A G-Force Synaptic Spark

I won't ask for credit when Director Terry Gilliam ("Brazil", "Twelve Monkeys", "The Fisher King") begins converting author Neal Gaiman's imaginative novels into film. But I will request anyone reading this post remember it was my idea. I want to be sure some research assistant working for Gilliam doesn't claim he or she thought of it first.

While reading Gaiman's debut novel "Neverwhere" (1996), I kept seeing the wild and nightmarish visuals that Gilliam has used to amazing effect in his movies. Then, I began recalling my stunned reaction last summer to "The Ocean At The End Of The Lane" (2013), my first exposure to Gaiman. Both novels share a visual sensibility and edge-of-believability narrative that begs for a filmmaker who'll take risks that might fail, spectacularly. That would be Terry Gilliam.

Even if Gilliam's people don't steal my concept and "Neverwhere" never becomes a film, it's a book that will remain with me. Imagine Walter Mitty taking acid then meeting up with two goons who make the one from Cormac McCarthy's "No Country For Old Men" look like a pansy. Add in a plucky heroine who walks through doors, insert the scene from "The Princess Bride" when the hero is "almost dead" - later revived by an unrecognizable Billy Crystal - and make sure they all go shopping in the London sewers for translators who speak Rat. Are you getting the same synaptic sparks I am? Gilliam & Gaiman are made for each other.