<
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/2026/05/author-terry-pratchett-film/687253/>
"Will we ever live to see a successful screen adaptation of a Terry Pratchett
novel? The Amazon television series
Good Omens, which ended this month, came
closest—but that book, a comedy about an angel and a devil teaming up to avert
Armageddon, was co-written with Neil Gaiman, and the source material ran out
after the first season in any case.
Pratchett is the funniest English writer since P. G. Wodehouse, with a sharp,
satirical edge disguised by the trappings of the fantasy genre—vampires,
dwarfs, witches, and wizards. Many fans thought the original covers of
Pratchett’s novels went too heavy on busty maidens and strapping men with big
swords, undermining their literary merit, and a similar problem has beset the
various screen adaptations from Sky and the BBC. I suspect that casual viewers
can’t compute the idea of watching something with the comic tone of a Charles
Dickens or Tobias Smollett novel while being distracted by CGI trolls.
To some extent,
Good Omens bucked the trend because the chemistry between the
lead actors, Michael Sheen and David Tennant, was so strong. (The pair enjoyed
each other’s company so much that they even made a lockdown drama,
Staged,
filmed in their own houses with their own real-life partners.) But I worry that
the persistent unfilmability of most of Pratchett’s work will mean that he
fades out of public consciousness. At his peak, Pratchett was Britain’s
best-selling novelist, but he died from early-onset Alzheimer’s in 2015, and
left clear instructions with his assistant that the hard drive containing his
unfinished work should be run over with a steamroller. He therefore cannot be
turned into the Tupac Shakur of fantasy literature, with his estate bringing
out new novels to satisfy demand. So I’m begging people to try the existing
canon."
Via Steven Vaughan-Nichols, who wrote "They’re the best and funniest fantasy
novels I’ve ever read."
Share and enjoy,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
