Being smack in the middle of a peak content era means Hollywood is looking for more stories to tell than ever before. That’s led to mining other mediums for adaptation inspiration, from turning hit Broadway musical Hamilton into a theatrical version to turning biographies for great biopics to finding weird, cult comic books and graphic novels to spin into TV series.

Still, books remain the main source of movie adaptations, thanks to them being, well, books. The second half of this year alone is filled with movies based on books, none more anticipated than Denis Villeneuve’s adaptation of Frank Herbert’s Dune. I was curious about what books or short stories people would love to see turned into a movie so I asked Twitter a question:

And I got an avalanche of answers. Most of them were unexpected, many were fun to envision, and others were spot-on. Here are some of the best responses I got.

It shouldn’t surprise anyone to know that Stephen King led the pack, including my own suggestion:

But there were others who found stories to adapt in the King of Horror’s work, including this guy who had the same idea as me but with a different actor:

I mean…he’s not wrong.

Fellow horror writer Clive Barker also got some love:

As did sci-fi writer Iain M. Banks:

Donna Tartt’s inverted detective story, The Secret History, about a group of college students who murder one of their friends and then reflect upon the events that led up to the killing, was also a frequent answer.

Classic literature and modern classics made frequent appearances in my mentions from people who had clearly had a long time to think about how they’d adapt them and who they’d cast.

But most of the answers were completely random and fascinating. So many people suggested books I’d never have thought of adapting – or have not yet read, but definitely will now.

I left so many great answers out, so it’s well worth clicking that original tweet and skimming through all of the responses. There may be a suggestion I overlooked that speaks to your heart. What book or short story would you like to see adapted?

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