Well this is interesting:
John Lennon had read The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch (one of [Philip K.] Dick’s best, and quite possibly the weirdest book yet written) and wanted to make a film of it. Perhaps, in some alternate universe, Lennon survived to do that, but in our world the big breakthrough was Ridley Scott’s 1982 movie Blade Runner, based on one of Dick’s most popular novels, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?
Having read The Three Stigmata, I’m having a tough time imagining it as a film, much less one informed by Lennon’s absurdist tendencies. Then again, Blade Runner bears only a passing resemblance to Dick’s original novel — for better and for worse; they’re like mirror-universe versions of one other. Even the best translations of Dick’s stories to the screen — here I’m thinking of Minority Report — usually transform into big action movies along the way*. I think this goes a long way to explaining Dick’s continued appeal in Hollywood. It’s not so much the weird and paranoiac worldview, or its resonance with modern audiences, as it is the simple framework on which directors and screenwriters can stretch pretty shots of stuff blowed up real good.
* I haven’t seen A Scanner Darkly yet. I suspect that, if it is an exception, it’s just the one that proves the rule.