What are the Odds?

So one of the projects I was going to do next was a book adaptation. I figured this would be fun to do, since I'm supposed to be all good at anaylsis and stuff.

The novel in question is The Man Who Was Thursday by G.K. Chesterton, a personal favorite of mine.

I started reading it last night and got about halfway through, reinforcing my belief that it would be super-easy to adapt to the screen.

This morning, I thought that since I hadn't yet checked on copyright status, I might as well crack open the first couple pages of the book and take a gander.

"Take a gander." What a great phrase.

Anyway, opened up to the copyright page, and ... nada.

This was encouraging.

The next step was some googling. And Lo, if I did not immediately discover that the book, first printed in 1908, is in fact in the public domain.

And there was much rejoicing.

Then I thought I would just throw "movie" onto the end of my google search, to check whether (unlikely as it might have seemed), anyone else had already had my bright idea.

And damned if right there, some bastards hadn't had my idea just a couple months ago. Forensic Films, who were behind Idlewild (which I haven't seen), have actually commissioned some jerk named George Smith to do the adaptation.

So now my job is clearly to plot how I can pre-empt them in some way, or failing that, steal Mr. Smith's job (unlikely, since he is quite naturally connected to the producers, as I am not).

Barring that, I'm really just crossing fingers that Forensic doesn't actually end up making the film. I'd really rather not see it come out all low-budget and stuff.

Unfortunately, Forensic seems to have a history of actually producing movies. Those jerks. So I'm probably out of luck.

I was really looking forward to doing that adaptation. Dammit.