So... Where Is This Project Going?
Short answer: nowhere :,(
Long answer: depends on a couple of different factors
First off, I would really, REALLY like to get this off the ground. After finding the initial story idea so fascinating, applying my own values towards it, and crafting a new narrative that stays true to many of Heinlein’s original themes while also expanding upon them so much more than in the source material. I’ll do an in-depth post on all of the changes I made later on, but this is the root of what makes this so complex.
Last semester an executive producer who’s worked with Marvel and Warner Bros (among others) gave a talk at my uni and I went. As part of an exercise we talked about ideas for films we wanted to make, and I brought up this one and learned two main things.
One, if it did get made, it would probably be very easy to finance and do really well because it’s an adaptation of a piece of Intellectual Property (IP; book, movie, comic, etc. pretty much any form of preexisting media). Statistically speaking, producers are more likely to greenlight projects based on IP because it’s been proven that audiences are more likely to go see something based on IP. Movies are a big commitment of time and money, so if you’re going to put aside two hours and thirty dollars to sit in a dark room eating corn, you want to watch something you know you’re going to enjoy. As a result, if an average person had to pick between two films- one originally and one based on a cartoon they liked as a kid- they’re more likely to go with the later.
(EDITORS NOTE: So anytime people feel like complaining that there’s no originality in Hollywood anymore, it’s because people keep paying to see these films. You brought this on yourself, TODD.)
Secondly, while IP makes the big bucks, Stranger in a Strange Land is the exception to the rule. At least, as I have it written. Starship Troopers (1997), a film based on Heinlein’s second most famous book, made several changes between page and screen- and apparently the Heinlein Estate didn’t like ANY of them. As a result, the Estate is very protective of their IP. So much so that there hasn’t been a cinematic depiction of a Heinlein work since. If a movie version of Stranger in a Strange Land was to be made, it would be as close to the source material as humanly possible.
And seeing that the source was misogynistic, homophobic, racist, and didn’t make a lick of sense past the Act 2 mark, I want nothing to do with it.
So what does that mean for me?
While this means I probably won’t get to produce this script until the management oft he Heinlein Estate changes or I can get the rights myself, I frankly am too far down the rabbit hole of hyperfixation to give up that easily. I’m already a quarter ways in to a first draft, and will continue writing and refining it, hoping for a time when it can be used.
Less officially but more accessibly, I’ve also been toying with the notion of writing it in a novelized format and putting it on AO3, but first I’ll have to see if there’s a audience for it...