I had a shower thought last night that it would be cool if Dune or some of those older classics had a modern ramake applied across the books to revamp them and update them with what we know now in terms of technology, our ability to imagine and make the style of writing more palatable to younger/new audiences.
I had a couple of friends try read the dune books and said they really struggled with the style of writing and English.
Is this a dumb thought lol
Like, mostly all of the plays of William Shakespeare, for example?
Only problem is, today Shakespeare would get his pants sued off for “copyright infringement” using the characters and "world " of any just about any writer whose work is within copyright. Modern slogan of publishing is: authorized rewrites only!
So the only way you could do such a book (if the original story is within copyright) is to go beg permission from the publisher or author or descendants of the author if they’re no longer alive. They probably won’t grant permission. If they do, they will most often demand a big share of the revenue from the book. If they don’t give permission, courts will censor the book, preventing it from being sold.
Quite a deterrent to this sort of project.