How to Get Ideas for Films

Many people ask how to get ideas for writing books. Getting ideas for films are similar. There are similar resources. You can get ideas for books almost everywhere. You can get ideas for films almost everywhere.

Getting Ideas from Pubished Works

Many films are adaptations from published fiction and published nonfiction. These can be resources for movies. Some scriptwriters write movies based upon already published works, works that already have an audience, that already have people interested in the book, and so therefore the screenwriter or the production company can be pretty certain that people are going to be interested in the movie.

Freedomland and Like Water for Chocolate are based upon well-known books, for example.

Many plays have also been adapted as movies, as for example, Look Back in Anger.

These published fiction and published nonfiction works can be contemporary works and/or they can be historical published fiction and published nonfiction.

Poetry, especially narrative poetry can be turned into movies, e.g. Geoffrey's Chaucer's "The Wife of Bath."

Many movies have also been made from comic books and comic book heroes.

Ideas can come from published works in many genres. So you can also read historical works to adapt as movies.

Dramatic and/or narrative poetry, as we have noted, can also be adapted as movies, if the poetry has a central character and a storyline. Song lyrics, if there's a central character and storyline, can also be adapted as filmscripts. Do you recall any songs that have been made into movies? Certainly we've had movies based upon the autobiographies and biographies of singers and musicians, including Billie Holiday, Charlie Parker, and Loretta Lynn.

Getting Ideas from Historical Events