I have the beginnings of an AH screenplay also, which crosses over with military SF and dystopian fiction. I'll be running the backstory by this board at some point, I'm sure. Nothing like a good picking-apart to make one's timelines realistic.
An article about the lack of good AH movies
- Thread starter Petike
- Start date
I have the beginnings of an AH screenplay also, which crosses over with military SF and dystopian fiction. I'll be running the backstory by this board at some point, I'm sure. Nothing like a good picking-apart to make one's timelines realistic.
Don't post the actual screenplay, as that could cause publication-rights issues.
Just post the backstory and perhaps a synopsis.
Unfortunately, The Watchmen cost c.$130 million , and by studio standards, only "broke even" after worldwide box-office totals came in at c.$180 million. As for the idea that the world-building introduction was great, the counterpoint is that it actually annoyed movie critics from The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, Newsweek, Entertainment Weekly, Variety, and The Hollywood Reporter. All of this points to the idea of alternate history as "box-office poison"....
Yeah def. Can't go giving away state secrets if you want to sell them.
As I've said on here before, I think that "1901" would be a good idea for an AH movie (at least, for American audiences). The POD is simple (Germany invades!), there is a fairly small cast of characters (fictional and historical), and there are battles at sea and on land to keep outsider interest.
Why aren't there many alternate history movies? Well, what do most movies have? They have protagonists and a few other main characters. They have a story. This story focuses upon these protagonists.
There are basically two ways to make an alternate history movie. Either make a mockumentary, or focus on a small group of people in one event in the alternate history. Only people who like history, and/or people who like alternate history, are going to watch an alternate history mockumentary. Also, if you focus on a small group of people in one event in an alternate history, then why even make the movie about alternate history? It barely makes a difference whether or not it is in an alternate historical setting, or in a regular historical setting.
For example... which movie will attract more viewers and make more money at the box office:
History: A western epic. The plot revolves around three gunslingers competing to find a fortune in buried Confederate gold amid the violent chaos of gunfights, hangings, Civil War battles and prison camps.
Alternate History: A mockumentary about if the CSA won, presented as if it were a British documentary being broadcast on Confederate network television. Fake commercials targeted at slaveowning families are shown throughout the movie.
Also, if you make an alternate history, there is a pretty significant chance that many people who watch it will actually think some of it is real, simply because a lot of people don't care/know much about history.
There are basically two ways to make an alternate history movie. Either make a mockumentary, or focus on a small group of people in one event in the alternate history. Only people who like history, and/or people who like alternate history, are going to watch an alternate history mockumentary. Also, if you focus on a small group of people in one event in an alternate history, then why even make the movie about alternate history? It barely makes a difference whether or not it is in an alternate historical setting, or in a regular historical setting.
For example... which movie will attract more viewers and make more money at the box office:
History: A western epic. The plot revolves around three gunslingers competing to find a fortune in buried Confederate gold amid the violent chaos of gunfights, hangings, Civil War battles and prison camps.
Alternate History: A mockumentary about if the CSA won, presented as if it were a British documentary being broadcast on Confederate network television. Fake commercials targeted at slaveowning families are shown throughout the movie.
Also, if you make an alternate history, there is a pretty significant chance that many people who watch it will actually think some of it is real, simply because a lot of people don't care/know much about history.
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If they could explain the backstory of the LOTR well enough that people who had never read the books could enjoy those movies...which they did...it's certainly possible to do that with an alternate history story. It could be done with a quick text blurb at the beginning ala Star Wars, or by a 10 minute live action sequence at the beginning ala LOTR. Either way, it's entirely possible to do.
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An example of a truly epic history-based TV miniseries was the 1970's Centennial from the Jame Mitchener novel of the same name. Not AH but the scope of the story - from early 1700's to modern America, blending historical characters with fictional ones showed how a good scriptwriter could do it. You also need good actors and a decent budget. I dare say quite a few people who watched it then, or in reruns later got a better appreciation of the opening of the West from all points of view. A plot using the American Revolution (Britain winning) or the Civil War in TL-191 or Trent Affair mode might work well in that format
Unfortunately, as I posted earlier, The Watchmen cost c.$130 million , and by studio standards, only "broke even" after worldwide box-office totals came in at c.$180 million. As for the idea that the world-building introduction was great, the counterpoint is that it actually annoyed movie critics from The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, Newsweek, Entertainment Weekly, Variety, and The Hollywood Reporter. All of this points to the idea of alternate history as "box-office poison"....
NBC-TV did that with the series Kings (2009), which lasted only 13 episodes, attracted only a tiny audience, despite featuring Ian McShane ("Deadwood"), Dylan Baker ("Spiderman"), Wes Studi ("Heat"), and Macaulay Culkin ("Home Alone") as actors. This was despite heavy studio promotion and a large budget.
Alternate History as a genre hasn't that well defined a structure that a movie can fulfill. Movies are all fiction. Documentary movies are largely fiction. Science-fiction fulfills many requirements to be called alternate history. Personally, I think Jean Claude Van Damme time-travelling is neither AH nor sci-fi but just garbage, but that is a subjective matter of taste. Hollywood is an industry, not subject to the whims of a select cult of customers, but mass audiences. Why do they ALWAYS insert love-interest (what we back in my day used to call mush) into an almost adequate war movie? Some day, a movie will be successful, and will be termed alternate history post-production. Then, imitators will arise and you'll be sorry you wished for it in the first place.
I think the epitome of a good AH movie would be Fatherland, because not only do we get a depiction of the world at the beginning, but the whole plot reveals the world as it goes along. And it does focus on a few characters with their stories and plots and it is a proper AH, but more of a Thriller AH. Now imaging Fatherland done with all the modern 3D technology and stuff. Those Nazi monuments will look damn impressive, thats for sure. Thing is, you have to get a big budget to ensure that a movie like Fatherland (I think it is a bit long for 2 hours, anyway... maybe 2 films?) can be a hit and maybe even start a market for more AH films in the future/
Very, very few movies do well at the box office anymore, and studios have been, for the past decade at least, shifting away from the box office as their primary source of revenue. So the fact that a movie fails to make money at the box office doesn't mean that, in the end, it won't be commercially successful. If studios only financed stuff that was sure to be a box office success, the film industry would die, because so few of them are anymore. The heydey of the big blockbusters is over. So the idea of a studio taking a shot on an AH movie, if it was exciting enough of a concept, is not fantasy by any means. I would venture to say that the reason why it hasn't been done so far is because either 1) The author is being a dick about being overpaid for the rights to his story, or 2) the concept or screenplay which was produced from the story just hasn't been very good.
Network TV is also a dying medium. Audiences are shifting to alternate venues and relatively few dramatic shows on network TV garner large audiences anymore. I, for one, never watch network TV anymore. Ever. And I am quite sure I am not the only one like that.
The ideal venue for an AH show would be on one of the big Cable premium networks...Showtime or HBO. After it had been on for a while and had a chance to build an audience, it could transition to another, non-premium network such as the Sci-fi Channel or TNT.
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It doesn't have to be a blockbuster, but it certainly has to make some money. Movie studios still expect a reasonable profit from their productions. While many of the studios are able to offset the profit margin requirements of most pieces through things like "straight-to-video", cable-TV rights, et al., the reason behind most studio productions remains to make some profit. If a story can't even "break even", the question becomes to studios is "why should I invest?". Studios are not a charity, when presented with either a project which has a proven track record of success (e.g. the Western), or something completely unknown and risky (e.g. TL-191), the studio will choose the one with a proven track record or even one with marketability....
Unfortunately, without a TV network or studio to invest in the project, there are few viable options. Consider that Firefly and Dollhouse will at least make most of its money from DVD sales and promotion by FOX-TV studios and Hulu.com. As for Showtime and HBO, consider that they will invest in shows that will already have a strong and dedicated audience behind it. That is why The Walking Dead (e.g. zombies) and True Blood (e.g. vampires) will certainly get the "green-light" by the studios, but alternate history will have a harder time getting produced....
If anyone is curious, that thread is here.
It doesn't necessarily have to be historical. It can be present-day or near-past in the alternate world.
Also you can have a science fiction premise, which people are more familiar with, like a time machine thing (so this is what happens if you kill Hitler in 1923!) or a cross-dimensional portal. Technically SF, but in reality AH.
People are also more primed for steampunk. Give Christopher Nolan the rights to The Difference Engine and it would probably be better than the book.
Fatherland is ripe for adaptation for being so noir, for having a good thriller plot, and for being recognizably alternate. Honestly I think all you'd need is text saying "Berlin - 1964" and no more exposition is necessary. The Nazis won, we all know it.
How is the HBO adaptation? I'm kind of afraid to see it. I also kinda want to see the theatric treatment. I'd give it to Tom Twyker or Paul Greengrass.
Ridley Scott's Gladiator qualifies as AH.
Especially the ending when Commodus's sister, some gladiators, and a random Flavian "Senator" are going to rebuild the "Republic" - you know, the Roman Republic with its universal suffrage and lack of slavery and pick-up football matches on Labor Day...
Ridley Scott's Robin Hood qualifies as AH-lite. Richard 1 speaks English in 1190, really all of the Norman nobility do. The army is way ahead of them though. They pull off a Normandy,complete with the boats and prop wake
Especially the ending when Commodus's sister, some gladiators, and a random Flavian "Senator" are going to rebuild the "Republic" - you know, the Roman Republic with its universal suffrage and lack of slavery and pick-up football matches on Labor Day...
Ridley Scott's Robin Hood qualifies as AH-lite. Richard 1 speaks English in 1190, really all of the Norman nobility do. The army is way ahead of them though. They pull off a Normandy,complete with the boats and prop wake
What about...
What about The Yiddish Policemen's Union?
It is set in a plausible alternate timeline and will be made into a movie by the Coen Brothers... I think this will be a good foot in the door.
A good AH/SF short story to be made into a movie would be The Forest of Time by Michael Flynn. It has action to keep people interested but enough AH to keep folks like us interested too.
What about The Yiddish Policemen's Union?
It is set in a plausible alternate timeline and will be made into a movie by the Coen Brothers... I think this will be a good foot in the door.
A good AH/SF short story to be made into a movie would be The Forest of Time by Michael Flynn. It has action to keep people interested but enough AH to keep folks like us interested too.
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Unfortunately, most Americans can't name any anime titles outside of Akira, Voltron, and Sailor Moon....