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[El Topo]

They could probably strengthen the source material if they fleshed out some side characters in the flashback arc

I don't think you're getting Berserk anywhere close to (big) mainstream audience success without rewriting (and/or cutting) a lot of it.

 

[Ragona]

make a proper the dark tower series. Thank you Amazon.

 

[Chuck Norris]

I don't think you're getting Berserk anywhere close to (big) mainstream audience success without rewriting (and/or cutting) a lot of it.

I agree. I only see the Golden Age arc having a good adaptability for TV

The rest, not really.

Not only is the story not as tight outside that arc, the amount of CGI that would be required makes it simply unrealistic. It would have to be Game of Thrones dragons budget times 50

 

[krishian]

..You say this in a world where Star Wars exists?

Star Wars is fantasy tho

 

[Window]

Don't know why everybody's suggesting fantasy adaptations. While maybe not quite reaching the same viewership, it appears The Sopranos and Breaking Bad (in the last season) were putting up numbers very close to GoT today (based on Wikipedia data at least). There have been many GoT influenced shows since it proved to be a hit but they haven't managed to emulate its success so continuing down that path seems a bit futile to me. Try something new.

 

[ResidentWeevil13]

You can make good tv.

But can you predict a show will capture the cultural zeitgeist? I doubt it

 

[Zach]

Thread title confused me. I thought Bezos was looking to have someone murdered. >_>

 

[ZiZ]

Maybe make a better service.

Their current interface (both app and web interface) is bad.

 

[ramparter]

I hope they do.

 

[cacildo]

What if

They make a zombie tv show like the walking dead

But a good one?

 

[pitchfork]

Make a tv show based on Bethesda's Fallout

Guaranteed hit in the right hands

 

[Monocle]

OK:

1. Hire great talent (and if it's not an original series, pay for great IP).

2. Give them the time, money, and independence to do what they do best as well as they possibly can.

 

[30yearsofhurt]

Unfortunately for Bezos he can't just undercut someone else's margins to make this work.
Game of Thrones is a hit because HBO knows how to fund, produce and market high quality TV productions.

 

[FStubbs]

Do a show in ancient Egypt. With high production values it could be great. Spike did a great job with Tut.

Not enough of TV shows in this setting, most of them are documentaries. We have enough TV shows with the fantasy setting.

You'd walk into a minefield between a whitewashed Egypt and an Egypt full of minorities which the Trump crowd would be angered by.

 

[Wag]

What if

They make a zombie tv show like the walking dead

But a good one?

No more zombie shows goddamnit!

They'll probably do a superhero or fantasy thing- that seems to be all the rage.

How about a Timecop series? I don't know, I'm running out of ideas...

 

[daviyoung]

What if

They make a zombie tv show like the walking dead

But a good one?

You mean more like Bold and the Beautiful with zombies instead of One Tree Hill with zombies? How about Gilmore Girls with vampires? What's the current monster en vogue? Mummies? How about Greys Anatomy with Mummies?

 

[old manatee]

OK:

1. Hire great talent.

2. Give them the time, money, and independence to do what they do best as well as they possibly can.

3. Fire them at the last minute and call in a bunch of hacks to drag it over the finish line.

 

[Herr Schwarz]

Bloodtide

Also good luck bezos. Think about how much HBO gave us before strikin' Thrones

 

[Monocle]

3. Fire them at the last minute and call in a bunch of hacks to drag it over the finish line.

The most important step of all.

 

[CloudWolf]

Dune does have the political intrigue of Game of Thrones, but fantasy tends to do better than scifi, right? Game of Thrones, LotR, the Hobbit, etc.

Aside from Star Trek and Star Wars, have there been any really great scifi tv shows that was water cooler talk? Battlestar Galactica?

Fantasy doesn't necessarily do better than sci-fi. Game of Thrones is more the exception than the rule. Especially now that scifi fantasy is becoming more popular again, I can easily see a big budget scifi show make a big splash.

OK:

1. Hire great talent (and if it's not an original series, pay for great IP).

2. Give them the time, money, and independence to do what they do best as well as they possibly can.

Game of Thrones is doing pretty well without the first step. Great talent, D&D are not.

 

[Flakster99]

Warcraft gets my vote.

I wouldn't complain if they talk to RA Salvatore and WotC.

Adapt Salvatore's Forgotten Realms book series.

Another vote from me.

 

[kinoki]

The right blend of soap opera and action with stakes is what makes it. Nothing too pretentious, just enough to hint at the depths. And write an ending or at least spell it out how much longer the series is going to go on. That way people become more engaged further down the seasons when the stakes get higher.

 

[ArgyleReptile]

The people want Americanized Gantz.

 

[Monocle]

Game of Thrones is doing pretty well without the first step. Great talent, D&D are not.

Ehh, if you don't count D&D, GoT's talent is impressive. The crew and cast, I mean. Even supporting elements like the intro sequence and the music make a great deal of difference.

And A Song of Ice and Fire was a prime candidate for a big budget adaptation, so there's that. GRRM fills the bill as a talented writer and/or world builder.

But yeah, imagine if the show's writers were, say, Vince Gilligan caliber. Hnnnnnnggg.

 

[ThoseDeafMutes]

An adaptation of Hyperion + Fall of Hyperion has potential but there's a lot of good shit out there that doesn't take off in a big way for whatever reason. You have to be in the right place at the right time as much as anything else. Still, Hyperion has a relatively large cast of characters, multiple central mysteries, a moderate amount of politics (but not too much that it gets dull or hard to follow), some evocative visual elements and wibbly wobbly timey wimey stuff. Audiences snap that up.

Edit: haha I just remembered SyFy is doing a hyperion adaptation.

SYFY. Hahahahahahahahahahahahaha

 

[Korey]

You can't intentionally replicate GOT's success.

Stop trying.

 

[Arkeband]

I wouldn't complain if they talk to RA Salvatore and WotC.

Adapt Salvatore's Forgotten Realms book series.

I basically just came in here to suggest Drizzt or Berserk, too.

 

[Lifeline]

Isn't HBO making like 5 different spin offs with 5 different creative teams and they're going to pickup one of them?

How about Amazon and Netflix take two of the other ones and set it in their own universe.

 

[Monocle]

You can't intentionally replicate GOT's success.

Stop trying.

I think it's possible to detect a pattern in hit shows, though. At least enough of one to steer clear of the worst ideas.

Like, if the hottest show is medieval fantasy, the next hottest show is not gonna be medieval fantasy, or anything that looks or feels like it.

Also, like I've been saying, talent matters. You've got to hire people that are amazing at what they do. Place enough of them in the right positions to pick up the slack for people who are not so great. If your writers are just OK, your actors and directors had best be at the top of their game.

And: trust the people you've hired to do their own jobs. The last thing any production needs is some know-nothing executive gumming up the gears with their stupid ideas.

 

[Miracle]

How about an adaptation of DanganRonpa?

Obviously the name would be different, and have the same sort of theme, but you can totally change the characters looks/names/personality, setting, plot twists, etc.

If done right, I think it has a huge amount of potential success because what I think draws the audience to shows like Game of Thrones and to a lesser extent Walking Dead, is how any character isn't really safe and characters you love could get killed you off. I'm really simplifying it I know but now imagine that, but add in the mystery/detective element, the tension with who's guilty, with no real main character discovered until possibly half way through the show and you got yourself a hit imo.

 

[ZackieChan]

Only people on GAF are convinced this is a good series.

The hottest of takes.
The series is hugely popular, afaik. Not just on GAF.

 

[nampad]

Are they actually spending like HBO on shows?
Honest question, the last HBO originals I watched some time ago all looked like amateur hour, meanwhile even Hulu hit one out of the park with with The Handmaid's Tale.

The thread mentions Matthew Weiner and Wong Kar Wai projects though so I am really curious how those will turn out.

 

[Strife In a Teacup]

Who has the TV rights to Wheel of Time?

My first thought. If any series can go on for years without end, it's WoT.

 

[Herr Schwarz]

Edit: haha I just remembered SyFy is doing a hyperion adaptation.

SYFY. Hahahahahahahahahahahahaha

I'm still pissed at SyFy for shitting on Caprica.

 

[notaskwid]

Time for Le Guin's Tales from Earthsea or Bradley's Mists of Avalon

 

[kirblar]

An adaptation of Hyperion + Fall of Hyperion has potential but there's a lot of good shit out there that doesn't take off in a big way for whatever reason. You have to be in the right place at the right time as much as anything else. Still, Hyperion has a relatively large cast of characters, multiple central mysteries, a moderate amount of politics (but not too much that it gets dull or hard to follow), some evocative visual elements and wibbly wobbly timey wimey stuff. Audiences snap that up.

Edit: haha I just remembered SyFy is doing a hyperion adaptation.

SYFY. Hahahahahahahahahahahahaha

SYFY's been trying to get back into quality TV w/ Expanse/Magicians, but they're not budget-busters.

 

[wrowa]

Do Name of the Wind or Mistborn, then.

Who has the TV rights to Wheel of Time?

Too similar. People will look at everything medieval/fantasy as an attempt to cash in on GoT's success. The next megahit needs to be something different.

How's Westworld doing for HBO anyway? I thought the first season wasn't particularly great, but wasn't the show supposed to be kind of the next GoT for HBO?

 

[Brock Reiher]

Front the bill on that live action One Piece to give it an even bigger budget.

 

[Triggerhappytel]

As I said on the previous page, emphasis megahit. Amazon's CEO is not thinking 'I want a Game of Thrones season 1' style success, they want season 7, with all its cultural clout and sheer demand for eyeballs in the weeks it's coming out. That takes time.

Yeah, getting that right off the bat seems extremely unlikely. I wonder how the success and social media interest compares with a recent very big success TV show, like say Stranger Things for example.

 

[airmangataosenai]

If it were that easy, every network would be full of top-rated shows

Did it? I feel like it was a pretty big hit right away.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Game_of_Thrones_episodes

The first episode only had 2.2 million viewers, less than a quarter of tge average viewership from last season. With the budget it had from the begining had it remained at that level it likely would have been cancelled by now.

 

[Emwitus]

Honestly, I think they should aim for quality over quantity first. Game of Thrones might be the most popular show of the moment, but nowadays it's not much more than pulp tv. Amazon is already doing amazing stuff with their original movies, they just need to bring that to their TV department.



I think Lost was way more popular than Game of Thrones is now. It's just that now the internet is at it's prime, so people believe GoT is the most popular thing around because all the popular blogs are talking about it when a new episode gets released. Now that the season has ended you barely notice people talking about the show, unless it's to discuss the decline in quality. When Lost was around, it was pretty much unescapable even when it was between seasons. I didn't even watch Lost, but I still feel like I watched the show because everywhere you went people were talking about Lost. Just imagine if Facebook was as big then as it is now, it would've blown everything out of the water.

Honestly, it's much harder to reach Lost-levels than Game of Thrones-levels IMO. GoT is for most just entertainment, Lost had the entire world go crazy trying to figure out what was going on.

No it wasn't

And FYI, the internet would make a show even more popular not just inflate the hype.

 

[Future PhaZe]

Stormlight archive would be a hit

 

[J Jizzle]

I feel like the next 'game of thrones' hit won't be anything like it at all. I actually think the book series being incomplete elevated the last few seasons in popularity hugely also.

 

[ZackieChan]

I feel like the next 'game of thrones' hit won't be anything like it at all. I actually think the book series being incomplete elevated the last few seasons in popularity hugely also.

Yeah, this stuff is very difficult to "manufacture." See all the young adult movie series' that no one gives a fuck about post-Hunger Games.

 

[Necron]

GoT took a while to grow into this huge thing so I wonder if they'd be committed to the shows if they don't immediately deliver.

Knowing how Amazon operates I'd say no.

They won't have the patience.

Edit: Wheel of Time is a good suggestion I've been hearing, depending on who owns the rights. Witcher series would be another. CD Projekt Red could make another game in that time until it becomes big (Witcher 4: Ciri's Paradox).

 

[UrbanRats]

Get that Witcher tvshow going.
Netflix is going low budget with it anyway, no?


Anyway, I'm watching Sneaky Pete these days, and it's really good.

 

[mujun]

First Law series by Joe Abecrombie is practically begging to be turned into a TV show.

 

[Wag]

What about a Books of Magic series or Sandman series? There are plenty of good series out of the Vertigo catalog that haven't been covered.

 

[Biske]

Should make series of Malazan book of the fallen.

Not that it would get into GoT levels of hype, nothing will.

Oh god. I don't even want to think about how that would end up. Kudos to anybody who could make that into a coherent TV show.


Took me a good 3/4 of the way through the first book to even have a clue what was going on.


A prime series would be one of Brandon Sandersons. Mistborn. Stormlight.

 

[True Savior]

I think Game of Thrones popularity derives a lot from being able to capture a part of the nerdish territory (with a lot of established fans) while being very conventional tv in the process. There's barely any action, loads of smallish settings, interiors, where you can place the camera an allow actors to do their thing while intercutting some nice vistas here and there. The costumes and nice sets end up hiding a lot it's limitations. I don't think it's easy to find properties that you can mask it so well it's just tv.

But if the plan is to imitate I would probably look at other best selling properties, cause got was already popular.