Fall of Giants
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Do you think these books would work as a tv-series?
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Why a miniseries?
I think there's enough material in there for at least two seasons.




Pillars of the Earth was a good mini series, but a terrible adaptation of a much better novel. (Notice nothing has been done with its sequel--World Without End.) If Fall of Giants (and Winter of the World) were to become a TV series, it would have to be like Downton Abbey and go on for multiple seasons. Anyone know when Book 3 of the trilogy is supposed to come out?


I think the books are more suited for an HBO production. 2 seasons per book in order to flesh out the intertwining storylines and timelines.


- Grigoriy Dobrygin (Grigoriy Peshkov)
- Emilia Clarke(Maud Fitzherbert)
- Volker Bruch (Walter Von Ulrich)
- Perdita Weeks(Ethel Williams)
- Aaron Tveit(Gus Dewar)
- Danila Kozlovsky (Lev Peshkov)
- Lee Pace(Earl Fitzherbert)
- Richard Madden (Billy Williams)
- Harry Lloyd(Bernie Leckwith)
- Svetlana Khodchenkova (Princess Bea)
- Martin Wuttke (Otto Von Ulrich)

I drafted a cast for a TV mini-series/movie for Fall of Giants on IMDb.com. I chose actors with matching nationalities to the characters in the book, in an effort to avoid fake accents. I also matched all physical description provided in the book.
Here is the link:
http://www.imdb.com/list/ls070595834/


I drafted a cast for a TV mini-series/movie fo..."
Excellent cast pics. I never thought of Henry Cavill as Fitz, an interesting choice, I must say.





I drafted a cast for a TV mini-s..."
Yes, at first I envisioned someone more like Jonathan Rhys Meyers for the role of Fitz, who has a reputation for playing complex yet somewhat villainous major characters (his character Henry VIII in The Tudors is very similar to Fitz's character).
However, after re-reading the physical description of Fitz, I realised Henry Cavil was a more appropriate match. He too has had experience with playing deceiving, philandering characters. In fact, his character Charles Brandon (also on The Tudors) seems to match Fitz with even more precision. Brandon, like Fitz, is filled with fiery ambition and fervent passion, and also experiences some level of guilt for his mistakes.

I drafted a cast fo..."
Haven't seen the Tudors yet(but I heard it was good). I find Cavill's Brandon interesting and I think he can bring some depth in that guilt aspect.
As for the scenes in the book, I would love to see an entire episode for Grigori with the Bolshevik uprising(similar to Blackwater and Watchers of the Wall).
My ideal title for the episode: "Ashes and Tears"
Written by Ken Follett
Directed by Michelle MacLaren

I still think the best Ken Follet ever was Eye of the needle.
He is an author whose books work well on the screen.





Agree on the victors part, Follett does a great job on justifying their motivations and actions. I think the showrunners should focus on that part.


1. Expand Rebecca's role, a new storyline, flesh out the Berlin Wall arc, which can make her a major player.
2. Cut Maria Summers(and the Kennedy affair), introduce Verena Marquand as a freedom rider, the ambush happens, which gives her motivation to join Martin Luther King.
3. Anna Murray can be also cut(it won't hurt the story), give her scenes to Jasper(especially scenes with Tania), that could allow him to have more screentime.
4. Hans Hoffman as the main antagonist in Lilli Franck's storyline, invented material, so we can see more of the Stasi.
5. Rewrite Cameron Dewar's age and replace George Jakes on the 'Operation Mongoose' storyline, its to expand his character.
6. For George Jakes, his storyline should be solely focused directly to Civil Rights/Martin Luther King, tone down his white house scenes/Bobby Kennedy and more interactions with Jacky and Greg, that could serve a context of his life struggle. Since Martin Luther King visited West Germany, which means they could have scenes with Rebecca, because she's the POV who's hardly interact with the other characters.
7. Rewrite Dimka and Tania as Volodya's children. As for Tania, she's a great character and other events like the First Space Mission could be introduced through her eyes.
8. Since Dave had scenes with Ethel, omit his fame and fortune scenes and replace them with scenes that focus on protests against the Vietnam War and Nixon, concerts that advocate Ethel's laws or something.
9. Follett has mentioned that the Welsh raised funds to replace the church glass in Alabama, this could be easily given to any British POV.
10. Remove the unecessary sex scenes and the love life. Make all the POV's as major players on the historical events.
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But another reason I think is that Follet has the main characters interacting with each other at different places of the world (some readers seemed to be annoyed by that but I liked it).
I guess the biggest obstacle for making a tv-series out of it is that the characters move around so much. But maybe the adaption could have them a little more stationary.
The first season could take place in the mining town (can't spell that one), London and St Petersburg.
And later seasons the locations could change.