The Hyperion science fiction series by Dan Simmons has been tapped for film. The following news has been made available thanks to Alex over at firstshowing:
The Hyperion Cantos includes four individual books in total: Hyperion, The Fall of Hyperion, Endymion, The Rise of Endymion (published from 1989 to 1997). The first book, Hyperion, won the Hugo Award for best novel in 1990 and the second, The Fall of Hyperion, was nominated for a Nebula Award for best novel. You can find the first two individually on Amazon.com for pretty dang cheap. An article on the internet praises the series: “It is rare to find a series of books as imaginative, adventurous, and thought provoking as the Hyperion Cantos Series by Dan Simmons.”
Newcomer Trevor Sands has been hired to adapt the first two books, Hyperion and The Fall of Hyperion, as one feature film with Graham King (The Departed, Blood Diamond, Bangkok Dangerous) producing. Apparently Sands won over the Warner Brothers execs by taking a selective approach to the two novels’ multiple points of view in a way that managed to coherently and unconfusingly tell the story.
I am unfamiliar with this series, but love the science fiction genre and am always game for tales from space. Science fiction gives you a blank check to make the kind of universe that you envision, and I find the genre to be a marvelous vehicle for creative storytelling. Mr. Alex Billington is also an individual of refined taste and if he speaks highly of the books, I will give them the benefit of the doubt.
Many of our readers are science fiction fans as well and I encourage you to share your thoughts on the books if you have read them. I love the communal nature of the internet, and I very much appreciate when the educated share there thoughts with the interested. We cannot know everything, but together we do quite well.
Couldn’t have said it any better
Endymion was better though.
…. i dunno, this shouldn’t be made into a movie i think. It’s much to large scale to be delivered effectively. It will be too much for most screen writers i would say, only simmons could effectively write the screenplay and frankyl it would be like gutting his own baby for a writer. These books are SOOOO good that I think that the illiterate populace, who would only discover this story because its a movie, just frankly are too stupid to understand all the elements anyways, not to mention after you cut enough to fit it all into one movie. Each of the stories the pilgrims tell could be their OWN movies, let alone both books in one. This is a philosophical MASTER PIECE, specific and intelligent, and I’m just don’t think a movie could be done.
OOoohh! Loved the first two books, wouldn’t want the job of adapting them though, very complex stories. Much will have to be cut to make any sense out of it for a film.
I hope this gets made, I’d pay just to see what the Shrike looks like; he’s (or she’s) a terrifying entity that impales people on the thorns of his steel tree to be left for all eternity.
Wise choice to adapt both books in one movie.
The first book is not really one story but 6 stories of varying dependence with the main story. It will be difficult to keep the viewer’s interest, since by the end of the first book almost nothing is explained.
Difficult book to adapt. The writers will have a tough job. I’m waiting for it anxiously. It’s one of the better science fiction books not yet adapted to screen.
Btw, what happened with Clarkes’ Rama? Will it ever be produced?
ok so doug i got to tell ya….this series is by far probly one of the best series of all time….please read before the screen play gets out ITS THAT FRICKEN AWESOME!!!!!! btw its a pilrgrmage
A book(books) I discovered by pure fluke, and fell in love w/.
My only hope is you do it like Blade runner, not like some cheesey Sci Fi knock off. If you do it, do it right.
Oh my god. I love these books. *huge wide jaw*
Super hard to bring to the screen.
The book is essentially (the first book) a tale of pilgrims going to a holy site, kind of like Canterbury tales. Except if the pilgrims all had amazing back stories involving the place they are going, and if the holy place they were going was a super fucked up sci-fi site with a monster that is essentially a super being covered in blades.
The book is amazing, if you love sci-fi, Dan Simmons is a little know genius.
Hyperion was amazing. There are stories in there about a troubled poet, a Jewish theologian who’s daughter is growing younger day by day and is faced with an Abraham dilemma, a soldier, a consol, everything.
The first book is them telling their tales on the way to the planet in question.
The second book… well, the second book is what happens when they get there ;).
I would rather see this as an HBO/SciFi Channel Miniseries. Though, for me, I think that for everything I see. I’d love to see an hour spent on each tale.
Indeed the books are amazing. Deep and well thought out. And the Shrike is one of the greatest SF creations.
It will be difficult to translate this to the screen. More so than Dune or LOTR.
The books are wonderful. They actually might be the best science fiction novels I’ve ever read. Quite tough to adapt, I would imagine.