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Peter S Beagle has announced live-action Last Unicorn movie

H

HarryCanyon1982

Lieutenant Commander
Red Shirt
During the new 2K restored screening of the 1982 animated cult fantasy classic in theaters in his tour, he has announced he is gonna write a script for a live-action version of his book.

ounds cool man! i dug the animated film since i was a kid and i dug the book since junior high, i gotta say i always thought a live-action adaptation would have potential.

I'd love to see Alfonso Cauron as director with Guillermo Del Toro, Peter S Beagle and James Cameron as excecutive producers and for studios should be Carolco, Fox and MGM. WETA and Robert Kurtzman/Tom Savini should do effects.

My ideal cast:

Emily Browning *Drools* as Lady Amalthea and Unicorn's voice.
Joel Moore from Avatar and Grandma's Boy as Schmendrick.
Helen Bonnie Carter as Molly.
Patrick Stewart or Doug Bradley or Robert Englund or Alan Rickman as King Haggard.
Kane Hodder or Lou Ferringo as Ruhk.
Linda Hunt as Mommy Fortuna.
Ron Perlman as Captain Cully.
Robbie Coltrane or Jim Cummings as Cat's voice
 
Who likes my ideal producers, director and cast?

Who else grew up with the original movie? i did and one of my favorite fantasy flicks. I'm a masculine guy who likes MLP FIM and i'm not ashamed of it and liking the original movie and book, i also like the graphic novel, proud brony.

Not to mention Lady Amalthea (aka the unicorn's human form) was damned hot as i remembered when i was 4 when i saw TLU on video with watching Fast Times at Ridgemont High on cable at the same time, her and Phoebe Cates brought yours truly to manhood. And Amalthea is on par with the likes of other female fantasy hotties like Red Sonja from the comics/books, Valeria from Conan the Barbarian, Arwen from LOTR, Taarna from Heavy Metal, Kida from Atlantis, Callisto on Xena, Daenerys Targaryen and more. LOL.

Saraman, The Dude himself, Rosemary Woodard and even Mrs Potts were in the first adaptation and who knew the guys who did Thundercats, Rudolph, Frosty, Here Comes Peter Cottontail and more did the first adaptation.
 
Please no.

The animated movie is so wonderful in so many ways that i can't imagine a live action movie coming even close.

Here in Germany it is always aired during Christmas time and i always try to make time for it (despite me owning the DVD and soundtrack).
 
*Glances at copies of book and DVD signed by the author*

Yup, it would be great to finally see this. The movie rights have been in legal hell for many years now, with multiple holders owning the rights and basically sitting on them. Once, one of these "studios" claimed to have a script written by Beagle, development CGI of the unicorn, and an agreement with Christopher Lee to reprise the role. IIRC, pretty much all of it turned out to be false - I downloaded the script off their site and it was pretty much a transcription of the 1982 film.

I also would not hold my breath for this film unless a proper studio signs on and makes an announcement. Until then, it's just the original writer saying that he's (re?) doing a script. I recall he was supposedly working on a sequel to TLU at some point as well, but since the coda short story "Two Hearts" was released he's only published a few short stories alongside a small collection of novels, which seems to be supporting him along with a lot of convention appearances.

TLU is a great book and great film, and I'd love for a proper adaptation someday (ONE MOVIE, NO JACKSON-ING THANK YOU) including a few of the various sub plots in the book that didn't make it to the film. The book is pretty timeless IMO, and gratefully bereft of epic fantasy battles, so I'm hoping any finished product will stay true to the book's spirit regardless of whatever is ultimately put in.

Mark
 
TLU is a great book and great film, and I'd love for a proper adaptation someday (ONE MOVIE, NO JACKSON-ING THANK YOU) including a few of the various sub plots in the book that didn't make it to the film.
Click to expand...

The length of said book and subplots will probably mean that it would have to be filmed and released in two parts, though-they're not going to authorize a three-hour roadshow film like they used to these days.
 
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Mark_Nguyen said:
*Glances at copies of book and DVD signed by the author*

Yup, it would be great to finally see this. The movie rights have been in legal hell for many years now, with multiple holders owning the rights and basically sitting on them. Once, one of these "studios" claimed to have a script written by Beagle, development CGI of the unicorn, and an agreement with Christopher Lee to reprise the role. IIRC, pretty much all of it turned out to be false - I downloaded the script off their site and it was pretty much a transcription of the 1982 film.

I also would not hold my breath for this film unless a proper studio signs on and makes an announcement. Until then, it's just the original writer saying that he's (re?) doing a script. I recall he was supposedly working on a sequel to TLU at some point as well, but since the coda short story "Two Hearts" was released he's only published a few short stories alongside a small collection of novels, which seems to be supporting him along with a lot of convention appearances.

TLU is a great book and great film, and I'd love for a proper adaptation someday (ONE MOVIE, NO JACKSON-ING THANK YOU) including a few of the various sub plots in the book that didn't make it to the film. The book is pretty timeless IMO, and gratefully bereft of epic fantasy battles, so I'm hoping any finished product will stay true to the book's spirit regardless of whatever is ultimately put in.

Mark
Click to expand...

How about Carolco? they are back in business. And what about 2 movies complete with director's cuts/theatrical on blu-ray and Alfonso Cauron as director and James Cameron and Guillermo Del Toro as the producers?

And do you think the original is one of the reasons why 1982 was a great year for movies? it was my birth year and a great year for movies as you had so many damned good movies that year like ET, Blade Runner, The Thing, Poltergeist, Gandhi, Conan The Barbarian, Tron, Star Trek II The Wrath of Khan, First Blood, The Dark Crystal, The Secret of NIMH, The Last Unicorn, The Flight of Dragons and more.

FpAlpha, it's not a remake of the film before that, it's a new separate adaptation of the 1968 book.
 
It would be interesting to see just how much they could do "live action" and how much CGI for the rest. As others have said, only a major studio could really do it.

And all joking aside I don't see them doing a trilogy, or even two movies out of it. I think this one would get the single movie treatment.

I will check out the 2K restoration though.
 
Admittedly there is a logical point in the book where it could be broken into two films, basically when the unicorn becomes human. However, it's not THAT long a book; so a single-volume adaptation still makes sense. I could see a two-hour film being made from the source material... The animated film was less than 90 minutes long and remarkably well scripted for what it covered.

What I mean by additional stuff are elements such as Hagsgate (the town above which Haggard's castle sits and where Lir came from) and its prophecy, the four men-at-arms (mentioned once in the film but not seen), and the various concepts of immortality explored in the book but not the film - the unicorn is immortal, but there was a whole character piece for Schmendrick on how he was older than he appeared, and ditto for Molly Grue's mortality and yearning for the young girl she was and sees in herself by traveling with the gang.

I only hope that whoever would step up to do this, would go for a fully CG unicorn and not a horse with a prop horn, as the aforementioned studio was gunning to do. One thing the film captured perfectly was the non-equine look of the unicorn, and doing something similar (would they even have the rights to the original character design?) would be absolutely required IMO. I don't see huge names attached to a script like this and won't bother speculating - but the book holds a special place in untold millions of people, and I'm sure many names in the biz will have read it and would love a chance to adapt it.

And no musical numbers, please.

Mark
 
It... Wasn't good. IIRC they wanted to go full CG, but then backtracked so say that elements of the unicorn would be modeled on a real horse. They did release a short test CG which was just a rather stocky, pony-sized horse walking by the camera with a horn pasted on; the text that went along with it strongly suggested that the intent was to principally use a horse where possible and then CG stuff where needed (probably when compositing against the Red Bull for action scenes, or for the climatic piece on the seashore).

Test or no, they didn't get the point. The very first page of the book emphasizes that the unicorn does NOT look like a horse!

Mark
 
Exactly, there's nothing in real life that really resembles her for build alone. Add sentient body language and behaviour, facial expressions and a more mythical/ethereal manner of movement and you just have to have CGI to do that.

And that's not cheap. Whoever picks this movie up is going to have to pay for 2+ hours of movie with intensive post production.

I'd love to see it but good luck pitching that, knowing how much it'll involve.
 
Agreed. The book I had signed by Peter S. Beagle was the first copy of the book I read, some low-rent re-release in the early 80s I had found in a used book store. The picture was of a deer with a horn pasted on - not convincing either. Yes, wherever this is pitched, they will need to be able to pay for a lot of CG, and not of just a unicorn - we've got a giant flaming bull, a skeleton, a harpy, assorted mythical beasts in Mommy Fortuna's menagerie, and arguably Haggard's castle, the butterfly, talking pirate cat, and so on. At some juncture, someone might want to just do the whole thing in animation, at which point you're back to admiring the original!

Addendum: There was a TLU graphic novel released a few years ago. Here's the artist page I just found. It was really, REALLY nice. :)

http://renaedeliz.blogspot.ca/p/last-unicorn.html

Mark
 
That is brilliant artwork, and it's exactly the kind of grand mythical feel that any movie based on it should have. I'm sure they could do amazing things with it today.

The artist who made my avatar (Dennybutt) tends to take inspiration from that depiction of unicorns for hers.

https://derpicdn.net/img/2015/6/25/923710/large.png

I've seen a lot of artists take similar cues from the older drawings of unicorns for their art. I love seeing all sorts of different kinds, like Amalthea's prehensile full length tail and more human eyes.

They could even use a certain amount of face capture for her, now that would be something, mapping actual eyes to her.
 
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