Iain M. Banks has written a great deal of science fiction set in the universe he's created around the society called The Culture, and now it looks like The Culture is coming to the big screen in an adaptation of his short story A Gift from the Culture.

It's early days yet, but the news is that the director Dominic Murphy and various British production companies are working on the adaptation.

Dominic Murphy previously directed White Lightnin' which won the Hitchcock d'Or at the Dinard Film Festival and worked with Mike Downey and Sam Taylor's production company for that film and for this adaptation.

Murphy, according to Variety through Empire, is writing the adaptation of the Iain M. Banks short story A Gift from the Culture which appeared in The State of the Art (Amazon.co.uk / Amazon.com), a collection of his Culture based short stories from 1984 to 1987.

The Culture is a society that is expanding itself throughout the universe and uses advanced technology to combat all disease and death as well as banish any concept of possessions and of being poor.

The Iain M. Banks (Amazon.co.uk / Amazon.com) Culture novels include such titles as Consider Phlebas, The Player of Games and Use of Weapons, and the adaptation of this short story might just pave the way for The Culture to come to the big screen in more ways than short story adaptations, and perhaps more than the smaller productions we're looking at here.

Do you believe that The Culture can really make it to the big screen in a decent adaptation?