Journal

Friday, January 25, 2002
Handed in the "Narrative draft" of the Ramayana to Dreamworks -- a forty page retelling of the saga, describing the movie in more detail than a film outline would usually go into. It's (believe it or not) the fifth draft I've done -- each fairly radically different from the one before. This one, at least, although it takes awful liberties, made me feel when it was done that it was, in its own small way, a proper Ramayana. Anyway, it's off to Dreamworks. Now the ball's in their court.

Last night's e-mail brought Henry ("Nightmare Before Christmas") Selick's second draft script for CORALINE. Henry's first draft of the script was utterly faithful to the text of the book -- if anything, too faithful. This version was both looser and truer to the spirit of the book -- he'd added a character, made the beats in the first act slightly different, but the changes were the all kind of changes that need to exist when translating a book into a film, and the core characters -- Coraline, her parents, the Cat, the Other Mother -- and the story are still just the same. Very creepy and a great deal of fun. Apparently it was very well received by the studio.

It's weird -- there are so many movie projects out there based on stories or books of mine that I (a) lose track and (b) assume as a general rule for piece of mind that none of them will happen. But i think we're getting to the point where the probabilities are starting to suggest that something has to happen.

Really we need a tote board, with Coraline, Good Omens, Murder Mysteries, Stardust, Books of Magic, Neverwhere, Death, and (trailing way behind) Sandman on it, along with anything I?ve forgotten or intentionally not mentioned (like the Robert Zemeckis project, or the Dave McKean film), not to mention various of the odd projects I've collaborated on over the years, like Beowulf, or Interworld, which, just as I'm certain they're utterly dead, stir in their graves and yawn and blink and sit up and ask for coffee. I think Good Omens will probably come in first, but an outsider like Books of Magic or Murder Mysteries might come in and pip it at the post....

Mass quantities of Harlequin Valentine ship today from Dark Horse, just in time for Valentine's Day. (Those of you who found copies in the last month, those were the copies airlifted in by Dark Horse, which went to retailers so they could show customers what they weren't buying, or at least have one copy to sell before Xmas.)

...

Pondering the huge quantities of Sandman papers, scripts (and computer files), I started wondering whether I should find a university or somewhere that would like them, sort them, and keep them safe. These days they're in the attic, at the mercy of nibblesome mice and territorial cats, which I suspect is not the best place for them to be. How does one go about choosing a university -- or do they choose you? I have no idea how this works.