Sky unveil cast for their adaption of Pratchett's GOING POSTAL

[Werthead]

Sky One have unveiled their cast for their adaption of Going Postal, which is in production in Hungary and will air over Easter 2010.

Moist von Lipwig - Richard Coyle (Coupling)
Reacher Guilt - David Suchet (Poirot)
Lord Vetinari - Charles Dance (you know who he is), replacing Jeremy Irons.
Adora Belle Dearheart - Claire Foy (a relative newcomer)
Drumknott - Steve Pemberton (The League of Gentleman)
Groat - Andrew Sachs (Fawlty Towers)
Miss Cripslock - Tamsin Greig (Green Wing)

Sweet Just hope it's better than Colour of Magic/Light Fantastic, which I thought was meh.

 

[KatG]

This is so annoying. You have all these adaptations of Pratchett's work in Britain for film or t.v., and then getting them here in North America is very difficult. I can buy some of them, but I'd rather just rent and see if I like a particular movie. I suppose this one won't be available in theaters or DVD in North America either?

 

[jamieem]

Seems highly unlikely, but I believe Sky is part of Newscorp, the Rupert Murdoch world that contains FOX and 20th Century Fox, so you never know...

 

[Werthead]

Hogfather has been airing on BBC America. Other than that, I'm not sure.

 

[Cranky Hamster]

This is so annoying. You have all these adaptations of Pratchett's work in Britain for film or t.v., and then getting them here in North America is very difficult. I can buy some of them, but I'd rather just rent and see if I like a particular movie. I suppose this one won't be available in theaters or DVD in North America either?

No, it's very easy. It's just hard to do legally.

Which is funny to me, as regional-only media productions always are, because it's like they don't want to make money. Even if the distribution of the physical object like a DVD would for some reason be difficult (which I doubt, but don't know enough about to say for sure), it's not exactly hard to follow the Hulu/iTunes model of streaming Web video or legal downloads.

Oh well. Someday they'll figure it out. Hopefully someday soon.

 

[Dace]

I too thought the Sky version of 'the colour of magic' was pretty disappointing. It looked very low-budget and in no way accurately represented the triumph of imagination that the Discword books are. If the books are going to be put on screen, they should really be given the sort of budget that would do them justice. I mean, Pratchett is possibly one of the most popular authors in the world, he completely transcends the genre and there would be a huge market for a full scale film conversion of Discworld

 

[Werthead]

No, it's very easy. It's just hard to do legally.

Which is funny to me, as regional-only media productions always are, because it's like they don't want to make money. Even if the distribution of the physical object like a DVD would for some reason be difficult (which I doubt, but don't know enough about to say for sure), it's not exactly hard to follow the Hulu/iTunes model of streaming Web video or legal downloads.

Oh well. Someday they'll figure it out. Hopefully someday soon.

They probably won't do it soon. BBC productions can't be put up for all to see because they're paid for by the British taxpayer, who'll get pissed off if tons of other people who haven't paid for it are watching the thing. Then there's licensing to be taken into consideration (foreign TV studios haven't been okayed by say the American television regulatory body to broadcast straight into the USA, and American companies haven't been okayed by the British body to do the same etc). There's also DVD sales and other commercial things to be taken into consideration.

Eventually there probably will be some kind of world-wide arrangement so that everyone can access Hulu or the BBC iPlayer or whatever, as it's too stupid not to. If you're in the UK and can't access Hulu, or in the USA and can't access the iPlayer, you're probably just going to go off to a torrent site and end up watching the thing anyway an hour or two later. So there does need to be some 'official' way of matching that but I won't hold my breath waiting to see it soon.

 

[KatG]

Can't get BBC America. Alright, maybe I'll just buy one. Which would you say is the best one of the ones that have been done?

 

[Garyfury]

Hogfather is very, very good. The Color of Magic / The Light Fantastic is kind of uneven, though in part I think that reflects the books themselves having been written before Sir Terry really hit his stride.