Milton goes to Hollywood

According to Entertainment Weekly, there's a movie adaptation of Milton's Paradise Lost in the works. I can't quite imagine the epic poem as a movie, but I have total faith in Hollywood to turn out a most excellent product. With any luck, Paradise Lost can join such pitch-perfect and unforgettable literary adaptations as The Sound and the Fury, Rabbit, Run and A Prayer for Owen Meany.

I was going to make a joke here about how maybe adaptations of epic poems are all the rage now in Hollywood, and soon we could see a version of Beowulf on the big screen, but apparently that one's actually happening, starring Crispin Glover as Grendel.

Other works of literature that, according to EW, have been in development for years but have yet to make it to your local multiplex:

--On the Road (so that when every teenaged boy in America goes through his On the Road phase, he can do it via the magic of film, rather than having to read actual words)

--A Confederacy of Dunces (apparently Will Ferrell is the latest name to be attached to the lead role)

--Atlas Shrugged (because nothing screams summer blockbuster like an overlong treatise on selfish capitalist philosophy)