if I had $300,000,000

I don't like television. As a general rule, I find it flabby, unwholesome, dissatisfying, crude, and pointless.

So when I tell you that my favorite television show is Firefly, you should understand that the show itself is none of those things. It is, in fact, pure awesomeness incarnate.

Tragically, it was canceled after a measly 14 episodes had been filmed, due to Executive Meddling. More's the pity.

In an interview, Firefly's male lead Nathan Fillion stated that, if he had $300 million on hand, he would buy the rights to the show, and probably continue it, free of interference from the powers-that-be.

That got me thinking. What would I do if I had $300 million?

I'll tell you what I'd do. I'd start up my own movie studio.

On-Target Productions, I'd call it. Or maybe Faithful Studios. Something to convey my sententious but entirely truthful belief that Hollywood is incapable of producing a piece of cinema which is in any way faithful to the source material, and that my studio, by virtue of its firm grounding in literary value (and complete disregard for monetary gain), is.

Anyway, the name isn't important. What's important is that I'd outfit this studio with the best equipment my limited budget could buy, hire the most hardworking personnel I could find, write a bunch of screenplays (the way I like 'em), and make some movies that are entirely accurate and complete interpretations of the media upon which they're based.

I mean that quite literally. Entirely accurate and complete. No chopping or dissecting or mulching being done here; if I mean to make a movie out of a book, I'm using the whole goddamn book: every scene, every line of dialogue, every sentence if needs be. There'll be no "lost characters" like Tom Bombadil from The Lord of the Rings or Peeves the Poltergeist from Harry Potter. And there'll be none of this cutting-out-minor-scenes-because-they-don't-advance-the-action-fast-enough-and-we-can-totally-skip-those-scenes-anyway-because-all-they-do-is-reveal-minor-nuances-of-character-that-we-can-gloss-over-in-the-third-act malarkey. These are going to be faithful interpretations, like I said. That means every little scene, no matter how insignificant a two-bit brain-dead Hollywood screenwriter might consider it, will be reproduced in exact facsimile. No exceptions.

Having my own studio (and not giving a fig whether my productions are marketable, or even if they will be marketed) will give me room to breathe. I don't have to worry about length, or mass appeal, or tone, or censorship, or any of that other crap that the Gilded Mulcher has to worry about in order to sell movie tickets. I can reproduce these great source works as I see fit, with complete creative control, and revel in the realness and truthfulness of the results. I can bring my imagination to life for myself and a few other acolytes to enjoy. Everyone else can go spit.

I'm not saying these films will be unwatchably violent, sexy, or disgusting. There's practically no sex in any of the works I have in mind to adapt. And the violence won't be worse than anything you'd see in a typical action flick. As for the darker, scarier stories...well, it all depends on what you think might blast your soul from your body with cosmic horror.

                                                                                         by Pete Amachree

And mind you, I won't object if a few independent-minded cinemas agree to pick up my works and release them at a few small drive-ins and dollar theaters. Those are the kind of folks I'd want watching my films anyway, not the bigwigs from Hollywood and Cannes.

But that's beside the point! Aren't you curious to know which books and stories I will be adapting for the screen? 

I thought you'd be. I have some very specific ideas on that score. They include, but are not limited to...

• Several tales from Robert E. Howard's Conan the Cimmerian mythos. If you haven't read any of Howard's original Conan tales, it's time you started. Howard's barbarian makes Arnold Schwarzenegger look like a pantywaist choirboy. The stories are gritty, bloody, sweaty, and hard-boiled, bursting with darkness, danger, hideous evil, swashbuckling adventure and testosterone. Some of the stories I have in mind are Beyond the Black River, The Tower of the Elephant, Iron Shadows on the Moon, and Red Nails...as well as a weird Western tale, unrelated to Conan, The Horror from the Mound.
• Selected works of H.P. Lovecraft, including At the Mountains of Madness, The Thing on the Doorstep, The Shunned House, The Haunter of the Dark, The Shadow Out of Time, The Whisperer in Darkness, The Shadow Over Innsmouth, and The Dunwich Horror. It'll be interesting to see if Lovecraft's works translate well onto the screen. A lot of the horror and suspense in his stories is conveyed through description and inarticulate mentality, not through dialogue or action. Many of the horrific implications and disgusting monsters are best left to the realms of the imagination, too, rather than put up on a screen in CG and pixels. Still, I'd be willing to give it a shot.
• Most of H.G. Wells's full-length works, including The Time Machine, The War of the Worlds, and The Island of Dr. Moreau. Most have been made into films already, but none of them have been done correctly. That's not my opinion, that's fact. I'll treat 'em right if no one else will.
• Many of Jules Verne's classic tales, like Twenty-Thousand Leagues Under the Sea, Journey to the Centre of the Earth, and Around the World in Eighty Days. Can you imagine what giant squids, raft-rides through lava tubes, and thrilling heroics on speeding steam trains would look like on a humongous theater screen? It gives me the chills!
• Dozens of science fiction novels and short stories by writers such as Isaac Asimov, Robert A. Heinlein, A.E. van Vogt, Arthur C. Clarke, C.M. Kornbluth, L. Sprague de Camp, Lester del Rey, and Fritz Leiber. Here are a few I've got in mind.
• The Wendigo by Algernon Blackwood
• The Novel of the Black Seal by Arthur Machen
• The Gods Themselves by Isaac Asimov
• Starship Troopers by Robert A. Heinlein (a respectful interpretation); also The Roads Must Roll and Universe
• The Empire of the Atom, The Wizard of Linn, The Weapon Shops of Isher, and Black Destroyer by A.E. van Vogt
• The Hammer of God by Arthur C. Clarke
• The Big Front Yard by Clifford D. Simak
• Baby Is Three by Theodore Sturgeon

• A live-action film adaptation of the superb and underrated Hanna-Barbera cartoon Thundarr the Barbarian. A fur-clad warrior with a magic sword wanders the post-apocalyptic Earth in the year 3999, after a rogue planet cast human civilization in ruin. In his ongoing quest to save the scrawny, ragged survivors from evil wizards, mutants and strange monsters (many of which are holdovers from the 20th century), Thundarr is aided by the beautiful Princess Ariel, a sorceress, and a huge, furry Mok named Ookla. I'm thinking some big-budget disaster scenes and a lot of Scenery Gorn. 
• Some of the video and computer games I've played have definite potential, such as Crimson Skies. Maybe if I'm in a really fun-loving and goofy mood I'll do Serious Sam.
• Yes, I know I've railed against remakes on this here blog. But I can't help it. I'd redo a few of the old stop-motion monster flicks, not because I think CG would make them better (certainly not; Ray Harryhausen has no equal and never will), but simply because I'm curious to see what they'd look like with a technological makeover. Just curious, is all. I can't help but wonder what a reboot of The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms, The Valley of Gwangi, Them!, Jason and the Argonauts, and The Golden Voyage of Sinbad would be like. Specifically, the monsters. You know how much I like monsters.  

And that's it. I think it'd be a lot of fun. I've always wanted to try my hand at screenwriting. And I'll bet I could hire an assistant until I got good at it. Then I'd just go to town. My studio would crank out these films, and they'd go for limited theatrical release or direct-to-DVD, and whoever was interested in real, faithful, true adaptations of good books and cartoons and movies could buy 'em and watch 'em. That's all I want. That's what I'd do with $300,000,000. Maybe a few bucks to charity here and there, but for the most part I'd launch my vendetta against  Hollywood and revel in unmitigated artistic license.

What would you do with $300,000,000? Buy a monkey?