The point, tho, is not about the success or failure of series adaptations.
If an author grants exclusive screen rights to a character in a deal for one
movie, the screen rights to that character are held by the producer and
nobody else can make a movie of any of his other books featuring that
character. Westlake was just protecting himself and making sure his other
Parker books could be filmed. Which worked out pretty well for him. Tony
Hillerman once signed a movie option that prohibited him from using his own
characters in any further books -- not movies, but books.
Al
----- Original Message -----
From: "docsavage80" <docsavage80@yahoo.com>
http://www.austinchronicle.com/gyrobase/Issue/story?oid=oid:519304
By the way, the idea that Westlake denied the use of the name Parker due to
people refusing to sign on for a comprehensive series of adaptations
receives verification in the above link to The Austin Chronicle.
However, Westlake evidently did not realize that almost all attempts to
produce planned out R-rated adventure films or hard-boiled films have
flopped, with Shaft as something of an exception. Remember when Kathleen
Turner bought the rights to all those Sara Paretsky novels? We only ended up
with one V.I. Warshawksi film. Since R-rated film series tend not to produce
ancillary merchandise, few people tend to plan them out. Meanwhile, Harry
Potter has all its entries turned into PG-13 or PG films.
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : 31 Aug 2010 EDT