Real-life stories that would make great movies

[Idris2002]

As it says above.

For me, it's the early years of Thin Lizzy. In addition to the usual rock biopic stuff, you've got the background of Ireland being ten years into modernization, and the north in the process of blowing up. Phil's mixed-race background would be a good theme to draw on, and Eric Bell's protestant background allows a way into the northern aspects of the situation.

There should still be enough locations from that era to make it doable.

What about the rest of you?

 

[DotCommunist]

The Man Who Survived Two Atomic Bombs | HISTORY

Some 260,000 people survived the atomic bomb attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki—Tsutomu Yamaguchi was one of the very few who endured the horror of both.

www.history.com

this biopic should be called 'Tsutomu's War'

 

[Nanker Phelge]

I'd love to see a film about early 60s Jamaica and all the producers and musicians vying for attention and international fame. A really good period piece with all JA cast. Along the lines of Harder they Come but factual....

...they'd make news casting young Bob Marley...

 

[Orang Utan]

The man who cut out his own appendix

Russian surgeon, Leonid Rogozov, got appendicitis while on an Antarctic mission - he had to operate on himself.

www.bbc.co.uk

 

[AverageJoe]

Brian Blessed The MOOOOOVVVIIIEEEEE.

 

[Reno]

I always wanted to see a good adventure/western/horror film based on the Donner Party, an ill fated wagon trek consisting nearly 100 settlers on the way to California in the mid-19th century. They attempted a short cut and instead got stuck in the Sierra Nevada mountain range during an unusually early and harsh winter. The whole story consists of one harrowing misadventure after another and once they ran out of food, they ended up resorting to survival cannibalism. There were several ill fated attempts at getting help, till they got rescued after four months stuck in the snow. Half of them survived.

There is a lot of documentation in the form of diaries and letters and several books have been written in it. Major Hollywood films have been attempted but the only dramatic film directly based on it, is a low budget B-movie from 2009 which was poorly received and went unnoticed. There are a few films tangentially based on it (Antonia Bird’s Ravenous imagines an aftermath, it gets referred to by Jack Nicholson in The Shining) but so far the only good film on it is a haunting 1992 Ric Burns documentary for PBS. Would make for an excellent adventure film or a Netflix series.

Donner Party - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[Badgers]

The fails and injuries of dessiato

 

[Steel Icarus]

The life of "Mad" Jack Churchill, into which he packed about ten lives.

Jack Churchill - Wikipedia

en.m.wikipedia.org

 

[strung out]

I always wanted to see a good adventure/western/horror film based on The Donner Party, an ill fated wagon trek consisting nearly 100 settlers on the way to California in the mid-19th century. They attempted a short cut and instead got stuck in the Sierra Nevada mountain range during an unusually long and harsh winter. The whole story consists of one harrowing misadventure after another and once they ran out of food, they ended up resorting to survival cannibalism. There were several ill fated attempts at getting help, till they got rescued after four months stuck in the snow. Half of them survived.

There is a lot of documentation in the form of diaries and letters and several books have been written in it. Major Hollywood films have been attempted but the only dramatic film directly based on it, is a low budget B-movie from 2009 which was poorly received and went unnoticed. There are a few films tangentially based on it (Antonia Bird’s Ravenous imagines an aftermath, it gets referred to by Jack Nicholson in The Shining) but so far the only good film on it is a haunting 1992 Ric Burns documentary for PBS. Would make for an excellent adventure film or a Netflix series.

Donner Party - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

I read a good horror story adaptation of that called The Hunger recently. I'd love to see a movie version.

The Hunger by Alma Katsu | Waterstones

Buy The Hunger by Alma Katsu from Waterstones today! Click and Collect from your local Waterstones or get FREE UK delivery on orders over £25.

www.waterstones.com

 

[Reno]

I read a good horror story adaptation of that called The Hunger recently. I'd love to see a movie version.

The Hunger by Alma Katsu | Waterstones

Buy The Hunger by Alma Katsu from Waterstones today! Click and Collect from your local Waterstones or get FREE UK delivery on orders over £25.

www.waterstones.com

Been eyeing that on my last visit to the English language bookshop in Berlin. Looks a little like The Terror by Dan Simmons, which was made into a tv series.

 

[Saul Goodman]

Self-serving, underachieving, racist, sexist, homophobic, bigoted, petulant manchild gets voted into number 10.

 

[Humberto]

Jack Sheppard. 18th century folk hero famed for his numerous prison escapes.

 

[Idris2002]

Jack Sheppard. 18th century folk hero famed for his numerous prison escapes.

Needs a love interest

 

[Reno]

Jack Sheppard. 18th century folk hero famed for his numerous prison escapes.

There was a 1969 British movie called Where’s Jack ? with Tommy Steele, but it was a flop.

Where's Jack? - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[Sweet FA]

Would love a properly written dramatisation of the 43 Group.

CGI of London in 1946; the inital meeting between:

• Morris Beckman, served in the Merchant Navy during World War II. He lived through two torpedo attacks during the War.
• Gerald Flamberg, a middleweight boxing champion and member of 156 Battalion. Flamberg won the Military Medal at Arnhem during Operation Market Garden;[5][6]
• Leonard Sherman, a martial arts expert and member of the Welsh Guards;
• Alec Carson, who flew Hawker Hurricanes in the Battle of Britain.

 

[Humberto]

Needs a love interest

Edgworth Bess!

 

[TheHoodedClaw]

The Final Destination-like life of Nicholas Alkemade. He's fairly well known for having bailed out of a burning Lancaster at umpteen thousand feet without a parachute, and surviving with barely a scratch. But that wasn't the end of Nicholas's tribulations, oh no...

From this page on the RAF Museum website

Nicholas Alkemade | Aviation Historian | RAF Museum

Learn more about the indestructible sergeant Nicholas Alkemade in our Collections Division and read the amazing tale of the airman.

www.rafmuseum.org.uk

After discharge from the RAF in 1946, Alkemade returned to Loughborough, finding work in a chemical plant. Not long after starting his new job, he again cheated death. While removing chlorine gas-generating liquid from a sump, he received a severe electric shock from the equipment he was using. Reeling away, his gas mask became dislodged and he began breathing in the poisonous gas. An agonising 15 minutes were to pass before his appeals for aid were answered and he was dragged to safety, nearly asphyxiated by the fumes.

Not long after, a siphoning pipe burst, spraying Alkemade’s face and arms with industrial sulphuric acid. With astounding presence of mind, he dived head-first into a nearby 40 gallon drum of limewash, thereby neutralising the acid. Alkemade ‘escaped’ with first degree burns. Returning to work, Alkemade was pinned beneath a nine foot long steel door runner that fell from its mountings as he passed by. Somehow only minor bruising resulted.

After this third incident even Alkemade thought that enough was enough, becoming a furniture salesman with Clemersons Limited in Loughborough, where he lived with his wife and children. He passed away, much later than he might otherwise have done, in June 1987.

 

[Sweet FA]

Still waiting for the Barry Sheene biopic. which could be ace if it ever gets released/made.