Editing Dennis Potter (section)

===Later film work===

Potter wrote the screenplay for ''[[Dreamchild]]'' (1985), a film which shared themes with his script for the ''Alice'' (1965) television play. In her last film role, [[Coral Browne]] portrayed the elderly Alice Hargreaves who recalls in flashbacks her childhood when she was the inspiration for [[Lewis Carroll]]'s ''[[Alice in Wonderland]]''. Potter adapted his television play ''Schmoedipus'' (1974) for the cinema. The ensuing film, ''[[Track 29]]'' (1988), directed by [[Nicolas Roeg]], was Potter's last filmed American project. However, Potter did provide uncredited script work on ''[[James and the Giant Peach (film)|James and the Giant Peach]]'' (released 1995)—his chief contribution providing dialogue for the sardonic caterpillar. Potter makes a sly reference to this in ''[[Karaoke (play)|Karaoke]]'' when the character Daniel Feeld ([[Albert Finney]]) is invited to provide dialogue for an "arthritic goat" in a children's film.

Potter's reputation within the American film industry following the box office disappointments of ''Pennies from Heaven'' and ''Gorky Park'' ultimately led to difficulty receiving backing for his projects. Potter is known to have written adaptations of ''[[The Phantom of the Opera (novel)|The Phantom of the Opera]]'', ''[[The Mystery of Edwin Drood]]'', ''[[The White Hotel]]'' and his earlier television play ''[[Double Dare (play)|Double Dare]]'' (1976): all these reached the preproduction stage before work was suspended.<ref>Cook ''Dennis Potter: A Life on Screen'', p. 368</ref> More fortunate was ''[[Mesmer (film)|Mesmer]]'' (1993), a [[biographical film]] of the 19th century pseudo-scientist [[Franz Anton Mesmer]]. Potter's film, ''[[Secret Friends]]'' (1991), from his novel, ''Ticket to Ride'', starring [[Alan Bates]], premiered in New York at the [[Museum of Modern Art]] as the gala closing of the [[Museum of Television & Radio]]'s week-long Potter retrospective.

The last film Potter actively worked on was ''Midnight Movie'' (1994), an adaptation of Rosalind Ashe's novel ''Moths''. The film starred [[Louise Germaine]] and [[Brian Dennehy]] (who had appeared respectively in ''Lipstick on Your Collar'' and ''Gorky Park'') and was directed by [[Renny Rye]]. Unable to secure financing from the [[Arts Council of Great Britain|Arts Council]], Potter invested £500,000 in the production; [[BBC Films]] provided the rest of the capital. The film was not given a cinema release owing to a lack of interest from distributors and remained unseen until after Potter's death. It was finally broadcast on BBC2 in December 1994 in the ''[[Screen Two]]'' series, two months after a remake of his [[Lost television broadcast|lost]] 1967 play ''Message for Posterity'' was transmitted.

A film version of ''[[The Singing Detective (film)|The Singing Detective]]'', based on Potter's own adapted screenplay, was released in 2003 by [[Icon Productions]]. [[Robert Downey, Jr.]] played the lead alongside [[Robin Wright|Robin Wright Penn]] and [[Mel Gibson]]. Gibson also acted as producer. Potter's screenplay of ''The White Hotel'' was adapted as a radio play and broadcast in September 2018.<ref>{{cite news|last=Brown|first=Mark|url=https://www.theguardian.com/media/2018/aug/03/dennis-potter-adaptation-of-the-white-hotel-to-premiere-on-radio-4|title=Dennis Potter's adaptation of The White Hotel to premiere on Radio 4|work=The Guardian|date=3 August 2018|access-date=3 August 2018}}</ref>