-Book I'd love as a Movie:

"The Iliad."

Yes, I used "Troy" as an example of an abomination of an adaptation, but done right, this would be GREAT! Split it up into three films- Film One would have the intial rumblings/Judgment of Paris to the stealing of Helen to the Greeks sailing climaxing with the first great seige of Troy. Film Two would flesh out the quartet of Greek heroes, Ajax, Achilles, Agammemnon, and Odysseus and on the Trojan side juxtapose Paris and Hector.. film ends with the infamous scene where Achilles, not fighting because of the dispute with Agammemnon, sees his brother, disgusied as Achilles, killed, and you see Achilles starting to devolve into the mad rage he's famous for. Film Three's the Bundle of Battles- Achilles vs. Hector, Achilles getting shot, the Trojan Horse...

It'd be GREAT so long as they took their time and didn't rush it (and NOT use a ton of CGI beyond using it for adding the necessary huge armies and fleets on each side... "The Odyssey" I don't think would fare well as a film, or has, or can... one man and a bunch of bad CGI monsters is what it'd be- a great man, Odysseus being so awesome of a hero... still... too much CGI would be needed, not enough human connection, and "The Iliad" has that by the score.

-TV Show as a Movie:

Star trek (obviously.)

A new one... well, the Season 6 opener of "House MD" was feature-length and BRILLIANT, Hugh Laurie BETTER win an Emmy for that... maybe House's final case someday (hopefully a far-off day, that is the still-being-made show I watch on TV, second to Trek I love no TV show more, and I MEAN LOVE THA SHOW!) they could do something like that...

-Play as a Movie:

MANY of Ibsen's plays. "Enemy of the People." "Ghosts." And, especially, a GOOD version, with the best English actors available... "A Doll's House."

-Video Game as a Movie:

Two suggestions:

+I'd like a cartoon version of Super Mario Brothers... putting it in real life and in brooklyn and with real actors was ridiculous, there was no Goomba stomping ot fireballs or Bowser as we know him... just give us the classic world, and it'd be like "Alice in Wonderland"... if Alice had Mushrooms. (Take that comment whichever way you want, a few good jokes in there...) ;)

+There MUST be a version of "The Legend of Zelda!" That is THE best story-driven video game ever, the whole franchise! I have no diea how to do it or to make it cartoon or computer animation cartoon or live action, but it MUST happen!

the halo series, the gears of war series

Dude, Grand Theft Auto. Immigrant hood comes to America and shoots his way to the top. It would be epic.

@obi: Have you ever seen the IGN April Fool's Day fake Zelda movie trailer. Its pretty funny and an almost believable prank. If you haven't seen it, here is the link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HBCzkz3gHb8

iMurk +1

Add BattleMech/MechWarrior to that list.

WOW...

That's a hell of a prank... that looks like it COULD have been an awesome movie if it was real... going for Older Link over Kid Link, but let's be honest- after a kid sunk the Star Wars franchise, who's going to do THAT again and make a 9-year old the hero of an epic? ;)

(Incidentally, THAT was one of the things I was so pleased with seeing the J.J. Abrams version of Star Trek- we get Kirk being born in one scene, Kirk as a kid in the car in another... and then he's grown up and the story can go on. Same with Spock. We spend 15, 20 minutes on the kids, and then devote the time to where its needed, the adult story and characters. Can you IMAGINE how much better Star Wars I-III might have been if that'd been the case? Granted their were a million other problems, but III was definitely the "best" of the three, with him finally older and not a 9 year old or a teenager... if all the movies did that, they'd have had TIME to actually make his character DEVELOP and fall from grace over time, rather than "Up, she's dead, she's going to die, I'm pissed- guess I'll just turn evil, then...")

My book to film recommendation would be:-

1) Larry Niven's stories "Protector", the "Ringworld" series and his "Integral Trees"/"Smokering" stories.

2) "Rendezvous with Rama" - Arthur C Clarke.

3) "Cities in Flight" series - James Blish.

4) "Against a Dark Background" and "Excession!" - Iain M Banks.

Richard K morgan's scifi books, of course the main character changes bodies all the time so that would be a problem, may have to give him the same voice each time so people can feel a connection.

@Sean:Damn! You're right! I forgot the Takeshi Kovacs novels. Yes yes yes! "Altered Carbon", "Broken Angels", "Woken Furies". These would make a great series of films (and the main actor could change over time al. la. Bond or Batman). Add them to the list.

I love Zelda and all, but I'd rather not see a movie of it. The plot from Twilight Princess may have been better than past plots, but overall the plot is still very basic and I can't see much but disaster from a movie. Zelda for me is about the gameplay. I'm tempted to say a Metroid movie but I think it would be ruined also.

I would however like to see a Bioshock movie.

While I don't think its going to happen with Scarecrow overused already, I'd like to see some elements from the Scarecrow scenes in Arkham Asylum used in the next Batman movie.

I would love to see Hayao Miyazaki make the first Mistborn book.

I also want to see World War Z (zombie apocalypse) as a movie.

I've only read one story, so I don't know them well, but I would guess Discworld would make good films now technology is up to it.

There are talks about making Hustle into a film which could be brilliant, if they pick up a decent new storyline rather than the rather suspect ones from the last series.

There are some that I really wish hadn't been converted (most notably Hitch-hikers guide. Brilliant on radio, great in book, catastrophe on film).

Whilst thinking about this was reading through the biggest sellers list, and most of them are films I know of, but one that really stuck out to me: Where's Wally! That would be a terrible but hillarious film :P

World War Z would be AWESOME. Done in documentary style (in keeping with the book) it could be a tremendous movie!

+1 urallLESBIANS. Bioshock could be a great movie if they put effort into it. It has a strong plot with a good cast of characters. It could be a good suspense/thriller type movie. I would just hope that the hypothetical movie director wouldn't push it towards a cliche horror flick.

ASSAINS CREED. ESPECIALLY 2

The only good video game move was Final fantasy VII: Advent Children

I'd love to see the Enderverse stories on film. They could do Ender's game and Ender's shadow together split over two movies with parallel story lines, then do the rest of the books chronologically. Only problem would be Bean's story would dominate at first and the uninitiated would be wondering why it was called the Enderverse when Julian/Bean was the primary character throughout 2-4 (or 3-5 if early youth and battle school were split into two movies to accommodate the lengthy story lines)

@Draugnar: Are the rest of the books in the series any good. I read both Ender's Game and Ender's Shadow, but none of the others. Many people didn't like them so I never got around to picking them up. How do you say they compare with the first two?

Ender's Game was more a teen's book and Ender's Shadow started to move out of that arena. The rest are very much adult books and, I think, much better for the more complex stories and moral dilemas presented within them. Publication order is the rest of Ender's novels then the Shadow novels. But, with the exception of Card's latest, Ender in Exile, which covers the years immediately following Ender's victory over the formics, Bean's novels all play out before we get to Ender again.

I have enjoyed every one. Even the First Meetings collection of short stories (which includes the original Ender's Game short story) and the short novel, A War of Gifts, which takes place in parallel to Ender's Game and Shadow but has less to do with Ender and almost nothing to do with Bean.

@Figlesquidge - There are already 2 live-action discworld films covering 3 books -
"The Colour of Magic/The light Fantastic", with David Jason as Rincewind and Sean Austin, Jerry Irons, Tim Curry, and Christopher Lee as DEATH.

The Hog Father with David Jason, Tony Robinson, Nigel Planer.

And "Going Postal" - with Richard Coyle as Moist von Lipwig, David Suchet, Charles Dance and Andrew Sachs is about to be released.

Check with Amazon/Play.com for the DVDs.

I'd forgotten about Going Postal, saw an advert for it very recently or the hogfather - was on TV at Christmas, but didn't realise they'd done any others.

I just hope "Going Postal" is better directed/produced than the other two. There was far too much of "one actor obviously waiting around for another actor to finish" situations. They just stood there, not acting, just waiting their turn. It needed more rehearsal to iron that out. Maybe they were out of time, but that aspect wasn't good in either film.

If movies didn't suck, I'd want to see a film version of Snow Crash.