Hat Tip: Dark Horizons
Warner has just obtained the screen rights to the Dragonriders of Pern books written by Anne McCaffery. In case you're wondering, that's a total of 22 books.
For those unfamiliar with the books, they involve a planet that periodically faces a space born threat as a result of a wondering planetoid that is home to "thread". Thread is a spore-like organism capable of surviving in space that devours any organic material it comes in contact with.
The planet is colonized by space travelers (making this science fiction instead of fantasy). The colonist engage in genetic modification of an indigenous species to create "Dragons" that can be used to combat the thread while falling through the atmosphere, preventing it from reaching the ground.
The dragons breath fire and can "go between" (a form of teleportation.)
I like the books and hope they are successfully translated to the big screen, but I'm not holding my breath. Hollywood seems to have this mentality where everything has to be turned into an action movie blockbuster and the McCaffery stories really aren't "blockbuster" material. The books center primarily on social interactions than anything else. This suggest a need to concentrate on plot, not action.
Going the "blockbuster" route would probably result in a movie with lots of combat scenes with dragons fighting thread and not much else. This would not do justice to the material.
Warner might be better served going the Game of Thrones route by turning the books into a television series. A television series would involve more plot and character development which are the strengths of the books. They really aren't "action" oriented.
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