If could create a HBO show what whould it be about?

[S@tanicoaldo]

So you have a huge budget to create an awesome HBO show, Si-fi, fantasy, action, drama or detective, anything you want.

What would it be about?

Mine would be a fantasy house of cards like show about a group of cardinals who are trying to become the next high priest in a fantasy world, they all have huge flaws but also great virtues, they ty to convince people by using their virtues and trying to hide their flaws and sins.

A lot of political intrigue and theological concepts, faith, philosophy and divinity would be constantly discussed by the characters

It would have lots of sex, hunky guys, sexy girls and color saturation. I hate how everything looks so pale and dark nowadays, all characters cloths would be very colorful and vivid.

It won't be a GoT knockoff since there would be a lot more of magic and fantastical creatures. The magic rules would be explained in details and it will be very consistent.

How about you guys? What would you guys do ?

[Dienekes]

Basically Rome, but about the Peloponnesian War.

Alcibiades was basically born to be a tv character. And looking at the lower class characters and social systems of Athens and Sparta would be great. Both cultures have been so dramaticized by history it'd be nice to show Sparta wasn't just a bunch of war hungry monsters, while Athens weren't just some enlightened culture of democratic goodness.

[Ranxerox]

Every since reading it, I have thought that setting and premise for the RPG Dogs In The Vineyard (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/TabletopGame/DogsInTheVineyard) would make a great TV show. A western setting, magic, people trying desperately to cover up there sins while other try to uncover them, both groups wrestling with their consciences, cultural conflicts, some sex and a lot of violence; what is not to love?

[Hopeless]

How about a mini series set in Eberron?
Starts with a brief explanation of the Last War and is set aboard a lightning rail which has been seized by members of the Emerald Claw who have unknowingly brought aboard a stolen canister of a short lived plague that turns the carriage it's within into ghouls forcing the surviving passengers to take cover in the other carriages trying to keep them out.
One of the upper class passengers deliberately disengages the front of the train from the rear trying to separate the undead section from their end only the authorities deliberately derail the train alarm Cassandra Crossing.
The mini series ends with the few surviving passengers having to set out on foot trying to evade the remaining ghouls and try to reach the dubious safety of the nearest settlement.

The bit about the plague being short lived isn't discovered until one of the few survivors who were paralysed by the ghoul bite regain consciousness and movement... maybe within the last episode or so.

Would that interest you?

[Daer]

i must admit first thought was Keijo.

though reading other answers eberron idea seemed great.
somekind dnd kind fantasy series of group that no way should work as well it ends up working together. That and all the shenanigans that usually are involved. very little politics though.

[thorgrim29]

Basically Rome, but about the Peloponnesian War.

Basically Rome but about the second Punic War, split the cast between the Barca family and the various Scipios. Call it Barca.

Also a HBO adaptation of the dresden files would rock very hard.

[Aedilred]

A Rome "prequel", set during the Marius and Sulla era. Given that Vorenus's dad (in-series) fought for Sulla, you could even have him as a character (albeit a minor one; two successive generations of Voreni being so central to history would be rather a stretch).

Alternatively, an adaptation of Robert Harris's Cicero novels, though in this fantasy universe where I get to make such decisions I'd probably rather try to adapt them to film.

In fact, and though the characterisation of some individuals is rather different and the novels follow history a little more closely, the first two novels would actually form an almost perfect "bridge" between Sulla's retirement (which would pretty much end the Rome prequels) and the 2005 series, starting with the battle of Alesia.

[Kyberwulf]

Probably Harry Potter. But done so you can show the world more. That or something like Dragonlance or something set in Forgotton realms.

[Kitten Champion]

A thought I had with the whole "What is Cyberpunk?" thread influencing me is a Neuromancer series. Not of the book itself, because that's relatively limited material on which to base a prolonged serialized narrative with and part of what defines Neuromancer is how it's ultimately just another day in the lives of these characters - if somewhat more memorable than most - with the exception of the AIs which are the ultimate focus of events themselves.

Besides that, as we've had years of cyberpunk fiction including Gibson's own since then, new ideas which could fit within that milieu would be a welcome addition to that universe. So long as it fits the general feel of what Neuromancer was going for.

I don't think it would be a particularly difficult series to get off the ground practically speaking. The real challenge here is the creativity factor in the writing, or having a reason for the series to exists at all beyond its aesthetic.

[Malimar]

I was gonna say "adapt Martha Wells's The Death Of The Necromancer", but a.) that would probably be fine as a one-off movie instead of a TV series and b.)

How about a mini series set in Eberron?
^ this this this ^

[Excession]

Adapt the Liveship Traders series of books. Sea serpents, dragons, pirates, violence, politics, flawed heroes, a charismatic villain or two. It's like Game of Thrones, but with more boats.

[Rodin]

I would go for a Space Opera myself. Special effects for Sci-Fi shows have improved a lot since the days of Star Trek and Babylon 5, but they're still often badly limited by TV budgets. Get a proper interstellar war story in the vein of Honor Harrington going. Lots of political intrigue broken up by flashy space battles. The Expanse is great, but I would have loved to see what they could have done with an HBO-level budget.

[russdm]

Sword and Cross: The Crusader Kingdom of Jerusalem survived because Baldwin 4 was not a leper, and Guy Dumb@$$ wasn't allowed to become king. It would either be the slow fall of the Byzantines or near world war 1, with the Crusaders now playing a part. Or it would be the story of having the Crusaders survive and expand to drive the muslims back into the desert wastes where they belong. Essentially an alternate history, because real history is less interesting (See appeal of Crusader Kings 2)

Way of the Sword: Story set in Feudal Japan during the periods of Shogunates. Because Japan, Samurai, Katanas. And we need some interesting stories. Plus it could be pretty historical and we don't have to deal with the bloody turban guys shouting stuff as they conquer everything for Allah.

Glory and Honor: Vikings in Space.

[solidork]

Mr. Shopping's werewolf actual play: Detroit Rock City (https://forum.rpg.net/showthread.php?446663-Werewolf-The-Forsaken-quot-Detroit-Rock-City-quot)

It's already more of a novel than an AP, and I have a burning need to see his descriptions of the spirit world of Detroit in a visual format.

[snowblizz]

Ah, an opportunity to do something awesome from Warhammer or Warhammer 40k. A Space Opera from the latter would blow everything ever done in film away. The main problem would be just which uncut diamonds to polish there.

[Darth Ultron]

I'd love to take just about any ''franchise'' or ''fiction'' and HBO it(or Starz/Showtime it). Hbo is one of the few places that shows true adult content, made for adults. The networks are horrible with their ''rated G'' rules and they way they have to water down everything. Even the cable ones like FX only go ''a little bit'' past ''G''.

To just watch a show where they are making the best show possible and not checking every second if what they are doing might upset a sensor or Ma and Pa Kettle.

In a general sense, I love the more accurate history type shows..so I'd love to see more of them. There is plenty of history out there.

I'd love a D&D type show like ''Game of Thrones'', but it would need a good plot, of course. A Drizzit show would be nice...but I doubt Wizards would make it good as they would want it all ''rated g'' so all the little kids could watch it(and Wizards could make more money). Though you'd have that problem with any D&D type show......but you could maybe do it with say Gord and Greyhawk (I think the Gygax family owns them) or even more something just ''fantasy like D&D''.

A space opera would be great too.

And the things to start from like: Spawn, Witchblade, Blade Runner, John Carter of Mars, Sandman, and so on are endless

[Rothis Sil]

I'd make a fantasy show where no characters ever die or face the consequences of their foolish but idealistic actions.

[lt_murgen]

I would love to do a Battletech series. I would stay away from the Clan invasions, and focus on the 4th sucession war. But even more than that, instead of focusing on the military maneuvering, frame it in terms of battle over Lostech (lost technology), the tech renaissance of the Free World's League, and Comstar trying to stop it for "religious" reasons.

Split it like "the Expanse" does- half the time with 2-3 plot threads of people on the ground, and 1 thread of the FWL leadership engaging in political battles with Comstar.

[Cikomyr]

Dune

But make the first season while the Atreides are still in Caladan. Show the political manoeuvering. Show why the Emperor fears the Duke Leto.

Season 2 is arrival on dune, until the final betrayal.

Season 3 is flight unto the desert, dealing with the political fallout from the attack + gerting entangled with the Fremen

Season 4 is the Muadib Jihad on Dune, the mounting tension by the Guild and the Emperor, ending with the arrival of the Emperor and the Landsraad.

You finish with an epic movie of the Battle for Dune.

[Shamash]

I'd make a fantasy show where no characters ever die or face the consequences of their foolish but idealistic actions.

That sounds boring.


Dune

But make the first season while the Atreides are still in Caladan. Show the political manoeuvering. Show why the Emperor fears the Duke Leto.

Season 2 is arrival on dune, until the final betrayal.

Season 3 is flight unto the desert, dealing with the political fallout from the attack + gerting entangled with the Fremen

Season 4 is the Muadib Jihad on Dune, the mounting tension by the Guild and the Emperor, ending with the arrival of the Emperor and the Landsraad.

You finish with an epic movie of the Battle for Dune.

That sounds awesome! But a movie that depends on a series? That would never work!



I would create a HBO show based on Justinian and Theodora.

Their rule of the byzantine empire is awesome, he starts as a small farmer, becomes an emperor, married a dancer, reform the empire, fought the corruption and intrigue, awesome wars, lots of sex and even supernatural elements such as pagans and demons. All wrapped around the awesome byzantine aesthetics.

What else do you want?

Basically this entire series of videos as a TV show:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=klq84Z9O4GU

[Aedilred]

The repeated emphasis in the video that Rome had been stagnant for a thousand years is overstated. The purported thousand years goes back to before the sack of Rome in 390BC, from before which no written records survive, and was "only" about 5-600 years since, successively, Sulla, Caesar and Augustus overhauled the Roman constitution. It had only been two hundred years since Constantine; not much longer since Diocletian, and those weren't even the latest major reforms on the books.

The real problem was not so much that the constitution was ancient, it was that since the late second century the empire had been almost critically unstable, and while an occasional strong leader was able to restore order and make some progress, they were inevitably followed by someone incompetent, weak or unfortunate and the edifice collapsed again.

In fact the stuff Justinian's ministers had to wrestle with was only about a hundred years old at most, as Theodosius II had performed a pretty thorough reform of the legal code, and he had been followed by a relatively excpetional succession of capable rulers with only the odd dud. Rather than inheriting an empire in a complete state, Justinian began his reign with a remarkably stable platform relative to most of his predecessors (and he should have had a budget surplus, thanks to Anastasius, but his dad blew a lot of it on bribes and parties).

It's a very Roman tendency to attribute such things to individual great reformers at intervals of a century or more, rather than acknowledge a process of more incremental and impersonal change. It's also completely believable that Justinian would have downplayed the achievements of Anastasius, Zeno, Leo etc. in order to make his own accomplishments more impressive. And they were impressive; I don't want to knock the guy too much. It's just a bit disappointing to see that narrative unquestioningly swallowed and repeated by modern "scholarship", even - perhaps especially - when that material is for popular consumption.