Turning SF/Fantasy Books To Film

At Sci-Fi/Fantasy Conventions, some panels discuss adapting SF books to film. One fan's choice was classic Robert A. Heinlein - The Unpleasant Profession of Jonathan Hoag

At a recent convention, one of the panel discussions was ‘Which of your favourite books or stories would you like to see filmed?’

My first reaction was to think that most films are shoddy eviscerated imitations of the books they’re adapted from, but that would have made for a short panel.

So, assuming that we could have any actor(s) and any director, and that the book would be sympathetically adapted, I turned my mind to it.

I’ll post my own ideas separately, but I was impressed with one long-term fan who picked Robert A. Heinlein’s classic novella ‘The Unpleasant Profession of Jonathan Hoag.’

Imagine a black and white, noir-esque film, in which Jonathan Hoag, a connoisseur of art and fine dining comes to the husband and wife team of Randall & Craig Detective Agency in Chicago with the request that they follow him; when asked, at an evening dinner, what he does for a living, he realized that he had no idea what he does during the day.

The mystery begins immediately – and to say any more would be to ruin the plot.

It has romance, chills and a mystery. A great choice and one I wished I’d thought of!