lovely Bones, Alice Sebold: Adored this book, about a young girl who is murdered, watching over her family from heaven as they to piece together their lives after she has gone. It could have been so sentimental given the scenario, but somehow avoids this. Sadly, I'm too late for this one. Last I heard Peter Jackson had bought the rights. Before that, Lynne Ramsay had expressed an interest. Have to say I would have gone for Ramsay over Jackson, but time will tell if I'm judging harshly. I loved Heavenly Creatures after all, so we'll see.

Death and the Penguin, Andrey Kurkov: Set in the Ukraine, its about an obituary writer who adopts a penguin from a zoo that's about to close, which eventually leads to his involvement with Kiev's criminal underworld. No idea yet how I would handle this, but I'd love to have a go anyway. Misha the depressed penguin is a fantastic creation, and the book is very visual, so I think it would make a great adaptation. I'm sure I'm not the only one who thinks so, but if the rights have been bought, I haven't been able to find anything about it.

Summer of My German Soldier, Bette Greene: One of my favourite childhood books, about a young Jewish girl in the Deep South during WWII, who befriends an escaped German POW. Very poignant and a very resonant story. There has already been a TV adaptation of this in the 70's, according to Imdb, but I think enough time has passed to tackle it again. I'd want it to be a feature rather than TV.

I do have a fourth but I'm not telling as it is something I intend to tackle in the near future. So watch this space!