Clan of the Cave Bear Getting Remake Treatment by Lifetime

Hat Tip: Dark Horizons


According to Variety, Lifetime is looking into creating a series based on Jean Auel's series of books set in the neolithic period.  They have ordered a pilot being produced by Fox 21 and Lionsgate in association with Imagine Television and Allison Shearmur Productions.

That involves some very impressive talent.  (The list includes Ron Howard and Linda Woolverton.  Woolverton's resume includes work on Maleficent, Alice in Wonderland and The Lion King.)


Auel's 6 book series provides a large amount of source material to draw from.


Personally, I'm a bit surprised Hollywood hasn't touched Auel's work outside of the 1986 movie with Daryl Hannah as Ayla.

The fact that the movie wasn't well received might have something to do with the books not being touched before now.  (Auel's $40 Million lawsuit to stop any further use of the material may also have played a part.  Nothing says "radioactive" quite like a lawsuit by the material's author.)


As a side note, reading some of the 1986 movie reviews just reinforced the notion of just how clueless some movie critics can be.

There is one critic that criticized the decision to use a fictitious language instead of English.  The decision to have the actors speak English would have resulted in critics complaining about "lack of realism."

Probably from the same critic.

Then there is the lack of verbal linguistic ability assigned to the neanderthals in the novel.  Any attempt to portray this while using English would have resulted in the neanderthals sounding like Tonto from the Lone Ranger serials.

You can imagine how the critics would have responded to THAT.


Part of the problem for the 1986 film stems from the material itself.  The movie was fairly faithful to the book.  The producers of the Lifetime pilot are going to encounter the same limitations.

The Clan of the Cave Bear may just be a book that doesn't translate well on screen, be it t.v. or theater.


Just to have a little fun at Roger Ebert's expense.  He gave the 1986 movie 1.5 out of 4 stars.  He gave Anaconda 3.5   Anaconda is on my list of worse films aver made.  Bad plot.  Bad Acting.  Cliche after cliche.  Cheesy CG affects.  And the "snake" bears no relation to the real animal and breaks laws of physics.

This is what Ebert gave 3.5/4 stars.