Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell

I'd heard a while back that Susanna Clarke's Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell was going to be made into a movie. Now it's got an IMDB entry, and is apparently coming out some time next year.

The two things I'm most curious about: 1) how the screenwriter managed to turn an 800-page novel into a screenplay for a feature-length film, and 2) casting. Someone on the IMDB message board suggests Tobias Menzies as Jonathan Strange -- which sounds like near-perfect casting to me.

Fellow JS&MN fans, who would you like to see in the movie version?

Honestly, I think it would be impossible to make a good movie out of JS&MN, if you want to preserve much at all of the plot. Of course, given how the Harry Potter books have been changed and butchered, I'm not holding much hope for this movie. If they really want to do JS&MN right, it should be done in a mini-series so they don't have the time constraints, and the time to give this book the treatment it deserves

Ugh. A horrible book can only make for a horrible movie.

Well, in all honesty, considering how many pages are just Mr. Norrell being a ninny, there's a heck of a lot you could cut without seriously damaging the plot.

But I would prefer it as a miniseries, since the book takes place over several years and the viewer really needs to feel that passage of time.

Sometimes a bad book can be cut down to the right size to make a decent movie.

I can't imagine a feature film being an decent adaptation of such a long, involved story. Why do they think everything needs to be a movie?

I could easily divide the chapters in the book into two piles: Filmable and Unfilmable. I could imagine a decent movie out of the three-volume book with some parts cut out.

So, now this has been released as a BBC miniseries. I have not seen it, but I heard positive comments on it. I loved the book. Any thoughts or comments from people who have seen it?

You should see it. It's pretty good, and faithful to the book, and moves a bit quicker.

I liked it. It's not the book, but it isn't particularly unfaithful to the spirit of the story. More about Strange than Norrell, and I have to say, I thought Henry Lascelles' fate was far far better in the book. But for a miniseries, it's entertaining.

It wasn't broadcast in HD and I kept wondering why I was having issues with the sound and picture, but watched the final episode through pay per view and it was fine. I thought it was very well done.