From 1950 to 1954, 31 of Bradbury's stories were adapted by Al Feldstein for EC Comics (seven of them uncredited in six stories, including "Kaleidoscope" and "Rocket Man" being combined as "Home To Stay"—for which Bradbury was retroactively paid—and EC's first version of "The Handler" under the title "A Strange Undertaking") and 16 of these were collected in the paperbacks, The Autumn People (1965) and Tomorrow Midnight (1966), both published by Ballantine Books with cover illustrations by Frank Frazetta. Also in the early 1950s, adaptations of Bradbury's stories were televised in several anthology shows, including Tales of Tomorrow, Lights Out, Out There, Suspense, CBS Television Workshop, The Jane Wyman Show, Star Tonight, Windows and Alfred Hitchcock Presents. "The Merry-Go-Round", a half-hour film adaptation of Bradbury's "The Black Ferris", praised by Variety, was shown on Starlight Summer Theater in 1954 and NBC's Sneak Preview in 1956. During that same period, several stories were adapted for radio drama, notably on the science fiction anthologies Dimension X and its successor X Minus One.
Scene from the 1953 film The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms, based on Bradbury's 1951 short story "The Fog Horn"Producer William Alland first brought Bradbury to movie theaters in 1953 with It Came from Outer Space, a Harry Essex screenplay developed from Bradbury's screen treatment "Atomic Monster". Three weeks later came the release of Eugène Lourié's The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms (1953), which featured one scene based on Bradbury's "The Fog Horn", about a sea monster mistaking the sound of a fog horn for the mating cry of a female. Bradbury's close friend Ray Harryhausen produced the stop-motion animation of the creature. Bradbury later returned the favor by writing a short story "Tyrannosaurus Rex" about a stop-motion animator who strongly resembled Harryhausen. Over the next 50 years, more than 35 features, shorts, and TV movies were based on Bradbury's stories or screenplays. Bradbury was hired in 1953 by director John Huston to work on the screenplay for his film version of Melville's Moby Dick (1956), which stars Gregory Peck as Captain Ahab, Richard Basehart as Ishmael, and Orson Welles as Father Mapple. A significant result of the film was Bradbury's book Green Shadows, White Whale, a semifictionalized account of the making of the film, including Bradbury's dealings with Huston and his time in Ireland, where exterior scenes that were set in New Bedford, Massachusetts, were filmed.
Bradbury's short story I Sing the Body Electric (from the book of the same name) was adapted for the 100th episode of The Twilight Zone. The episode was first aired on May 18, 1962.
Bradbury and director Charles Rome Smith co-founded the Pandemonium Theatre Company in 1964. Its first production was The World of Ray Bradbury, consisting of one-act adaptations of "The Pedestrian", "The Veldt", and "To the Chicago Abyss". It ran for four months at the Coronet Theatre in Los Angeles (October 1964 – February 1965); an off-Broadway production was presented in October 1965. Another Pandemonium Theatre Company production was mounted at the Coronet Theatre in 1965, again presenting adaptations of three Bradbury short stories: "The Wonderful Ice Cream Suit", "The Day It Rained Forever", and "Device Out of Time". (The last was adapted from his 1957 novel Dandelion Wine). The original cast for this production featured Booth Coleman, Joby Baker, Fredric Villani, Arnold Lessing, Eddie Sallia, Keith Taylor, Richard Bull, Gene Otis Shane, Henry T. Delgado, F. Murray Abraham, Anne Loos, and Len Lesser. The director, again, was Charles Rome Smith.
Oskar Werner and Julie Christie starred in Fahrenheit 451 (1966), an adaptation of Bradbury's novel directed by François Truffaut.
In 1966, Bradbury helped Lynn Garrison create AVIAN, a specialist aviation magazine. For the first issue, Bradbury wrote a poem "Planes That Land on Grass".
In 1969, The Illustrated Man was brought to the big screen, starring Rod Steiger, Claire Bloom, and Robert Drivas. Containing the prologue and three short stories from the book, the film received mediocre reviews. The same year, Bradbury approached composer Jerry Goldsmith, who had worked with Bradbury in dramatic radio of the 1950s and later scored the film version, to compose a cantata Christus Apollo based on Bradbury's text.[96] The work premiered in late 1969, with the California Chamber Symphony performing with narrator Charlton Heston at UCLA.
Something Wicked This Way Comes was adapted for a low-budget 1972 British film, produced by the Forest Hill Film Unit & Drama Troupe and directed by Colin Finbow.[97][98]
Ray Bradbury takes part in a symposium at Caltech with Arthur C. Clarke, journalist Walter Sullivan, and scientists Carl Sagan and Bruce Murray. In this excerpt, Bradbury reads his poem 'If Only We Had Taller Been' (poem begins at 2:20, full text[99]). Video released by NASA in honor of the naming of Bradbury Landing in 2012.[100]In 1972, The Screaming Woman was adapted as an ABC Movie-of-the-Week starring Olivia de Havilland.
The Martian Chronicles became a three-part TV miniseries starring Rock Hudson, which was first broadcast by NBC in 1980. Bradbury found the miniseries "just boring".[101]
The 1982 television movie The Electric Grandmother was based on Bradbury's short story "I Sing the Body Electric".
The 1983 horror film Something Wicked This Way Comes, starring Jason Robards and Jonathan Pryce, is based on the Bradbury novel of the same name.
In 1984, Michael McDonough of Brigham Young University produced "Bradbury 13", a series of 13 audio adaptations of famous stories from Bradbury, in conjunction with National Public Radio. The full-cast dramatizations featured adaptations of "The Ravine", "Night Call, Collect", "The Veldt", "There Was an Old Woman", "Kaleidoscope", "Dark They Were, and Golden-Eyed", "The Screaming Woman", "A Sound of Thunder", "The Man", "The Wind", "The Fox and the Forest", "Here There Be Tygers", and "The Happiness Machine". Voiceover actor Paul Frees provided narration, while Bradbury was responsible for the opening voiceover; Greg Hansen and Roger Hoffman scored the episodes. The series won a Peabody Award and two Gold Cindy awards and was released on CD on May 1, 2010. The series began airing on BBC Radio 4 Extra on June 12, 2011.
From 1985 to 1992, Bradbury hosted a syndicated anthology television series, The Ray Bradbury Theater, for which he adapted 65 of his stories. Each episode began with a shot of Bradbury in his office, gazing over mementoes of his life, which he states (in narrative) are used to spark ideas for stories. During the first two seasons, Bradbury also provided additional voiceover narration specific to the featured story and appeared on screen.
Deeply respected in the USSR, Bradbury's fiction has been adapted into six episodes of the Soviet science-fiction TV series This Fantastic World which adapted the stories film version of "Forever and the Earth", "I Sing The Body Electric", "The Smile", Fahrenheit 451, "A Piece of Wood", and "To the Chicago Abyss".[102][103] In 1984 a cartoon adaptation of There Will Come Soft Rains («Будет ласковый дождь») came out by Uzbek director Nazim Tulyakhodzhayev.[104] He made a film adaptation of The Veldt in 1987.[105] In 1985, film adaptation of "I Sing The Body Electric" («Электронная бабушка») came out by Lithuanian director Algimantas Puipa.[106] In 1989, a cartoon adaptation of "Here There Be Tygers" («Здесь могут водиться тигры») by director Vladimir Samsonov came out.[107] In 1993, "The Smile" has been adapted as Viktor Chaika's music video "Mona Lisa" which included footage from Soviet TV series This Fantastic World.[103]
Bradbury wrote and narrated the 1993 animated television version of The Halloween Tree, based on his 1972 novel.
The 1998 film The Wonderful Ice Cream Suit, released by Touchstone Pictures, was written by Bradbury. It was based on his story "The Magic White Suit" originally published in The Saturday Evening Post in 1957. The story had also previously been adapted as a play, a musical, and a 1958 television version.
In 2002, Bradbury's own Pandemonium Theatre Company production of Fahrenheit 451 at Burbank's Falcon Theatre combined live acting with projected digital animation by the Pixel Pups.[108] In 1984, Telarium released a game for Commodore 64 based on Fahrenheit 451.[109]
In 2005, the film A Sound of Thunder was released, loosely based upon the short story of the same name. The film The Butterfly Effect revolves around the same theory as A Sound of Thunder and contains many references to its inspiration. Short film adaptations of A Piece of Wood and The Small Assassin were released in 2005 and 2007, respectively.
In 2005, it was reported that Bradbury was upset with filmmaker Michael Moore for using the title Fahrenheit 9/11, which is an allusion to Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451, for his documentary about the George W. Bush administration. Bradbury expressed displeasure with Moore's use of the title, but stated that his resentment was not politically motivated, though Bradbury was conservative-leaning politically.[80] Bradbury asserted that he did not want any of the money made by the movie, nor did he believe that he deserved it. He pressured Moore to change the name, but to no avail. Moore called Bradbury two weeks before the film's release to apologize, saying that the film's marketing had been set in motion a long time ago and it was too late to change the title.[110]
In 2008, the film Ray Bradbury's Chrysalis was produced by Roger Lay Jr. for Urban Archipelago Films, based upon the short story of the same name. The film won the best feature award at the International Horror and Sci-Fi Film Festival in Phoenix. The film has international distribution by Arsenal Pictures and domestic distribution by Lightning Entertainment.
In 2010, The Martian Chronicles was adapted for radio by Colonial Radio Theatre on the Air.
Bradbury's works and approach to writing are documented in Terry Sanders's film Ray Bradbury: Story of a Writer (1963).
Bradbury's poem "Groon" was voiced as a tribute in 2012.[111]
