The Royal Shakespeare Company presents King Lear, starring Ian McKellen, directed by Trevor Nunn, adapted for broadcast and available in its entirety online. [more inside]
posted by Ndwright on Jun 5, 2009 - 36 comments

Billionaires have more grandchildren through their sons than through their daughters, because the status advantage is more reproductively valuable to the sons. Therefore, it would be adaptive for the mothers of their children to bear more sons than daughters. But surely that can't be; mothers can't control the sex of their children. Oh but so it is: billionaires have 60% male children. [more inside]
posted by grobstein on Jan 17, 2009 - 69 comments

It happened to Clifford. It happened to Little Bear. It happened to Harold and his Purple Crayon, and Curious George. Now, Moe Greene productions presents, Nate the Great. I don't want to begrudge my favorite children's book authors a fat paycheck, BUT... [more inside]
posted by rikschell on Nov 30, 2008 - 32 comments

No "Preacher" for you. Many of you did not think a "Preacher" miniseries would end well. Would fans prefer to be disappointed by the aborted attempt at an adaptation than disappointed at its not meeting viewers' expectations?
posted by Four-Eyed Girl on Aug 27, 2008 - 83 comments

Fritz Langs M as adapted by comicbook artist Jon J Muth.
posted by Artw on Apr 24, 2008 - 34 comments

Train runs through bangkok market. (via)
posted by phrontist on Dec 1, 2007 - 35 comments

Quick, before Tim Burton's "re-imagining dark gems of the 1970s" spree continues with the film version that will obliterate all recollection of the original musical thriller's style! Check out 1982's Emmy-winning televised performance of Sweeney Todd, with George Hearn and the inimitable Angela Lansbury. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15. Or, just skip to the highlights, A Little Priest, Epiphany. Also, check out the style of the inventive, minimalist revival or read the original penny dreadful!
posted by Ambrosia Voyeur on Oct 14, 2007 - 42 comments

Armless Hunters [more inside]
posted by dios on Sep 12, 2007 - 47 comments

We've discussed David L. Cunningham before, especially the controversial 9/11 docudrama he made. But there's more to the man who's the son of Christian reconstructionist and University of the Nations founder Loren Cunningham. There are a lot of movies he claims to have directed on his IMDB page that don't have any external verification outside of self-published websites, which seems to contradict IMDB policy. Then there's the fear from both pagans and various political bloggers and fans of the books that his upcoming adaptation of the The Dark is Rising fantasy books is going to completely butcher the source material. The movie is produced by Walden Media, the production company owned by conservative christian billionaire Philip Anschutz, who's trying to "clean up Hollywood", in association with 20th Century Fox.
posted by Joakim Ziegler on Aug 14, 2007 - 9 comments

Jonathan Lethem's Promiscuous Materials Project invites playwrights and screenwriters to adapt his work for stage or screen. In an essay for Harper's, he explains that, "few of us question the contemporary construction of copyright. It is taken as a law, both in the sense of a universally recognizable moral absolute, like the law against murder, and as naturally inherent in our world, like the law of gravity. In fact, it is neither. Rather, copyright is an ongoing social negotiation, tenuously forged, endlessly revised, and imperfect in its every incarnation." NPR reports he is also giving away the option to turn his novel You Don’t Love Me Yet into a film, with some caveats. For those of us who aren't filmmakers or playwrights, many of the available stories are posted for our reading pleasure.
posted by joannemerriam on Mar 18, 2007 - 9 comments

Birds that rap and cows with accents. The big picture is urban adaptation, which is pretty cool. (...and the egg wins.)
posted by ewkpates on Dec 28, 2006 - 17 comments

The comic "Preacher" is finally being adapted for TV. Rumors have circulated about a possible adaptation for some time, but they have now been verified by HBO. The bad news is that the director/writer behind "Daredevil" and "Ghost Rider" is writing the pilot.
posted by Four-Eyed Girl on Nov 29, 2006 - 62 comments

The BBC reports that twenty years on "the exclusion zone around the Chernobyl nuclear power station is teeming with life." Lynx, eagle owl, wild boars, horses, wolves—even signs of bears which haven't been seen here in centuries. British scientist and environmentalist James Lovelock (recently discussed here) speculates whether "small volumes of nuclear waste from power production should be stored in tropical forests and other habitats in need of a reliable guardian against their destruction by greedy developers." Lovelock describes Chernobyl as "a nasty accident that took 45 lives." This article in the New Scientist claims that that the death toll may ultimately reach 60,000.
posted by 327.ca on Apr 21, 2006 - 49 comments

Found in translation: Much more than / Hip hop Chaucer, and it don't stop / Hip hop Aeschylus, and it don't stop / Hip hop Shakespeare, and it don't stop / Yeah [3.4MB .wmv], and it don't stop, and it don't quit.
posted by fatllama on Aug 5, 2005 - 15 comments

The first issue of the comic book adaptation of Neil Gaiman's Neverwhere was released yesterday. Mr. Gaiman is credited as a "consultant." So far, the story is fairly intact, but it's the visual element that deviates from the novel--characters look nothing like they were described, and don't even resemble the old BBC miniseries. And for someone accustomed to the phenomenal artwork seen in most of Gaiman's previous graphic novels (which included several adaptations of his short stories), Neverwhere seems downright bland. If a feature film follows in the same vein as this adaptation, will Gaiman pull an Alan Moore and refuse all royalties? (Go easy on me; it's my first post.)
posted by Saellys on Jun 23, 2005 - 32 comments

Competition gave rise to the robber fly, to trap-weaving tree ants, an ‘homosexual’ fungus, robot jockeys, logic-checking software, and to custom-made brass knuckles.
posted by dfowler on Apr 21, 2005 - 14 comments

The Dan Dare film that never was. Concept art for a movie adaptation of The Eagle comic strip character which eventually returned as an computer animated cartoon.
posted by feelinglistless on Nov 21, 2004 - 1 comment

Indian Superman is a movie of questionable legality released in India in the mid eighties. Perhaps it should have had a wider release since it has a great deal of humorous appeal for Western audiences. Check out this review from Stomp Tokyo. I'm looking forward to a crossover when Indian Superman meets Indian Spider-Man. via Sepia Mutiny
posted by rks404 on Aug 17, 2004 - 10 comments

An article in the Independent newspaper reports that pests have started thriving on poisons genetically implanted in crops.

It seems that before, the organic pesticide used, was effective because it was only sprayed occasionally (once or twice a year) and the pests didn't have time to develop resistance.

With the pesticide being accessible throughout the whole crop-cycle, the pests have adapted, and now thrive on the poison, which they now regard as a food source, growing even larger than normal, and rendering a weapon in the arsenal against pests, entirely ineffective.
posted by Blue Stone on Apr 18, 2003 - 15 comments

Sure, Peter Jackson's might be the most famous, and you've probably all heard of Ralph Bakshi's animated version and the Rankin-Bass one, but did you know that there have been other cinematic adaptations of J. R. R. Tolkien's works? Take a look at this 1960s musical adaptation of The Hobbit, for instance, or a 1940s Warner Bros. version of the complete trilogy. (Movie downloads require Quicktime.)
posted by UKnowForKids on Oct 2, 2002 - 16 comments

Homeless street kids in 3rd world countries adapt to survive and are actually healthier and more likely to survive than are their peers who grow up in poor but intact families in agricultural villages. Experts confounded.
posted by stbalbach on May 4, 2002 - 7 comments

For all of you who remember Cosmic Encounter, a java version of it has been released. Of course, this happened several years ago, I just forgot about it until now. It's a fun game, if you can find the people to play it with!
posted by starduck on Jun 11, 2000 - 2 comments