Day Of The Triffids is one of those stories that perennially interests TV and film producers, but has proven difficult to adapt. So, for example, when the BBC made a two-part adaptation last year, they significantly altered things in the hope it would appear less silly and work on the screen, but they actually just made things worse.
However that’s not going to stop Transformers producer Don Murphy, who Variety reports is hoping to make a major 3D movie based on John Wyndham’s story. More worrying is the involvement of producer Michael Preger, who was also behind the previous Wyndham adaptations, John Carpenter’s Village Of The Damned and the recent Triffids two-parter, neither of which were exactly triumphs.
Hopefully this time they’ll find a way to take the story of a light that blinds people, followed by an invasion of killer plants, and make it work on screen. Previous adaptations have failed to trust the story, assuming that on its own it’ll come across as camp or stupid. They’ve suffered as a result, so hopefully this one will work better. Modern technology should help, with plants that look less plastic, but its really the story itself that needs to be handled properly.