Nearly all of the most iconic American films came from great source material popular long before they were ever forged into script form, let alone crafted in the minds of directors and cinematographers. Plays, news accounts and, of course, books — fiction and non — are well-mined territory from which have sprung a bounty of bonafide Hollywood hits.

In today’s mixed bag world of big screen stock: prequels, sequels, shared universes and reboots/remakes/reimaginings, some say that Hollywood is simply out of ideas. Still others, however, say that the derivative dream machine simply gives us what we want. After all, even the most unnecessary “Transformers” sequel racked in big bucks, right?

So, it seems to me that what we need now is the best of both: an innovative story with proven appeal. Hence we must turn, as ever, back to the books.

The following titles are my personal picks for movies best suited to cinematic adaptations done well, of course.

So dim the lights (not too much, think of your eyes), pop the popcorn and get ready to discover the best film you’ve never seen … yet.

1. “Swan Song” by Robert R. McCammon

A sprawling, epic post apocalyptic novel featuring a diverse cast of wonderfully realistic characters and awesomely engrossing action scenes? How is this not a movie (or series) yet?

The book (which shared the 1987 Bram Stoker award for best novel with Stephen King’s “Misery,” but is more often compared to his own hefty end-of-the-world tome “The Stand”) follows several characters as they struggle to survive the awful wake of a nuclear war which leaves nearly everything in America — and, presumably, the world — devastated. Eventually those tales converge around Sue Wanda Prescott, aka Swan, a young woman who has an empathic ability with plants and can accelerate the growth of seemingly dead plant life, even in contaminated soil, through contact.

Her very presence and the hope it inspires in the survivors threatens to undermine the diabolical fun of The Man of Many Faces, a Satan-like agent of chaos set on killing off the last of the humans remaining (a role that’s crying out for Willem Dafoe), who allies himself with a makeshift army of killers led by a war hero-turned-would-be dictator (I’m thinking Woody Harrelson) to ensure her annihilation.

This one hits all the notes currently in vogue: a post apocalyptic setting, a diverse cast of characters, an intricate, complicated array of relationships that would translate well to a series of films — or episodes of a show. Ideal director: Peter “Lord of the Rings” Jackson. It’s as epic as his Hollywood work and as grusome, at times, as his early New Zealand work.

2. “Biggest Elvis” by P. F. Kluge

This is a (to my mind) even better offering from the mind behind the ‘80s cult classic “Eddie and the Cruisers.”

Described as “Part mystery, part love story, part mordant commentary on America’s waning presence worldwide,” the novel tells the story of a trio of Elvis impersonators working out of a club called Graceland in Olongapo, Philippines, a town close to Subic Naval Base, a former U.S. Navy installation which shuttered in the in the ‘90s.

In their act, Baby Elvis (who portrays the youthful Presley), Dude Elvis (who does the movie years) and Biggest Elvis (the oldest and fattest of the trio) reenact the King’s life in a kind of condensed musical biography/thematic concert to screaming fans every night.

Their popularity grows, among the locals and the military, in the tawdry, anything-goes town, and the already successful act becomes more than that, almost a religion. But there are dark forces at work against the group, and all that showbiz money has attracted the wrong sort of attention. Is Biggest Elvis as doomed as the original?

A truly poignant commentary on American cultural imperialism and the perfect portrait of a long gone time and place, “Biggest Elvis” will translate practically effortlessly onto the big screen. I’d like to see Matthew McConaughey pack on the pounds and portray the titular character, with Jared Leto getting my nod for the “Dude Elvis” role.

Ideal director: I want to say Quentin Tarantino, because of his obvious love of rockabilly shtick and the book’s dialogue, which is truly worthy of his attention, but the Q-man has proven to have little interest in adapting other people’s writing (“Jackie Brown” aside). Fair enough. So, I’m going with Paul Thomas Anderson instead.

3. “Short Nights of the Shadow Catcher: The Epic Life and Immortal Photographs of Edward Curtis” by Timothy Egan

The true story of famed photographer Edward Curtis, as researched and recorded by award-winning journalist Timothy Egan, has garnered much praise — and justifiably so. It’s a book burning to be a biopic.

Curtis was charismatic, handsome, a passionate mountaineer and a famous portrait photographer, “the Annie Leibovitz of his time.” He moved in rarefied circles, a friend to presidents, vaudeville stars, leading thinkers. But, when he was 32, in 1900, he gave it all up to pursue his great idea: to capture on film the continent’s original inhabitants before the old ways disappeared.

He spent the next three decades documenting the stories and rituals of more than 80 North American tribes. It took tremendous perseverance — 10 years alone to persuade the Hopi to allow him to observe their Snake Dance ceremony.

The undertaking changed him profoundly as well, from detached observer to outraged advocate. It also took a terrible toll on his health, reputation, family relationships and sanity.

Curtis would amass more than 40,000 photographs and 10,000 audio recordings, is credited with making the first narrative documentary film, and, in the process, the charming rogue with the grade school education created the most definitive archive of American Indian culture in existence.

I see Leonardo DiCaprio as the dashing, obsessive Curtis, and a real chance for young Native American thespians to snag some overdue spotlight in this one.

Ideal director: Scott Cooper, he of “Crazy Heart,” “Out of the Furnace” and “Black Mass” fame, man clearly schooled in characterization and conflict.

4. “Then We Came to the End” by Joshua Ferris

This, the award magnet debut novel of Joshua Ferris, is actually supposedly “in development.” So, maybe I’m wasting a good nomination. It has, however, been so categorized for a while, so I’m still putting here, near the top of my list.

No one knows us quite the same way as the men and women who sit beside us in department meetings and crowd the office refrigerator with their labeled yogurts. Every office is a family of sorts, and the ad agency Ferris depicts is a family at its worst and best as the cast of colorful copyrighters try to cope with a business downturn in the time-honored way — gossip, pranks, depression, desperation and increasingly frequent coffee breaks — while also trying to wrap their heads around a super strange, seemingly impossible job from an anonymous client.

The book is noteworthy for the author’s unique perspective choice: Ferris writes in the first-person plural — the collective “we” — making the snarky, gossipy, terrified employees into a kind of Greek Chorus and collective narrator.

As such, I think it would be a good idea to present the film as a series of short vignettes (think “Clerks” or “Coffee and Cigarettes”) with reoccurring characters but no main protagonist. I’d like to see it cast with mostly unknowns and/or familiar character actors to heighten the reality of it all, and maybe shoot the work scenes in black and white and the exterior scenes in color, as such a large topic of the story is the separation of work and life.

Ideal director: Werner Herzog. Hear me out, okay? It’s been a while since the mad German genius picked up a camera for a non-documentary project, but I think this is the perfect candidate.

Think about it: he loves quirky characters and he loves examining professionals in their element. Nothing makes Werner happier than surrounding himself with people weirder than himself. This book is chock-full of strange and poignant moments among characters everybody things they know so well, but actually turn out to only know “work well.” And it’s a wonderful look at an oft-misunderstood industry.

at a time of terrifying transition.

5. “Assault on Tony’s” by John O’Brien

If I could vote in some kind of pop culture election to determine the American author whose work most deserves a revival — the most overlooked American author, you might say — I’d cast my ballot for O’Brien immediately.

You may know his name from the award-winning film version of his first novel “Leaving Las Vegas,” starring Nicolas Cage (in a performance that earned him a Golden Globe and an Academy Award) and Elisabeth Shue. What you might not know is that the story of a suicidal alcoholic who travels to Las Vegas to “drink himself to death” was, sadly semi-autobiographical.

That book was published in 1990, the film made in 1995, and O’Brien ended a suicidal bender of his own with a self-inflicted gunshot in 1994, just two weeks after learning the movie was to be made. His other works were published posthumously, including a short story in the Las Vegas edition of the popular Akashic Books noir series and three other novels, my favorite of which is “Assault on Tony’s.”

Barricaded in a bar called Tony’s while a race riot rages outside, the characters that people the story are united by their desire to drink to the end — no matter what the consequences. Social alliances are forged and challenged as each member of this macabre party ignores his fears and better judgment in favor maintaining a buzz and keeping their glass full. As time goes by and the liquor supply starts to dwindle, hard choices have to be made and nobody is safe.

A tense, claustrophobic tale of addiction and delusion, this book is at least as good as “Leaving Las Vegas,” and because of the themes of racial and economic tension, gender roles, addiction, and the philosophy of gun ownership (all the patrons are packing), more timely than ever.

Ideal director: Kathryn Bigelow. She’s good at explosions, literal and emotional. She’s like Michael Bay except, you know. good.

6. “Heart-Shaped Box” by Joe Hill

This is another one that’s supposedly “in development,” but has been stuck so long in “development hell” that I figured a little public show of support can only help.

This was the first novel from Hill (now a two-time Bram Stoker award winner), and his work lives up to the hype. This is horror for people who think they don’t like horror. It’s smart, it’s heartfelt, it’s scary without being overly gruesome and it’s fresh. I loved this book and it needs to be a movie.

The publication of this “beautifully textured, deliciously scary debut novel … was greeted with the sort of overwhelming critical acclaim that is rare for a work of skin-crawling supernatural terror. It was cited as a Best Book of the Year by Atlanta magazine, the Tampa Tribune, the St. Louis Post Dispatch, and the Village Voice, to name but a few. Award-winning, #1 New York Times bestselling Neil Gaiman of ‘The Sandman,’ ‘’The Graveyard Book,’ and ‘Anansi Boys’ fame calls Joe Hill’s story of a jaded rock star haunted by a ghost he purchased on the internet, ‘relentless, gripping, powerful.” (Amazon.com).

Middle-aged rock star Judas Coyne collects morbid curios for fun, so doesn’t think twice about buying a suit advertised in an online auction site as haunted by its dead owner’s ghost. Only after it arrives does Judas discover that the suit belonged to one Craddock McDermott, the malicious stepfather of one of Coyne’s discarded (deceased) groupies. The old man’s ghost, it seems, is a malignant spirit determined to kill Judas in revenge for causing his stepdaughter’s suicide.

That’s not a totally fair description, though. Coyne isn’t quite the sociopathic playboy, nor McDermott the avenging dark angel they at first appear. Things are more complicated than that. But you won’t mind uncovering the truth because the story is so well paced and the characters vivid.

I read that Hill himself wanted Russell Crowe to be the has-been rocker, and I think that’s a great idea. As the demonic McDermott, I’d cast Lance Reddick or Eamonn Roderique Walker (working some old age makeup, obviously).

Ideal director: Mary Lambert, because she’s no stranger to heartfelt — but effective — horror (see “Pet Semetary”).