Vote for your favorite.

Did you deliberately leave out 52 Pick-up and all the other adaptations?

Roy Shieder is one of my favorites.  Jaws, All That Jazz…

Be Cool was fun too.  Vince Vaughn is awesome.

Then there’s Vince’s Wedding Crashers sidekick, Owen Wilson, in The Big Bounce.  That was a decent flick.  Morgan Freeman, Bebe Neuwirth, Lt. Dan from Forrest Gump, and some hot blonde.

How about putting those in the poll?

The Big Bounce II and Be Cool are considered by many to be among the worst Elmore Leonard adaptations.  I figured most follks consider “The Big Three” above as the best.

Western:  Hombre

Crime:  Get Shorty

It’s funny ... you could have an “accurate” adaptation and it might still not be a good movie. That’s kind of what happened with Pronto (with Peter Falk as Harry Arno). Very accurate in terms of plot and thorough use of Leonard dialogue but it just didn’t launch like the book.

The trouble with Pronto is James LeGros was wearing the wrong hat to be Raylan Givens.  The book calls for “the Dallas Business Man’s Special.  Instead the put him in a George Strait.  When you shoot a little guy in a big hat from behind he looks ridiculous. 

I like Fallk but he’s more or less a TV actor and Pronto was definitely a TV movie.

The problem with EL adaptations is what I call, the Elmore Leonard trap.  A particular book looks easy to adapt and it isn’t.  It’s easy to read, and it reads like a movie.  Scott Frank (Get Shorty and Out of Sight) learned the secret to successful Elmore Lenard adaptations.  So did Tarantino.  John Madden is struggling with that contradiction in Killshot.

Yeah .. he definitely had the wrong hat which was sad considering all the discussion about it in the book (and in that Givens short story in When the Women Come Out to Dance).
Another interesting film/book comparison is Mr. Majestyk—as I understand it Leonard wrote the screenplay, then the book. What was so odd about the film was that they tried to turn Majestyk into Billy Jack. Once the book came out, you could better see the dimensions in the character ... way more than the film.
I understand Majestyk was originally written for Clint Eastwood. When you see it, you really wish he had taken the part (though R.I.P. Charles Bronson)

I prefer the youtube version.

Speaking of Raylan Givens, wouldn’t Russell Crowe make a great Marshal Givens in an adaptation of Riding the Rap?  Or has that one already been adapted and shot?

The Dahl Brothers (Red Rock West, Kill Me Again and The Last Seduction) were involved with The Rap about five years but nothing ever came of it.  It’s just sitting there.

OUT OF SIGHT is a great movie.

GET SHORTY is a great movie.

JACKIE BROWN is a great movie.

TOUCH was on KDOC (56) in LA last night.  I found it entertaining.  The book has always been the novel time forgot.

Are you new Robb or old Robb?  E-mail me at .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)

Lately a lot of the stuff on HBO like The Wire (usually praised for being “novel-like”)and Rome has been better than most movies. I see them later on DVD, we don’t get HBO in Canada.

So, I was wondering, has anyone ever approached Elmore Leonard about turning something of his into an HBO series? As much as I liked Maximum Bob and even Karen Sisco, it really seems like it’s the kind of material that could be done a lot better on cable.

It is so difficult now to sell books to the movies, let alone get them made.  Cable-wise, of course you know about the two Showtime movies and TNT, but an HBO would be great, like that Marlowe series they syndicated, with Powers Booth in the 1980s. I’d like to see the Detroit trilogy, Swag, 52 Pickup and Unknown Man (hell, throw in The Switch.)  But something may be happening with Swag, 52 should be remade in Detroit (I mean Toronto-Detroit) and Unknown Man made for the first time.  In the late 80’s, Abby Mann was going to turn Unknown Man into a TV series but that got killed in a turn around drama.  HBO, probably won’t happen.  Got to hold out for the big dough, but as John Madden is finding out, it’s not easy adapting Elmore Leonard for any medium.  It looks easy.  We’re just holding out hope that another good one will be made.

Gregg Sutter - 22 November 2006 03:54 PM

But something may be happening with Swag

With Swag?!? My fave. That would be great. And Unknown Man, but you’re right, these look easy but would be very hard. Most of the books are sly, internal monologue stuff. And sarcastic, low key. Great reading, but not nearly as “visual” as these guys seem to think. I’ve heard people say the trouble with Killshot was that the husband isn’t the big hero at the end so movie stars didn’t want to play the part, but there’s a lot more to it than that. Still, we’re all hoping…

Yeah, the Detroit 70’s stuff would be fantastic - and not updated. There’s a British cop show out now called Life on Mars about a present day cop back in time to the 70’s (or maybe he’s in a coma and it’s a dream…) and someone has bought the US rights, I forget who.

Too bad it’ll never happen, because a Detroit crime show in the 70’s on HBO would be fantastic. The material’s all there, that’s for sure.

A constant battle with Elmore’s stuff is that no matter what time period it’s set in, the makers want to place it in the present and in Los Angeles, preferably down the street from where they live.  I jest slightly.

Killshot muted the time frame and Freaky Deaky (an announcement is imminent) had to be adjusted.  I had to laugh, with Nicaraguan President-elect Daniel Ortega back in, maybe they could set Bandits in the now. 

Anybody that messes with the Detroit books and sets them in the present is guilty of some crime, most likely lameness and a lack of imagination.  But they say in defense, all those old cars eat up budget!  Tough.