10 Things That Deserve Great Movie Adaptations

A lot of people bemoan the lack of originality in Hollywood these days. While there is a lot of validity to that complaint - the market is awash with unnecessary sequels, reboots and remakes - there are plenty of great adaptations coming out. Not everything has to be an original story to be excellent, after all.

Novels that were once considered completely unfilmable (like The Lord of the Rings and the upcoming adaptation of Stephen King's Dark Tower) are being made into great movies, and decades old Marvel and DC comics are being turned into record-breaking blockbusters.

Sure, certain things like 2012's Battleship or the upcoming Emoji Movie seem like empty cash grabs, and some turn out to be disappointing or even terrible. But there are a wealth of properties out there that would make brilliant movies with minimal effort. Everything you need is right there, just waiting for the right script, the right cast and the right director.

From video games to web comics, there are dozens of clever ideas, engaging stories and three dimensional characters that would stand head and shoulders above random Jumanji sequels and fourteen different Transformers movies.

MediEvil has to be one of the most underrated platform games of all time. Released in 1998, it presented a colourful and humorous gothic world, populated by moaning zombies, phantom hounds and killer scarecrows. The protagonist, mumbling undead knight Sir Daniel Fortesque, became an icon of the PlayStation 1, appearing most recently in 2012's PlayStation All-Stars Battle Royale.

The story, of a soldier who died under embarrassing circumstances and must now live up to the legend that grew after his demise, would need little amending to become a great film script. There's humour, pathos, character development, and action sequences galore.

The world of Gallowmere would look great rendered in big budget CGI, but even better would be an adaptation done in stop-motion. Studio Laika, who brought us Coraline and Kubo and the Two Strings, would be a great choice to bring Daniel Fortesque and his supporting cast of ghouls and ghosts to the big screen. Treated with care and allowed to keep its uniquely British sense of humour, MediEvil could be a creepy, stop-motion treat that could rank alongside its inspiration - A Nightmare Before Christmas.