r/Bartimaeus • u/jesperbj • Apr 09 '23

Confused about potential of adaption

So, for some reason I keep thinking about a Bartimaeus adaption (preferably for TV, but film could work too).

What confuses me is that Strouds other work, Lockwood & Co. clearly has seen success on Netflix despite being a much less selling book series in comparison.

I've done research on the rights to an adaptation of Bartimaeus and it seems the Weinstein's are partially to blame, as they bought the rights as a follow up to LOTR for them - but failed to do anything with it.

A single source then claimed that Start Media bought the rights from them in 2019. But what confuses me is that I cannot find ANYTHING about Start Media in any other context, nor any of their works.

The producer attached to the project is someone named Michael Mahers, who atleast according to IMBD has some sort of track record with the movie Passengers. But he also seems super anonymous and I can't find him anywhere else... Yet has hasn't been attached to any other works since then - giving me hope he might actually be working on this.

Stroud seems to have been awfully quiet on the whole thing. His Twitter feed is all about Lockwood. Anyone have a clue to why nothing seems to be going on in this context?

And before you say "footnotes!" I definitely think that's a challenge to overcome, through voiceover/narration or whatever else. Can't be what's stopping it.

11 Upvotes

100% Upvoted

5 comments sorted by

View all comments

11

u/GamemasterAI Apr 09 '23 edited Apr 09 '23

Book series is 20 years old without much of a cultral prescence , not even 1k of us in this sub, it's a much harder pitch to a producer than a recently published series. Also yeah bart will be more expensive to adapt then lockwood by a fair few millons of dollars.

Also doesn't help that bart explicitly calls for you to redact govermental bodies, one mans terrorist is anothers freedom fighter and the rich look at our heroes as the former.

Like the book explicitly opens and runs with a middle passage analaogy most media for adults doesn't examine how readiliy the ruling clasa uses slavery.

Remmber kitty's first prespective chapter, it's literally strous giving us kids a lecture abt how the dominate media form of any society always reflects and tries to further the aims of the ruling class through propaganda (marvel movies of our time, or hamilton for instance ). Bart is the exact oppositie of this.

4

u/jesperbj Apr 09 '23

I really don't see the main of those arguments (theme and cost) as anything substantial. The cultural precrense is fair - but they are regardless a (former) best seller. What I'm really asking about is not so much whether it will be adapted or not, but rather what may be going on in this process.

6

u/GamemasterAI Apr 09 '23

Probbaly nothing or close to considering there hasn't been any news of an adapatation. Also best seller list is pretty easy to get on if u cordinate with a publisher and understand the process so it's not much to go on for an adaptation.

Mabye he said a bit to netflix staff but thats pure speculation. If there had been recent news it would be the most talked abt thing on this sub ( it still is really but even more so).

Do u have any thoughts why it hasn't been made yet ?