Authors with popular book series should be wary of selling
media rights. Vox Media has an
interesting fable about what happened to the “Wheel of Time” fantasy book
series by Robert Jordan.
The rights wound up with a company Red Eagle, which did not
seem to have the capacity to get successful television or other media adaptions
produced. According to the Vox story
here (by
Todd Van der Werff), the company “exists” in order to retain the rights to
Jordan’s successful books. So a pilot,
titled “Winter Dragon” in some locals and the original “Wheel of Time” in
others, wound up aired at 1:30 AM in some markets on FXX (not FX). A check of YouTube shows other outlets, like audibooks and some other videos.
Of course, you say, the fan could just record the programs
and watch at convenience. True.
The article goes on to explain how weaker remakes of comic
book or fantasies get done, or weak sequels, just to keep rights.
This can happen with other artistic works, like web series
that are sold to production companies and then that stall.
In my own case, with my own books, I’ve maintained
independence. Although the Kindles for
the first two disappeared (although they are available online from me in HTML
and I have my own Kindle copies), and the third recently had an unexplained
$2.00 price rise, maybe to discourage overuse by resellers.
That’s another reason why right now I do retain tight,
autocratic control on my own screenplay development associated with the
books.
Some fantasy novels that seem “obvious” have yet to make it
to film or TV series. One is Clive
Barker’s “Imajica” (1991), reviewed here March 28, 2006.
No comments:
Post a Comment