Are These 5 Hugo Nominees Future Film Classics?

Over at AMC's SciFi Scanner blog, author John Scalzi takes a look at the five nominees for 2009's Hugo Award for Best Novel and examines the chances any of them will one day be adapted into a film. It's an interesting perspective on how a studio may view a popular science fiction/fantasy property (What's it about? What's the pitch? Who wrote it?) rendered even more insightful considering Scalzi himself is up for the award.

Though out of fairness, Scalzi abstains from putting his own novel, Zoe's Tale, under the film audit. The four other nominees for this year's Hugo are: Anathem by Neal Stephenson (yay!), The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman, Little Brother by Cory Doctorow and Saturn's Children by Charles Stross. However, I'm actually a little late to this post. This year's Hugo Awards ceremony were held yesterday with The Graveyard Book nabbing top honors (read all the winners here).

With that acclaim in its pocket and Neil "I wrote the books for Stardust and Coraline and co-wrote the screenplay for Beowulf"Gaiman's prowess in Hollywood on the rise, I'm starting to think Scalzi was dead-on when he pegged the tome about a boy raised by ghosts as destined for the big screen. The Graveyard Book is already in the option stage, perhaps this win will push it into production.

Past Best Novel Hugo winners later adapted to film have included: Robert Heinlein's Starship Troopers, Frank Herberts Dune (soon to make its 4th trip to the land of motion pictures) and J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire.