Why we want to see it: Dunn's novel, nominated for the National Book Award, is another scary-strong look at show business, celebrity and being special, as the mom-and-pop owners behind the small traveling Binewski family circus make sure their children will always be able to earn a living ... by having mom Binewski ingest medicines, radioisotopes, poisons and more while pregnant to ensure their unborn kids will be able to work as circus freaks. Our narrator, Olympia, tells the story of growing up alongside her Siamese twin sisters Electra and Iphigenia; Arturo "The Aqua Boy," whose stunted limbs are matched by a cruel , cunning brain; and little Fortunato, who only seems perfectly normal. In the here and now, Olympia tries to save her long-lost daughter Miranda from a manipulative rich woman who persuades girls to have surgeries that will make them less sexual and more "productive"-- in Miranda's case, cutting off the small tail she flaunts in her shifts at a strip club.

How to pitch it: "The look of Pixar, the bizarre visions of Tim Burton and a cult classic novel that dissects the American dream of being 'special.'"

What might be a problem: The only way to do this novel justice would be to make it as a computer-animated drama. That's a risky big-budget bet to make in a medium most studios only feel comfortable applying to fuzzy, feel-good family films. Still, it's hard to not imagine that "Geek Love" could be amazing, a rich, resonant dark fable that's part David Cronenberg and part Charles Addams.

"Ringworld," Larry Niven (1970)

Why we want to see it: Because the novel swept all the awards in the field and inspired three sequel novels through its sheer force of ideas and (literally) big concepts. In a far future, a distant artifact is found: a circle of habitable space a million miles wide, with a diameter about that of Earth's orbit, a vast ring of artificial terrain with the surface area of 3 million earths. A motley crew of two humans and two aliens -- one a double-headed, double-crossing genius coward and the other a giant, sharp-clawed "diplomat" from a feline warrior race -- undertake an off-the-books expedition to explore the immensity of the Ringworld, only to find that its long-dead designers may be surprisingly lively ...

How to pitch it: "It's 'Raiders of the Lost Ark' on the structure from 'Halo,' a big brawny space opera with a million ideas but a pure, simple plot of exploration and adventure."

What might be a problem: The Sci-Fi -- excuse me, "SyFy" -- Channel announced a while back that it was reportedly developing "Ringworld" as a miniseries, but if there was ever a project where doing it on the cheap would be doing it wrong, this would be it.

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