http://www.blackgate.com/2012/01/18/art-of-the-genre-remember-folks-the-hobbit-is-a-childrens-novel/
- The Hobbitt as a children’s book, and as the source of the Lord of the Rings franchise, reminds me of an odd truth of roughly the last thirty or so years. Namely, most of the more prominent media franchises have a basis in children’s entertainment.
- http://forums.comicbookresources.com/showthread.php?t=391845&highlight=Flash+Gordon+Star+Wars
- http://forums.comicbookresources.com/showthread.php?p=14290611#post14290611
I saw articles in USA Today and Forbes which seemed to indicate that Harry Potter might overtake Star Wars (inspired by the Flash Gordon serials) in terms of domestic box office, per Box Office Mojo.
- While it does not appear that they adjusted matters for inflation or took foreign box office into consideration, they did come up with an interesting list of other successful franchises to compare Star Wars and Harry Potter with. I will note where they derive from children’s entertainment. The list included:
- Batman (had a boy sidekick in pixie shoes, shaved legs, and leprechaun shoes from 1941-1988)
- Shrek (obvious)
- Spider-Man (Richard Wentworth’s bastard grand-nephew, without his forerunner’s ruthlessness and firearms)
- Pirates of the Caribbean (started as a theme park ride-yes, it started as a theme park ride)
- The Lord of the Rings (started with the Hobbit, and the Hobbitt received initial reviews as a children’s book)
- Incidentally, none of these franchises have ever had R-rated entries. In fact, R-rated adventure films largely no longer have the prominence they had in the 1970’s and 1980’s (look at the reception of the Mamoa Conan film).
- http://www.forbes.com/2010/09/29/star-wars-harry-potter-business-entertainment-movie-franchises.html?boxes=Homepagemostpopular
- Comment by PB210 - January 20, 2012 10:32 pm
- http://images.businessweek.com/ss/07/08/0808_franchises/index_01.htm
Follow-up article from Business Week
Mr. Taylor, I find this interesting as attempts to turn adult thriller literature into prolific franchises generally have not panned extraordinarily well, other than Jack Ryan/Tom Clancy and some unplanned franchises such as the Rambo series (one should note, though, that the third and fourth Rambo films actually fell off sharply from the first two films). Nor have R-rated adventure franchises such as “Dirty” Harry Callahan produced the long line of tie-in novels that PG/PG-13 Star Wars has (Warner Books only published roughly 17 “Dirty” Harry Callahan novels in the 1970’s and 1980’s).
http://forums.comicbookresources.com/showthread.php?t=394170
However, although the more prominent franchises as I have shown tend to derive from children’s entertainment, the writers themselves often prefer to write crime and more grounded espioange stories (more Tom Clancy than Spy Kids espionage stories).
http://www.blackgate.com/2011/06/19/thor-and-the-fear-of-fantasy/
“In general, it seems that the current wave of creators at Marvel is….. perhaps more comfortable with crime and espionage stories than either”. (Frank Miller serves as an example of this situation; he notes in various places his preference for private eye writers to sword and sorcery authors. However, in the last thirty or so, prominent sword and sorcery films have arisen, while private eye films have largely disappeared from theaters.)
In Michael Medved’s Book Hollywood vs. America, Medved noted that many people who attend film school prefer to think of themselves as aspiring towards the status of Martin Scorsese, well-known for his crime dramas, not Robert Zemeckis, who makes high concept whimsy.
Historically, other than horror films, paranormal films have tended to fall towards children’s films (Alice in Wonderland, Wizard of Oz), while adaptations of crime fiction writers such as W.R. Burnett had a more lofty reputation, so I suppose this explains this preference. Also, paranormal adventure series tended not to sell as well as more grounded adventure series prior to the late 1960’s (notice how so many of the “classic” space heroes-Superman, Flash Gordon-started in comic strips/comic books and so forth). Superman and Flash Gordon may have received many homages in television in the 1960’s and early 1970’s, but they did not make the New York Times best-seller lists.
Of course, the FTC has stricter rules about advertising R-rated films since 2001, so that may explain the prominence of films derived from children’s literature today. It does not explain Star Wars’ prominence in the 1970’s and 1980’s, the era of the “Dirty” Harry Callhan films, though.
