Ear cockroaches are actually worse since they are not very good at moving backwards. So once they’re in they don’t have any chance but to burrow ever deeper.
Hey, it’s not as if they could have involved the people who did the animated series or the Arrowverse TV series, both of which have been very successful.
You’re in luck, Chris Miller and Phil Lord (LEGO movie) are working on an adaptation with Ryan Gosling set to star. Drew Goddard (The Martian) wrote the screenplay together with Andy Weir himself.
He’s an eldritch shapeshifter, subconsciously transforming into what people believe he should be. Sort of like the Norse gods in Marvel Comics. Until Alladin rubs the lamp, he didn’t exist as a conscious being because nobody was there to think him into being.
I like the idea in Daniel Suarez’ novel Daemon of an AI (Spoiler) using people as parts of it’s program to achieve certain tasks that it needs hands for in meatspace.
It’s so cheap to produce that it doesn’t need as many people watching it to be deemed profitable. And many people watching it probably just let it run in the background because it doesn’t need any close attention. Basically like soaps, but soaps need writers so are more expensive.
I don’t think even that would faze the real Elminster much. He’s as close to a god that a mortal can get in the Forbidden Realms I think, the champion of the living embodiment of magic itself. I mean, he didn’t even consider an Elder Brain to be worth his undivided attention.