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What author wouldn’t want their book made into a move? There may be some but I know that I would. Seeing my words turned into real life on the big screen would be the ultimate achievement. However, I would be more than a little worried if the filmmakers happened to come from the British Broadcasting Company, the BBC. This isn’t because I think that the BBC would tamper with the plot or anything like that. No, my worry is over the fact that in the past, the BBC has shied away from violence. Take the fantastic 1970s television series, “I Claudius.” Having read the book, there were numerous accounts of gladiator battles plus Claudius’s remarkable conquest of Britain. Therefore, I would have expected some sword play in the series but there was none. I found that disappointing.

The BBC did make a film about one of the books on school shootings, which I post about, “We Need to Talk About Kevin.” In my opinion, the filmmakers didn’t do the book justice. I won’t go into some of the scenes from the book that were left out in the film, which I thought shouldn’t have been. It’s the scene were Kevin actually carries out his school massacre. We only get a few seconds of Kevin shooting his arrows. We don’t see any of them hitting their targets or any reaction from Kevin or his victims. Hell, the bow he used in the movie wasn’t the same type described in the book. This is my reservation about the BBC making the movie of “He Was Weird,” the shooting would be left out. All we would see is a five second clip of Mark shooting his Uzi and that would be it. Such a thing would do my book a great disservice.

The shooting scene from “We Need to Talk About Kevin.” There’s not much more to it.

If a movie was to be made from “He Was Weird,” it would be imperative to see the school shooting in full. Some readers were actually glad when Mark finally gets his revenge on his bullies, although some of those said that they felt a little guilty about that after they read of Mark’s carnage. They’re right though, the audience needs to see Mark finally get is revenge after all his suffering up until that point. One piece of feedback went further to say that one can feel him releasing all of his hate when he double taps (he shoots them again) some of those he shot. I’m not saying we need to see blood and gore on “Saving Private Ryan” scale, although there would be filmmakers who would go to that extreme but we would need to see the shooting from the first shots all the way to the end. I would worry that the BBC wouldn’t do that.

Other parts of the book could be omitted or expanded upon depending on how the filmmaker viewed those bits. I would be interested to see how Mark’s “Week in Paradise” would have been covered. Again, there, I would worry that some filmmakers would age Mark in the film so they could have a sex scene. from that chapter.  I don’t see the need myself. Besides, that is where Mark officially enters puberty.

What caught the attention of New Generation Publishing was the ice hockey scenes. The head of the company told me he liked how the reader was reading about Mark scoring first the tie-ing goal and then the winning goal to give the Junior Flyers the championship. One second, you are celebrating with Mark on the ice, then all of a sudden, you’re back in his bedroom while he is celebrating because the computer is saying his team won. Therefore, I would hope that any hockey scene from the book, used in the film, would be real.

My beloved Philadelphia Flyers, are they celebrating with Mark?

They will probably never make a movie from “He Was Weird,” but here’s to dreaming. I wouldn’t tell the BBC no if they offered but I would hope that they wouldn’t cut out any of the shooting or the bullying because both form the basis behind the entire story.

To buy He Was Weird, go to https://www.amazon.co.uk/He-Was-Weird-Michael-Lefevre/dp/1909740942/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1493150135&sr=1-1&keywords=he+was+weird