It could be a good movie but, like "Dune" redoubled, the best that can be hoped for is an extraction of the essence of the story with none of the detail or texture that makes this a work of enduring literary greatness. Still, good for Dan Simmons that this is finally happening, and good luck to the filmmakers. It can be hoped that a well done movie will bring a new generation of readers to the books.

I hope that the Shrike will be played by Vin Diesel and, poet Cybrid John Keats by Hugh Grant, the Consul by Bruce Willis, and Martin Silenus by Ron Jeremy!

Taking an extremely complex story like this and putting it in the hands of the d-bag responsible for The Day The Earth Yawned is a huge mistake. There's no way this will turn out good, which is a terrible shame considering how amazing the source material is.

Wait....did someone just say "bit off way more than anyone could chew?"

"...and adapted the David Brin SF novel Startide Rising for Paramount."

thats just a bad idea all around. Seriously, noone is gonna watch that. people required to think? Not in american cinemas.

I think Oded Fehr would be an excellent Col. Kassad!

This series of books is the best i have read so far, this could be so good, but the story is so intricate i doubt the screenplay will even be close to it. Especially if its formatted for American audiences :(

"I hope that the Shrike will be played by Vin Diesel and, poet Cybrid John Keats by Hugh Grant, the Consul by Bruce Willis, and Martin Silenus by Ron Jeremy!"

Haha that would be perfect!! :)

The only thing I can say is : !Please don't do It! At least not in this fashion, the Cantos is comparable in amplitude to The lord of the rings, and probably, the complexity of the two first novels of the tetralogy gives material for at least two-three movies (and not precisely short ones either).

Btw after the disaster he made of Day, how can any studios consider him fit to direct such a film?

Cantos is probably material for someone like Riddley Scott, Sondenberg or maybe even Kenneth Branagh but certainly not this guy.

The only thing I can say is : !Please don't do It! At least not in this fashion, the Cantos is comparable in amplitude to The lord of the rings, and probably, the complexity of the two first novels of the tetralogy gives material for at least two-three movies (and not precisely short ones either).

Btw after the disaster he made of Day, how can any studios consider him fit to direct such a film?

Cantos is probably material for someone like Riddley Scott, Sondenberg or maybe even Kenneth Branagh but certainly not this guy.

I loved the Hyperion series, but can't see any way the story could be translated to film and retain its essence. At best, it could be watered down into a cool effects movie, but it wouldn't be Hyperion. It would be like (dare I say it?) trying to redo The Day the Earth Stood Still.

A new peak of american stupidity.

Both of these guys are rookies. What inept studio exec handed both the beloved Hyperion AND Startide Rising to these novices? I can't speak of Sands, but Derrickson has just shown his ineptitude with SF through his handling of The Day the Earth Stood Still. Let these guys hone their skills on Rom-coms or video game adaptations before given such heady material!

forget Hyperion, it was good dont get me wrong.
Childhood's End was that much better.

I haven't read this particular series; only Dan Simmons I've read is the Illium/Olympos series. I enjoyed those two books, except for his blatant anti-semitism (not hatred of Jews this time, but hatred of the other Semites, the Arabs). The guy is an all out Islamo-phobe. No, I'm not a muslim, but I find Islamophobia to be offensive.

Hell yes! I never saw the remake of "The Day The Earth Stood Still," but I'm hopeful Derrickson can handle such a large-scale production.

The post-"Avatar" CG will need to be spectacularly convincing, as wil the actors and story. It's unfortunate Scorcese backed off this project, but maybe we'll still get something good.

Most important: the screenplay really needs to be good. Liberties will be taken, which is fine with me, but I hope it's still vast in scale, evocative, violent, thought-provoking, and R-rated. Because if this is PG-13... yuck.

I wish Derrickson luck.

I am so dissapointed. Ever since I read these books I've been waiting for them to make a series of movies based on them, now I find out they're going to just smash two incredibly detailed intelligent books filled with literary references into one movie I find myself thinking that this is more likely to turn out like "Queen of the Damned" (two pretty good books by Ann Rice became one HORRID movie that changed just about every important detail of the source material) than "Lord of the Rings". Really each of the stories told by the different characters about thier pasts could be an hour and a half movie, not to mention everything that happens in the present while they are all traveling together. As long as I've wanted this to happen I'd rather have waited another few years for it to be done right. Why can't Hollywood understand the greatest part of Sci-fi is the possibility for intelligence and imagination it allows in storytelling, not just a chance to show off the latest digital effects?

Hats off to Dan,

Lets hope he rakes in squillions of well earned back end dollars from this piece of Hollywood junk.

Time to read the books again I think

By comparison, who would have thought Steve Jackson, director of corny horror movies, to be able to create the wonderfully faithful adaption of Tolkiens "Lord of the Rings"? I think many Tolkien fans were getting ready to be dissapointed before release. I for one was positively overwhelmed, because Jackson managed to enact the characters and sceneries of the book so close to my own images of them.

Lets hope for something good for Hyperion..

Gods, this whole make-hyperion-into-a-movie business is getting me all emotional, as did the original novels to be frank. I want this project to work so much but at the same time I can't help having a really bad premonition about it. It's just so challenging a serie. I think a high budget tv-series would have given the needed room for the story to unfold. I wouldn't have minded a low budget either if the story was to heart of the original. Because the story is what I think is the main attraction of the series. Not the possible special effects and whatnot. Peter Jackson did a great job on the LotR and maybe something similar would be acceptible but I can't help but feel Hyperion is more complex than LotR, with it being, in my opinion, relatively straight-forward. Great sense of history, grandieur and magic, no doubt, though.

It can be done. And quite well, although I would prefer a 26 episode 5 season treatment much as BSG got.

There are obviously as many ways to do it as there are distributions of Linux. Not a bad model to emulate if you want to experiment with scripts, collaboration and feedback.

My Linux distribution so to speak would start with the Endymion books. Far more exciting at the beginning and cohesive than the Hyperion duo. Nelly Furtado's All Good Things (Come to an End) would be the theme music at the start and finish. Again more gripping than piano music played in a bog with a lightning storm in the background. I challenge anyone to name a better song for Aenea, played by Summer Glau perhaps.