The Forbidden Planet International Blog Log

There’s been a fair bit of talk on various science fiction and movie sites about the possibility that one of bestselling author Iain M Banks‘ Culture tales could be headed for a movie adaptation. I’ve double checked with Iain and he’s confirmed that a deal has indeed been struck for the short story A Gift From the Culture (part of the State of the Art collection, originally seen in the pages of the excellent Interzone mag). The film-maker involved is Dominic Murphy who directed White Lightnin’, which created a real buzz at the prestigious Sundance film festival. Iain commented that he was impressed by that film and its director; speaking to Anarchist news dot org he said: “He seems like a thoroughly decent chap, and more to the point, I was deeply, deeply impressed by White Lightnin’. It’s the work of a properly mature director. You really wouldn’t guess it’s his first major film. I liked the way he handled a really bizarre subject and some very disturbed characters, without downplaying the results of their behaviour: he just lets them speak for themselves in a very matter-of-fact kind of way, without editorializing.”

(cover to State of the Art by Iain M Banks, published Orbit)

Of course an option is not the same as a film actually being made (and since its a short story I’d imagine they would have to expand it significantly, perhaps using Iain’s tale as the core) and optioned films can sometimes linger in development limbo (as Iain himself noted), but fingers crossed its a production that comes to pass because it would be great to see The Culture on the big screen (and probably even better as a mini-series, I’d think, for the full novels); in the same article Iain did express a desire to see fan-fave Consider Phlebeas adapted to a full length movie at some point. If A Gift From the Culture is indeed made and proves successful perhaps it will open the way for further Culture adaptations (although it is ironic that a short tale has been selected since Iain generally prefers to work at novel length rather than in short story form). More as and when we hear it. Iain’s latest novel is Transition and, despite not sporting his initial ‘M’ in the middle of his name here (which he uses to denote his SF material) it certainly has some interesting SF elements to it.

(cover to Transition by Iain Banks, published recently by LittleBrown)