C’mon Hollywood #189

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… don’t give up on fantasy films too soon!
by Sturdy

Disney’s announcement that they were dropping the Narnia films signaled an end to the recent fantasy film craze Hollywood has been on. We’ve seen this before with just about every genre, but most of us didn’t expect to see fantasy films become as popular as they have. It was a good run for fantasy films, but if history proves to repeat itself, we won’t see too many more for quite a while. Even though fans of various series might be bummed about this, it’s actually a good thing for the short term. However, Hollywood needs to be careful before casting them off to the side for too long.


I thought both films were very average.

The frustrating thing about the death of fantasy films is that we’ve actually seen a lot of good films come from the genre over the past few years. We of course have the Rings trilogy, but we also had THE GOLDEN COMPASS, STARDUST, CITY OF EMBER and several others. Truth be told, I’d be happy with a sequel to any of those, as I thoroughly enjoyed all of them. But like PRINCE CASPIAN, none of them generated enough revenue to make a sequel a safe enough risk for studios.


I thought this was very underrated.

Pinpointing exact reasons why fantasy films have started to fail lately is difficult, but I think the biggest reason is that they’re seen as being too similar to the average moviegoer. Some of the people I talk to still can’t differentiate between GOLDEN COMPASS and STARDUST even though they were really nothing alike. In typical Hollywood fashion, all of these fantasy films were greenlit shortly after it became clear the Rings films were huge. So every studio wanted to release their version of LORD OF THE RINGS and by that time, audiences were tired of them.


This was okay, but I wanted more

But the real question is what does this mean for the next Narnia film and THE HOBBIT? I think Narnia will get picked up by another studio and I think the next film will make even less than PRINCE CASPIAN. The Christian audience that Disney was banking on didn’t show up in droves like they were expecting and there’s no reason to expect they’ll show up for the sequel. As for THE HOBBIT…I have no idea. Personally, I’m not looking forward to it, but you (the fanboys/Schmoes) will ultimately decide its fate.


Will fans turn out for more Hobbit?

But now that studios have started to back off, I want to make sure they don’t forget about the fantasy genre. It took so long for fantasy films to be a respectable genre that I don’t want it to be abandoned forever. There’s a ton of great fantasy stories that would make great films. I’m concerned that Hollywood will ditch the genre and we won’t see another fantasy film for a decade or so. I think taking a break from the Narnia and Compass franchises for a few years would sit well with audiences. After a little break, bring them back and try to recapture an audience that’s burnt out on them right now.

Source: Joblo.com
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