With Terry Pratchett’s passing in 2015 after a long and public battle with Alzheimer’s, a great deal of speculation began to swirl around the idea that the author’s lifelong boycott of Hollywood would be likely to end following his passing. Several people had noted on multiple occasions that he was seemingly allergic to Hollywood and that he stuck to his guns throughout the course of his writing career with not one of his more than 70 novels ever making it to the big screen. Upon his passing there was chatter that Mort would be the first of Pratchett’s books to make it to the big screen.
Initially there was a significant amount of momentum associated with the idea, especially in 2015 and 2017. However, here we are halfway through 2017 and there doesn’t seem to be anything substantial on the horizon. Or is there?
There have been a number of adaptations for television.
A couple of close shots for the big screen quickly fell by the wayside. The movie rights to The Wee Free Men were acquired in 2005 and the screen adaption was rumored to be the next project for Sam Raimi after he finished up with Spiderman 3 in 2006. However, once Pratchett read the script he immediately pulled the rights as he was allowed to do.
He didn’t want to play ball.
While television producers had some luck with getting some of Pratchett’s work produced, his increasingly hostile attitude toward Hollywood made if virtually impossible to get him to agree to give up creative freedom to a screenwriter or film director. It was Pratchett’s assertion that writers and director would insert story lines that were diametrically opposed to the themes and characters of his books, which was his concern when he killed the shooting of The Wee Free Men.
His books aren’t all that film-friendly.
Although Pratchett’s resistance to Hollywood influence has definitely played a substantial role in his books not making it to the cinema, there are also some other challenges that must be considered. His books exhibit such sheer scale of imagination and universal range that it creates a problem in a world of limitations. While it is easy for the readers of his books to imagine the worlds and characters that are described within those pages, it is virtually impossible for Hollywood to match the imagery that his creative expression has produced on the pages of his books. Many who are true fans of his work believe that the big screen will somehow rob the stories of the rich imagery that they present, which would greatly reduce the impact of the story and characters within it.
When it came to Mort, one thing that movie producers and executives were attempting to get Terry to do before his passing was to change the Death character and angle within the story. Unfortunately this was something that he simply was not willing to do.
There are some people who believe that the stories and character in Terry’s books are literally made for the cinematic world. Despite substantial effort though nothing has come to fruition as of yet. Mort introduces the reality that death comes to each and every one of else, and there is no escaping it, but Death offers Mort a job which illuminates the fact that death is not the end but the conduit to a new beginning.
As recently as 2016 the announcement that Mort would finally be adapted into a movie was made, but nothing has come of it as of yet. If we were to guess it is likely that there will some adaptations to Pritchett’s work, but when?
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