We all know that there are trends in what movies get made en masse. The 'fantasy' trend that encompassed LotR and Harry Potter seems to be dying down now; the Superheroes one is in full swing. Twilight brought about a spate of angsty vampires, 80s/90s nostalgia is ongoing (Power Rangers next year, and Star Wars without end!), and we seem to have a rather nifty 'hard-ish scifi' theme right now (Gravity, Interstellar, The Martian...).

But there's one field of writing that has been critically underrepresented, and since we're hopefully getting away from 'boardgame movies', I think its time has come.

I'm talking, of course, about poems.

Personally I would love to see a summer blockbuster based on the Footprints poem (One night I dreamed I was walking along a beach with God). I'm thinking we cast g/God as a small skinny type (old man with beard? Long-haired Jesus archetype? Woman? Maybe mix things up and find something from Asialand, like that Hindu wossname, Buddha), and the poet as a much heavier person (either muscly or overweight, depending on whether we're going for action or comedy). Then, after the various scenes of the poet and god fighting, y'know, demons or dinosaurs or whatever, we get this one:

THE POET looks back over their shoulder. In the distance are pillars of smoke, blazing fires, gore, etc. Closer is the line of footprints, but that's just it - there's only ONE line.

POET: God? God, where are you?!

GOD's voice comes from offscreen, accompanied by swelling chords.

GOD: I am here...

PAN or CUT down to show GOD staggering along the beach, with the POET sitting on their shoulders. GOD is of course staggering under the weight, and probably wounded from defending the POET earlier.

GOD: ... my child.

I think it's a guaranteed hit.

Alternately, we could do I Wandered Lonely As A Cloud - y'know, the daffodils poem - as an environmental piece: the Poet finds the daffodils under threat from, I dunno, bad people who kill plants, and has to fight to protect them. Maybe we can get a trilogy out of it (always good!): Daffodils, The Daffodil War, and Memory of Daffodils (after the original field gets bulldozed at the end of War, with the Poet saving a single bulb and going viral or whatever).

Actually, maybe this could be our 'in': those bad guys sound like Captain Planet villains, so why not make this a Captain Planet series? '90s nostalgia, remember, and with Power Rangers coming up the whole 'hero team with big summon fights evil' idea is on everyone's minds.

Well, that's my pitch. What other poems should PPC Studios adapt for our triumphant entry into the world of cinema? And what other shamefully neglected aspects of human experience should we introduce our eager public to? Be creative!

hS

(With apologies for Clueless Producer's voice up there - obviously I know that Buddha isn't Hindu. He's Muslim, duh. ^_~)