Modernize that shyt, throw in some epic fights, beefs, love triangles, ala Game of Thrones. Every episode could have an angel getting murked by one of satans followers and vice versa breh, use ur imagination. Its an adaption not a retelling of the story.
I feel you, but to adapt it to the screen they'd have to shrink the angels (they're the size of Leviathans), the armies themselves would have to be miniaturized (more angels than stars) and the core story would have to be scrapped in place of the war with heaven...The real core of Paradise Lost is the garden of eden and the temptation the Devil uses...that's the conflict. The victory is when Jesus volunteers to fix everything and comes out on top. The big scenes are mostly speeches and conversations. Plus, there's not an actor/actress combo in the world that could match the description of Adam and Eve in the garden (the devil himself falls in love at first sight with both of them).
At the point where you make a story focused on the war with action and love triangles...it's not Paradise Lost any more. Make a whole new story and plot so that you can focus on the cool ish and just bite a couple of the better scenes, call those bits dedications (Jay-Z style).
The only scenes I would really want to see acted out from Paradise Lost...
1. Satan and the angels chained up in a sea of blue flames, Satan rises up out of the flames and gives the speech to fight.
2. The army of fallen angels marching that is bigger than all the armies of Earth combined and one angel in the crowd turns and says that what they're doing is a mistake.
3. The whole transformation of Satan from a heroic looking angel to a serpent where his speeches start off on some amazing thing and by the end he's just making snake noises with the crowd responding in snake noises themselves.
Those are my favorite parts of the poem and they all happen in the first third of it. The first third of the book works in a lot of ways, after that it'd just be an awkward remake of the Genesis story.
