29 Nov 06
Hogfather Television
The television adaptation of Terry Pratchett's Discworld novel 'Hogfather' is due to be broadcast on Sky One in a few weeks. The film was initially announced back in February, but for some reason I kept forgetting to blog about it till now.
Briefly, the Hogfather is the Discworld's answer to Father Christmas, and the shadowy "Auditors" from another dimension have had him assassinated. So Death has to take over for the Hogfather in order to make people continue to believe in him, wearing a long red cloak and a beard, but things start to become complicated because he is taking the children's wishes too literally. Meanwhile, his granddaughter Susan must find out what's happened to the real Hogfather.
This is the first live-action film adaptation of a Discworld novel after two animated films were made by studio Cosgrove Hall for Channel 4 in 1996. Terry has been rather against his books being given the cinematic treatment after his novel Mort, was scripted with the key character of Death removed.
It would be an insult to oysters to say they (those who were going to do the Mort film) had the brains of a mollusc - I'm hanging on until I find someone higher up the food chain.
Terry Pratchett, Warwick Uni (10.11.94)
But recently Terry seems to be far more happy with the idea, since the rights to the 'Truckers' trilogy were sold to Dreamworks, and his children's Discworld novel 'The Wee Free Men' is set to be turned into a film by Sam Raimi, after he finishes work on Spider-Man 3; currently this is expected to be released in 2007.
Back to Hogfather though, two 120min HD films, (total running time of four hours), with air on Sky One this Christmas, and star David Jason as Albert, Ian Richardson as the voice of Death and Michelle Dockery as Susan. The rest of the cast includes Neil Pearson, Nigel Planer, Tony Robinson, Marc Warren, and David Warner. Apparently this is the channel's biggest ever drama commission with a budget of £6m. The DVD of the film is due to be out in March. More info at IMDB. Now obviously I am going to encourage you to watch this, as it is going to the be the greatest cultural event of the last two thousand years, but more to the point Sky is set to dramatise more of the Discworld series, (including The Colour of Magic), if Hogfather proves a success.
Hogfather DVD now available from Amazon
Disclosure: I work for BSkyB.