THE TALISMAN pour la télévision

J'ouvre un topic consacré à l'adaptation du Talisman...

ça n'est un secret pour personne, le roman sera tourné pour la Tv au format mini-série d'environ 6 heures (sans doute 2X3 heures ou 3X2 heures, peu importe.)

Voici une lettre ouverte à Spielberg & Cie rédigée par le webmaster de thedarktower.net J'ai trouvé ce texte très touchant, clair et bien écrit ; je ne rentre pas dans la bataille car le Talisman n'a jamais été mon livre de chevet, même si je l'aime beaucoup, mais je sais que quand viendra l'heure, j'aimerais que quelque rédige le même type de lettre à l'attention de ceux qui se lanceront dans l'adaptation de la Tour Sombre.

Et si personne ne le fait, ben je m'en chargerais...


Dear TNT and DreamWorks,

Let me first preface this message by stating that I am in no way trying to be malicious, sarcastic, or attempting to make a joke (although I will use humor to convey my point). I am writing this because, like many other Stephen King readers, The Talisman is the favorite book on my shelf. In light of this, I beg you, on my hands and knees, to give The Talisman television event the special treatment it deserves. Personally, it was the book that made me fall in love with reading. I was a boy of eleven with no interest in reading, until one day my mother handed me the book. It took me to a place of absolute magic and I feel the same regardless of how many times I read the book. To me, The Talisman is what Harry Potter is to millions of other readers.

I will be frank here, and please keep in mind that I am not trying to be insulting. The cold hard truth is that every single Stephen King television adaptation has fallen very short of capturing the brilliance and quality of the book. Recently, we had Desperation, Nightmares and Dreamscapes, and the re-telling of 'Salems Lot. It goes without saying that these adaptations were not well-accepted by fans. The good thing is those books aren't close enough to most fans' hearts for it to matter. However, this is definitely not the case with The Talisman. Along with The Dark Tower, the book is very near and dear to the hearts of Stephen King's readers, Peter Straub's readers, and fans of science fiction and horror in general.

I know I am just some guy who runs a web site, but I know exactly why most screen adaptations are not well-received. Please consider the following advice:

1) Don't go for the money - The fact that Stephen Spielberg is producing it alone will draw an audience. His most recent mini-series Taken was one of the best things I have ever seen in my entire life. Now add the additional automatic audience of Stephen King and Peter Straub readers. You already have it made in the shade. This gives you license to make the movie really good rather than just really accessible. It comforts me to know how much Spielberg likes the book. I know he has been wanting to make this television series for quite some time. However, Spielberg producing something doesn't comfort me quite as much as Spielberg directing something. Please, Stevie, make this project your baby. I know you're a busy guy, but if you love the book anywhere as near as much as I do, it would be all that you would eat, sleep, and dream. Bottom line: if you make a great series, you'll rake in the cash. We live in an age of TV on DVD. The better the series, the more DVDs you will sell.

2) Consider making it longer than six hours - TV movies sure do have a lot of commercials. If I remember correctly, on TNT, for each hour of show, there is at least fifteen minutes of commercials. So this takes away an hour and a half, which really makes the series four and a half hours long. To put this in nerd terms - it will end up being about as long as the extended edition of Return of the King. I really don't think this will be enough to properly tell the story. Let's go back to what I consider the best television adaptation of a King book, Mick Garris' production of The Stand. Mick did the best anybody could have in the time period he had to tell the story. The problem was that it just wasn't enough time. It's a long and incredible book, just like The Talisman. The question you have to ask yourself is do you want it to be the best television series it can possibly be, or do you want the general consensus to forever be "it was good, but it could have been better." You only have one shot at this.

3) Or maybe limit commercial breaks - Occasionally something will be shown without commercial interruption. And by that, I mean that a company sponsors the broadcast of the show and has a very long commercial in the middle like an intermission. I believe that commercial breaks won't work so well with The Talisman. Really, when do they work well with television movies? Commercial breaks seem so awkward and forced. Or, even worse, the program is actually written around having television breaks. That makes one aggravating television experience and an even worse DVD experience.

4) Do not make Wolf computer animated - If the last (or first?) Star Wars movies taught us anything, it's that muppets are more realistic than CGI-based characters. I think I can speak for most people out there and say that Wolf is our favorite character in the book. He deserves an actor. A good actor. It doesn't have to be a very well-known actor; just the right one. And if you can't find somebody, there is always Animal. Give him a few tranquilizers and he'll have the character down faster than you can shout "wo-man!"

5) A tip for Ehren Kruger - Here is your screenplay: Go to Amazon. Purchase a copy of The Talisman. Take a red marker and add stage direction. Your job is done. This is my idiotic way of saying that the book is perfect. Adapt the story, don't change the story.

I know that I am being presumptuous by telling you, the movie makers, how to make a movie. I will again stress how close this book is to my heart. Multiply me times at least a million. I know you have all of the pieces in place to make an award-winning mini-series and I am leaving my faith in you to give the book the treatment it deserves. This is our story just as much as it is yours.

Sincerely,
Joshua Greenwald
Administrator,
TheDarkTower.Net

Steven Spielberg va produire une série adaptée de Stephen King

Steven Spielberg va produire pour la télévision une mini-série de six heures, adaptée du livre fantastique "Le talisman", a annoncé mardi le quotidien "Variety" sur son site internet. L'oeuvre à l'origine de ce projet avait été écrit par Stephen King et Peter Straub.

"Le Talisman", qui raconte la quête entreprise par un garçon de 12 ans pour trouver un objet magique destiné à guérir sa mère malade, se déroule aux Etats-Unis et dans un monde parallèle, "les territoires". La série devrait être diffusée pendant l'été 2008 sur la chaîne de télévision câblée TNT, pour laquelle Spielberg a déjà produit le feuilleton western "Into the west", doté d'un budget de 100 millions de dollars.

Plusieurs ouvrages de Stephen King, considéré comme l'un des grands maîtres du roman à suspense, sont devenus des films de premier plan, comme "Shining", "Misery" et "Les évadés".

du coup ça me fait penser...
y a pas longtemps on apprenait qu'une adaptation d eBlack House serait faite AVANT une adaptation du talisman...
j'ose espérer que maintenant ils vont faire l'inverse, et pourront mettre des scènes du talisman en flashback dans black house...

(bon, faut que je finisses lisey et lise black house... et la suite de la tour sombre...)

Ehren Kruger spoke to Fangoria about The Talisman, here is what he said:

Ehren Kruger talks TNT’s TALISMAN

Fango recently spoke to screenwriter Ehren Kruger about his script for TNT’s six-hour miniseries based on THE TALISMAN, the 1984 horror/fantasy novel by Stephen King and Peter Straub. Steven Spielberg serves as an executive producer on the project, which is expected to air in 2008, and Kruger (whose credits include the RING films and the upcoming BLOOD & CHOCOLATE) has been involved with a Spielberg-produced film adaptation of THE TALISMAN for several years, though initial drafts envisioned the end result as a theatrical feature. However, like all previous attempts to bring the book to the screen (film versions have been announced since its initial printing), Kruger says that the two-hour version he was involved with “didn’t quite get its act together with actor and budget. But Steven Spielberg and [fellow executive producer] Kathleen Kennedy really wanted to take another crack at the project, so we held some meetings to sit down and take another look at the material.”

The creative team discovered that the best approach for the book’s vast storyscape—which concerns a boy’s epic journey to a parallel world in order to retrieve the title object, which will heal his dying mother—was to expand the production to a miniseries. In doing so, Kruger says that he “was able to put a lot of the scenes from the source material back into the story, and that’s all for the good.” Kruger adds that the project is “still in the scripting phase—we’re not there yet in terms of director or cast.” We’ll be keeping you posted as THE TALISMAN gets closer to rolling.

http://www.liljas-library.com/

Le Talisman : le téléfilm & une série télé?

(voir le sujet de l'actualité)

des nouvelles de l"adaptation du talisman des territoires?? pour ma part je suis assez perplexe du resultat que ca donnerait , c'est le genre de roman inadaptable et delicat pour les non inities de la saga de la tour sombre

étant donné qu'a la base ce devait etre diffusé à la tv durant l'été 2008, on peut supposer que le projet a été abandonné...