What's really selling? Adaptations.

All writing begins with an idea. As a writer I'm constantly attempting to generate new ideas, whether they be for the current projects I'm working on or for new potential projects. It can be both frustrating when ideas won't come or you think they're all crap, and extraordinary when you think you've struck gold with something fresh and new.

So much attention gets put on coming up with something completely fresh original and new, it's easy to forget that a great idea is often just a new spin on something done before. Take one of the greatest new ideas of the last decade, the iPod. When I was a kid I had one, only it was called a Walkman and it played plastic tapes. Avatar was deemed by many as simply a re-telling of the Pocahontas story with blue aliens and CGI, that didn't stop it from being the biggest box office success in over a decade. In fact, it more likely helped.

In business, the iPod is called product innovation. When it comes to writing stories, it's called adaptation. Most often when we think of adaptations we think of the recent bestsellers like The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo or iconic characters like Harry Potter. This might lead many writers to neglect the wealth of great stories free of copyright, and therefore can be adapted into a script without costing a penny.

Many writers, though, haven't forgotten. Public domain works have become hot properties this year in Hollywood with another being announced involving Victor Hugo's classic tale, The Hunchback of Notre Dame. If you missed the news, check out The Playlist's blurb. Disney has been in this game for decades, hitting it big again this year with Alice in Wonderland, and announcing a Wizard of Oz prequel and a new spin on Sleeping Beauty. Warner Brothers will be back with a sequel to the successful Sherlock Holmes, and a range of others are in the works including Little Red Riding Hood, The Little Mermaid, The Wind in the Willows, and Snow White just to name a few.

There are many reasons why stories in the public domain have been finding a lot of traction in Hollywood right now, but the main appeal for me is a known character free of charge to do whatever you please with them. While some may shake their fist at the revisionist takes just about all I've mentioned will see, like the Walkman and the iPod, innovation on something we already love can really pay off big.

What character in the public domain do you love?