Thursday, November 3, 2011

Small beginnings, big results?


I was amused and impressed to learn that a Reddit comment might inspire a fully-fledged Hollywood movie. Gizmodo reports:

Warner Bros has bought movie rights to a story idea that originated as a Reddit comment. It all started when someone posted a question wondering if today's US Marines could defeat Roman Empire legionnaires if they traveled back in time.

James Erwin, an author and two-time Jeopardy winner, saw that Reddit thread and responded with a comment that was pretty well thought out and extremely interesting. The Redditors loved it. Erwin kept writing with more and more stories until his concept got its own subreddit, Facebook fan page and popped on Reddit's first page. From there, it caught the eye of Madhouse Entertainment's Adam Kolbrenner who helped Erwin further develop the concept and then sold the idea to Warner Brothers. The movie, as its known now, is called Rome, Sweet Rome.


There's more at the link.

I think that's great! An idle discussion on a chat board develops into something so intricate and detailed that it can serve as the plot for a movie! I hope they make it, and it turns out well. It'll be a refreshing change from the usual pablum served up by Hollywood.

Peter

2 comments:

Old NFO said...

Yep, creativity works in mysterious ways...

FrankC said...

Try some of the novels of S.M.Stirling.
Modern techniques against ancient armies.