I've read one of these books (Jane Slayre: The Literary Classic...with a Blood-Sucking Twist). It was fun... for a while. Then it was like an SNL skit that had gone on twice as long as it should have.

I hope that your assessment that this is the front of the wave is incorrect. We've had Buffy and all of the derivatives for 18 years. It's about time for the undead to go back in the ground for a while. Bring back more Westerns, and genuinely funny and sweet comedies, and some non-derivative, non-comic-book sci-fi.

Bill, my "front of the wave" reference wasn't about vampires and zombies, but rather about genre-bending, taking a renowned historic or fictional figure not known for adventure, then thrusting them into an adventure, action, or horror genre.

@ Bill I agree. This isn't really my cup of tea and the skit-too-long metaphor is accurate. Also "non-derivative,non-comic book sci-fi" would be equally appreciated. Hopefully by you or me.
@ Scott, isn't genre-bending more like the "similar but different" paradigm? I kind of think these endeavors have to be totally spot on or else they are vulnerable to the "League of Extraordinary Gentleman" syndrome where they get a few names attached and can't really see how stupid the whole concept is until the audience walks out say..."That SUCKED" and people won't even take free copies of the DVD because there is NOTHING there to see..

I love this stuff.

But it will be short lived in theaters. Although the vampire trend really ended in 2006 (the year of vampire spec scripts galore!) and it's still around... Ugh. So, who knows?

In a way, this "revisionist" history in film was started with Charlie Kaufman's BEING JOHN MALKOVICH. I read a lot of spec scripts that involved known "celebs" as a result of Kaufman's script.

Taking historical figures and radically altering them is a rights free next step imo.

Alan Moore did something similar in LEAGUE OF EXTRAORDINARY GENTLEMEN (the comic, not the movie).

Ironically, at the end of this trend we will end up with a lot of material that is like the movie version of LEAGUE. Uninspired crap.

Bill, thanks for the mention. You were fun for a while, too, then you went on twice as long as you should have. ;)

Seriously, I love the Jack London idea. Sounds like great fun. And can I just say Twilight. Young adults buy books. Young adults actually buy movie tickets. Parents deprive themselves to stay on budget, but don't think anything of handing the bucks over to their kids, who go spend it on books and movies. They will fill the theater seats for these films, and that's the goal, isn't it? I think this is only the beginning.