‘Fallout’, ‘3 Body Problem’ Creators on Adjusting the Unadaptable

After spending more than a decade of their lives helming the phenomenon that became HBO’s “Game of Thrones,” David Benioff and DB Weiss weren’t necessarily in a rush to return to the world of adaptation. Neither had taken the quick plunge into Liu Cixin’s Chinese science fiction epic “The Three-Body Problem” when the series proposal was first presented to them, despite it already sitting unread on Weiss’s Kindle. “The Barack Obama quote was on the cover,” he recalls, “and I said, ‘Well, that’s interesting. Barack Obama likes a Chinese science fiction novel – let’s get it.’”

“Let’s get that one” also seems to be the philosophy of networks and streamers when it comes to acquiring the rights to book, video game or movie properties in hopes of creating the latest buzzy TV adaptation. Such an approach is nothing new on the big screen, as Weiss estimates that more than half of the fifty greatest films of all time are based on another medium. But it’s likely that the floodgates for small-screen adaptations opened in part because of the crushing critical and commercial success of “Thrones,” a Weiss and Benioff adaptation of author George RR Martin’s beloved (and still unfinished) series.

“We’re close to the peak of TV, and as many more shows are made, it stands to reason that there will be more adaptations,” says Benioff, who co-created Netflix’s “3 Body Problem” with Weiss and Alexander Woo. “When you pitch something, studios take comfort in familiar material that has already been well received. And if you already have several books in your hands, it becomes a more attractive prospect, because someone smart has already figured out a whole map of where the story is going.”

It’s entirely possible that the peak of TV adaptation has already been reached, with the long list of successful, big-budget series that borrow their title and bones from another medium, including “Fallout,” “Shōgun,” “Mr. and Mrs. Smith,” “Reacher,” “Loki,” “Ripley,” “Lessons in Chemistry,” “Fargo” and “Masters of the Air” – to name a few.

Someone recently shocked me by saying that ‘Interstellar’ is still one of the highest-grossing original films of the last decade, and I find that heartbreaking,” Fallout executive producer Jonathan Nolan said of the 2014 space drama he co-authored. wrote with his brother Christopher. “Where are the original stories? The adaptations are great, and I’m so happy with the way ‘Fallout’ worked, but I think it would be a real shame if television went the same way as filmmaking.”

Jonathan Nolan is no stranger to adaptation, having written his brother’s Batman films, co-creating HBO’s ‘Westworld’ and starting his career by selling his own short story to his brother, who then turned it into ‘Memento ‘ from made in 2000. But he chooses his place in this realm, with the role-playing game ‘Fallout’ providing a negotiable canvas as it is essentially a ‘choose your own adventure’ with different characters in each episode, meaning Nolan and his company can create their own heroes. and background stories.

“I’ve been careful not to work on any type of adaptation where the expectation is that it has to be rigorous because you don’t have room to play,” Nolan says. “So I was never interested in working on a ‘Harry Potter’ or ‘Lord of the Rings.’ I love these hybrid products; you are adapting, but you still find a way to exercise your own storytelling power. With true adaptation you always change. I mean, even the word adaptation implies a sense of transition or change. When you respect something, you have the courage to say to the original creators and fans, “We’re going to find a path to a respectful and sincere adaptation, but we have to change some things here to make it work.”

The necessary or desired changes vary per project. For ‘3 Body Problem,’ Weiss, Benioff and Woo focused on compressing the book’s extremely dense scientific content and transforming the characters – whether that was by flipping the genders or turning the central figures from strangers into change friends. “How this appeals to people who go beyond the hard [core] Hopefully the science fiction community cares about the characters in a way that maybe even goes beyond the way you do in the books,” Benioff says. “To his credit, Liu Cixin knew this was going to happen, and he gave us his blessing. It probably added to the pressure because it’s like, ‘Oh, we really don’t want to let this guy down right now!’

‘Shōgun’ creators Rachel Kondo and Justin Marks had their own particular challenge: adapting James Clavell’s 1975 novel about an Englishman in feudal Japan in the 17th century, which had previously been turned into an extremely popular and Emmy-winning winning 1980 miniseries. “120 million people showed up for that show, so to quote pretty much every executive I’ve worked with, ‘We should be so lucky,’” Marks jokes about the historic ratings for ‘Shōgun’ from the the 80’s. “We looked at it more as something to react against, saying, ‘That job is taken; let’s go somewhere else. ”

That started with “finding ways to subvert the look of the original story,” says Marks. This required earlier introductions of crucial characters, while also stepping outside the POV of the main character, John Blackthorne (Cosmo Jarvis).

“We wanted to stay very close to the book,” Kondo explains. “At the end of the day, I think whatever invention there was, it was always interpersonal relationships and extensions of relationships, even with the deaths that weren’t in the book. And so I think we figured out what we needed to do to take a closer look at the smaller stories.

Meanwhile, the stories on TV seem to be getting bigger and bigger, which Benioff says is now “more complex and expensive.” And the types of source material and IP are expanding to include board games or puppets. Is anything truly “unadaptable” at this point?

“My antenna always goes up when someone says, ‘It’s not adjustable,’” Nolan says with a laugh. “There’s an opportunity there because there’s an invitation to find the right way to fit it into the projector or TV.”

Benioff suggests that the current “championship trophy” for achieving what should have been seen as “unadaptable” is “The Lego Movie.”

“When I heard they were going to make a movie based on Lego, I thought, ‘That’s the stupidest idea I’ve ever heard,’” he admits. “And I’ve probably seen that movie four times.”

But Woo believes he has the ultimate winner: “The adaptation I’ve always wanted to do, or at least pitch, because I just want to see the look on their faces, is the ‘Great Sudoku Book.’ I haven’t cracked it yet, but if you could turn that into a show that would be a real Sudoku…’

Weiss is sold: “That’s it – that’s the final frontier.”