Michael Moorcock, creator of the infamous sword-wielding albino Elric of Melnibone, has reported (via Ansible) that TV and film interest in his creation has dried up due to the success of Netflix's The Witcher and HBO's Game of Thrones.
"Heard today that some companies are turning down Elric project because it reminds them too much of GOT and The Witcher. A pretty irony. So much for “homages”...."
Elric's creation first appeared in the 1961 novella The Dreaming City, as a nobleman of a doomed empire cursed to wield the soul-feasting, intelligent sword Stormbringer. Elric went on to appear in numerous short stories, novellas and novels (most notably Stormbringer, published in 1965), the most recent of which was published in 2010.
Elric may be counted as one of fantasy's single most influential and important characters, inspiring a character of the same name in the television series Babylon 5, the rather blatant homage character of Anomander Rake in Steven Erikson's Malazan Book of the Fallen and, indeed, Geralt of Rivia. However, Geralt is similar to Elric only superficially: both are white-haired and have the nickname "the White Wolf," but Geralt is not a sickly albino and his day job, killing monsters for coin, is much lower-profile than Elric's stories which normally see his homeland, the entire world or, on occasion, the entire universe in peril.
Although Geralt and Elric are very different characters, that superficial similarity seems to shut Hollywood's interest in the character, although I suspect such interest was relatively low to begin with: the Elric stories are hugely important in the history of SFF, but are much less well-known these days than either Sapkowski or Martin's work. An Elric movie has been mooted since the 1970s and never taken off, long before The Witcher or GoT came on the scene. The Elric stories are pretty grim and almost nihilistic in a way that even GoT at its grimmest is not, and they also lack a well-developed, large supporting cast that a TV show or even a movie would really need to work. The production budget would also need to be enormous.
We may yet see some of Moorcock's other work on the screen, though. The BBC are still developing a TV series based on Moorcock's four-volume History of the Runestaff fantasy series.
33 comments:
There are no female characters worth speaking of and I can't imagine the industry jumping on this amidst other better content, though stuff that is less important to the development of SFF. I can't imagine Sapkowski being better or more well known than Moorcock, but I guess a series can take you far. And Moorcock is always his own worst enemy, ranting against Tolkien and other authors. Not who you want to work with to turn decades old content into something that speaks to current concerns
I think in 2020, with video games that have sold almost 40 million copies and books that have sold more than 6 million copies, not to mention a TV show watched by more than 40 million people worldwide in its first season, it's fair to say that THE WITCHER is far better-known than Elric and Moorcock among a general audience.
Sorry, I meant Sapkowski's books vs Moorcock's. It's an obvious no contest if you include other media. And I'm really interested in the percentage of Sapkowski's work that is read cover to cover as opposed to purchased as a tie in, vice the same percentage for Moorcock. I thought your reviews were quite fair but for me Sapkowski is an odd duck. Never thought a video game could be a better exploration of a character than the original book, but in this case I think it is.
Wow....come on, ye nerds, I read Stormbringer when it came out in the 60s, and that story still resonates....its literature...a d the root source of so many tropes. It is, in my opinion, tits on a Ritz! Read it a d I think you will agree.
Sad. Yet another let down. Elric fans continue to be disappointed with the lack of a screen adaptation.
So many great characters from classic fantasy we'll probably never see on the screen... Elric... Corwin of Amber... Nifft the Lean... Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser... Cugel the Clever...
It is shame about Elric. I think it I would like to see the Dancers at the End of Time trilogy be made into a mini-series.
I prefer the books anyway. It’s closer to how I imagine it.
Why not animation then?
It would be a great thing to see it produced.
And if not Elric, Hawkmoon or Erekosë deserve an adaptation as well.
And don't forget Corum. I must say I am stunned to learn that a giant like Moorcock is having such difficulty getting his groundbreaking work onto the screen. He is one of the architects of the fantasy genre. As a teenager, Elric of Melnibone was like no other book I had read. It combined the scholarship of literature with the excitement of comic books. It was like seeing Star Wars for the first time, experiencing literature in a new way. Years ago I actually sent Michael Moorcock a first draft of my fantasy novel, The Sylvan Horn, and he was kind enough to say it showed considerable promise. He also added that he broke his rule against reading unsolicited manuscripts to look at it. More years later my book won a Gold medal in the Readers' Favorite Book Award Contest and was also nominated for a Montaigne Medal for Most Thought Provoking Book. The story is not as dark as Elric, but I have often thought that my character Efkin could be seen as a lighter side of the albino, a more positive version with a happy childhood. But getting back to Elric, I can't believe everybody in Hollywood is sitting on this. Anyone who has the rights to produce an Elric film and doesn't produce one should be examined by a team of medical experts. I wish I had those rights. I majored in theater and film and won the Bill Sherwood Award for Most Promising Filmmaker at the Hunter College Film Festival. I like to dream that if somebody gave me the rights to Elric I would manage to put together a crew and shoot the film. I have even dared to imagine myself in the lead role. I'm tall and skinny and have been told that I look like Elric. All I need is a long white wig on my head.
Yes elric and fates doomed heroes
Deserve the right and proper screen treatment, hes a legend as are all the champions eternal.
Hollywood would only balls it up,better stay on the page eh .
I’ve wondered why someone doesn’t make a video game based on Elric. If someone could get Rockstar interested, they could make one hell of a game based on the property.
And McDonald's has sold billions and billions of burgers...
Robert, you are a cool dude. You inspire me. I used to make homemade movies with my super8 can and plenty of other gear. I just turned 50 today and reading your comment has been the highlight of it . I'm going to seek a copy of your book. Keep up the good work.
I'm glad Elric isn't being adapted to the screen, at least for now. The Elric saga would end up being Last Jedi'd. I'm re-reading the books now. They are too good. Leave them be.
It's too bad, Owen Teague would make a great Elric now after seeing The Stand remake. He can pull off dark just the way you need to be with Elric.
To Andy: lack of female characters didn't stop LOTR from being made did it? They just created major characters out of minor ones.....and there are TONS of minor female characters in Elric's series......
If you care to look up Michael Moorcock, you will find that he is very well known in the Fantasy genre. He has several significant achievement awards for his work and, he is noted for his use of the multiverse that has been copied since. His Elric series is still in print to this very day (it has been available for 60 years in 2021).
"Not who you want to work with to turn decades old content into something that speaks to current concerns" That is a very strange statement from Andy.
All the stories have already been told, yes there is a limit due to the archetypes available. The Athenians and Greeks knew this fact over 2 millennia ago. Every story you come across in life has already been done several times over.
It is ok for a writer to also be a critic, there is no law against that.
As for Adams comment, you cant find the numbers of copies sold for any book. Only the Author and Publisher know that figure. "Books Sold" lists are fake internet misinformation nonsense. Try finding a legit site that can tell you, I used 3 browsers and found nothing of credibility. (wiki is not a credible source of information)
Another issue when using "Copies Sold" to found an argument anchor point is that,
1) that does not take into consideration Public Libraries that buy one copy to lend out to how many people per library/city ?
2) just because people buy a book, that is not proof that they read it. Many people collect books just for the sake of collecting books. That has become even more common via E Book collections. People often like to show off that they have lots of books to give the false impression they are educated/well read. People used to have large libraries to show off their wealth as a bragging right.
The Witcher and Game of Thrones is a generational thing, younger generations don't explore much outside of pop culture via the media. Media has more credit for making something popular than its actual content these days.
Witcher fan boys talking about "more well known" nonsense. If you know about The Witcher, and have any kind of internet connection, you know immediately about the elements ripped off from Moorecock (the writer forgot to mention the "conjunction of the spheres", also stolen from Moorecock). I agree about the budget aspect, and Corum would be even harder to make. But Michael won't be around too much longer, and I for one think he should be praised as Martin and Sapkowski have been.
If not Elric, Hawkmoon would serve as a more grounded and yet fantastical arc for the Eternal Champion.
I've been disappointed in Elric's cheap copies for a long time. Remember the villain in Hellboy 2? Nuada Silverlance ... yeah ok. We probably won't get anything on screen until Moorcock dies and whoever holds the rights then tries to cash in.
You win the Internet.
The Elric saga would be epic. It may not have a strong female character but it has three other characters that are truly unique across all itterations of the Eternal Champion... the Runestalf, the Companion, and Tannelorn.
Stormbringer would be SUCH a draw. Oh... let us not forget Arioch.
I would love to see a full fan-adaptation of the Weeping Cavern scene by something like the Astarte Project but in Unreal Engine 5. If Mr. Moorecock could see something like that... sigh...
Here's something interesting that probably no one can answer. In the first book, Elric of Melnibone, Elric's first sword was once the property of a human hero. What is the emperor of Melnibone doing with a sword that was produced by humans? Always thought that would make an interesting story.
I think it would be awesome to do a backwards trilogy with Elric , Corum and the guy from Mars all tied in a new script for an animated show. All the eternal Champions have women but Elric s sword kills his. It's a sad story but I think people still like the anti hero. Look at Batman. There's a lot of room for a great movie anywhere in Moorcocks Multiverse actually. The politics of Hollywood are killing everything right now.
For those saying "why not Hawkmoon then" or something along that line: As the last paragraph states the BBC is in fact adapting Hawkmoon. They have pretty good people working on it too and collaborate closely with Mr. Moorcock.
What the fuck are you talking aboutv?
Yes it sucks big time. I can't even watch The Witcher ,it's boring.
Watching Hellboy too I am mediately thought of Elrick and that that actor would make a good one
If you think there were no female characters worth speaking of in the Elric saga, you never read a page of it. The discussion there is not which women are worth speaking of. It would be a goofy discussion about which ones aren't, given the degree of Elric's pain that is directly derived from the deaths of Cymoril, Myshella and Zarozinia and how much of his turn against Chaos was linked to avenging those deaths.
Again there are no real minor female characters in the Elric saga. Three of the four most monumental character deaths that motivated Elric's disgust, doom, and eventual turn against Chaos were deaths of women. Cymoril, Myshella, and Zarozinia, with the fourth being Dvyim Tvar. Literally three of the first six books exit on the death of these female characters Elric hoped could end the emptiness and loneliness that Stormbringer could only mask with power and eventual remorse. He threw Stormbringer into the ocean and tried to drown himself in Weird of the White Wolf after it killed Cymoril during the sack of Imrryr. Sounds pretty major to me.
While the source material & it's influence do matter, what is most important about getting the material made into a movie or series is the ability of the person(s) (who own the source material) ability to play the Game (i.e., kissing butt, knowing the "right" people in Hollywood, generating $$$ [the most important factor in all of this]). Such things as the influence of the source material on the genre, etc. is among the least important factors.
We really need this movie. Elric is my favorite character from all the books I've ever read.
Instead of live action wouldn’t it lend itself well to a visionary anime style approach? Something serious and dark. No giggling big eyed school girls. Something that is rigid to the books. Serial release also, some long, some short.
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