The Mortal Instruments: City of Bones

[Nathan]

When I watched the Trailer in Theaters, I thought it actually looked interesting. Then I noticed that it had nothing but teenagers in black leather. And once I saw the Twilight Werewolves, my interest was killed completely.

 

[terry78]

This thing kind of just came and went.

 

[Octoberist]

It did, didn't it?

 

[Teelie]

Wasn't going to say anything to that earlier but...

I don't care for Twilight either but I thought The Hunger Games was good and it had nothing to do with a "man in a skirt." It was a good movie, regardless of the target audience.

The truth is there is more broader appeal and acceptance between the genders now than before. Men can watch "chick flicks" and "girlie" movies without it being called a homosexual or negative thing or an attempt to score just as women can watch "manly" films with lots of guns, action and other machoism without being seen as either posing or being "butch." Though obviously that mentality isn't completely changed yet. At least it's changing for the more neutral.

Nothing here is different than any other "surprise" hit that's endlessly cloned except it's targeted to a different audience than normal. If something is successful it gets a lot of copycats most of which are inferior. The list of movie clones is endless.

The difference here is the target audience is female and Hollywood is throwing out a bunch of badly managed copies in hopes of getting some of that audience without diversifying it beyond "ooh, female" and thinking it'll work.

Or to sum it up, I do agree with Spidey that it was a rather callous post.

 

[Airwings]

The sequel has been put on hold. What does this mean for the fantasy genre?

Neither Sea of Monsters or Beautiful Creatures did well.

 

[Teelie]

It means the fantasy genre hit a speed bump of greed and uncreativity and will slow down for a little while until someone comes along with something new or exciting to speed it up again. The Hobbit is still coming out, another Harry Potter-verse movie is in the works and we've got plenty of other properties circling that this hopefully doesn't kill off anything more promising from being produced.

 

[dark_b]

It means the fantasy genre hit a speed bump of greed and uncreativity and will slow down for a little while until someone comes along with something new or exciting to speed it up again. The Hobbit is still coming out, another Harry Potter-verse movie is in the works and we've got plenty of other properties circling that this hopefully doesn't kill off anything more promising from being produced.

t:

 

[Ultimatehero]

The sequel is still in development.

 

[Teelie]

And I imagine it will be for some time before it silently no longer is.

 

[Lord]

Yeah, i don't really get it, unless they make the next film stand on its oun and be more visuallly interesting it will once again fail.

 

[Ultimatehero]

Yeah, i don't really get it, unless they make the next film stand on its oun and be more visuallly interesting it will once again fail.

Unsure. Wouldn't have thought it would get a sequel.

And I imagine it will be for some time before it silently no longer is.

If they were going to do that, they wouldn't have brought it back up months later. Most, even those who liked it, gave it a one-off no sequel. So, sequel development more or less already disappeared. So, why make it visible again? That line of thinking would have made sense when it was first announced, but not at this point where everyone has written that off - in everyone's minds it "no longer was." So, if they wanted that? They had it and they got rid of that.

 

[Teelie]

I don't know what they are thinking. They green lit a sequel to a movie that was untested and unproven before it was even finished in production. When it failed to recoup the loss people assumed they would let it die. Why bring it up when the first one failed to make money back? I don't know but I doubt they will decide to go ahead and do a sequel unless they are contractually obligated to do so.

 

[Ultimatehero]

They're going to make it, that much is obvious right now.

What their business-sense is, uncertain. It doesn't make sense since it didn't do good. Is it because they personally like the material? Is it because they're obligated? Unsure, but it might be one of these.

It is certainly going to be made though because of one of those two reasons or some other unknown reason. As said, if they wanted the sequel to disappear - they wouldn't have brought it up. There is a reason they mentioned that despite box office, etc, they're going to have a sequel - if it was for the DVD, that doesn't come out for quite some time and they would have waited till it was closer to spin that.

 

[Teelie]

Here is the comment that sparked it:

The fan response, from the blogosphere and the thousands of mails we have received, has encouraged us to keep going. It's been overwhelmingly positive, in contrast to some other YA titles. We are analyzing what we did wrong with the first film, particularly with the positioning and marketing, and what changes we have to make. We are working with a great group of people to reposition the franchise (for City of Ashes).

So it sounds like they want to go ahead and do it "right" this time. Nothing about the budget or the method of release, theatrical, DTV, streaming or some combination.

 

[Ultimatehero]

That's why I think they might be fans themselves. If they weren't, those letters are often discarded.

 

[I SEE SPIDEY]

It's their money but it's odd to make a sequel to a dismally reviewed box office failure. What do they think, the sequel is suddenly going to blow up and make a ton?

 

[Ultimatehero]

Unsure, the article mentioned international numbers? Might be something there. Just happy there's gonna be one even though I don't see what the reasoning is.

 

[I SEE SPIDEY]

The international numbers were nothing special. Also they didn't give a concrete shooting date. This whole thing is a little suspicious to me but maybe I'm wrong to be suspicious. We will see..

 

[Ultimatehero]

The other thought was DVD, but if that was the case they would state this around December 3rd. It's too early for the DVD spin. International, did it break even though?

 

[I SEE SPIDEY]

The movie cost 60mil to make and another 60mil to market. They are saying it has made around 100mil so no the movie has not broken even, not even close.

The real question revolves around Sony. They only distributed the film so they spent 60mil to market the film. Is Sony willing to shell out another 60mil for a sequel? We shall see but considering how bad their year has been going? I would be surprised if Sony was willing to dump more money into this franchise.

 

[mclay18]

The movie cost 60mil to make and another 60mil to market. They are saying it has made around 100mil so no the movie has not broken even, not even close.

The real question revolves around Sony. They only distributed the film so they spent 60mil to market the film. Is Sony willing to shell out another 60mil for a sequel? We shall see but considering how bad their year has been going? I would be surprised if Sony was willing to dump more money into this franchise.

With a loss like that? Unless another studio partners with Sony on distribution and P&A costs, I think they'll pass on the sequel.

I can see Constantin shopping the sequel to Relativity and/or Lionsgate/Summit.

 

[Octoberist]

The Mortal Instruments: City of Bones

6/10

It is what it is. It doesn't elevate the genre like how Hunger Games has, but it's kinda fun. The funny thing is how you can instantly tell it's not New York. Sure you have the establishing shots of the NY skyline, only to fade into the wet Toronto streets.

And it's still better than Twilight. Too bad the movie is sluggish when it explains its own mythology. I've heard they're doing a sequel through a weird contract obligation. Perhaps a new director is in order.

 

[TheVileOne]

Hey they went ahead and made a sequel to to Percy Jackson and I had no idea how that happened. The first movie did lukewarm business.

 

[Octoberist]

I still think those are rare contract deals where they believe that the first installment's costs were low enough to warrant another try with a sequel. Or something like that.

 

[TheVileOne]

The first movie likely had a cost of well over $100 million and only made $88 million domestically, though granted $226 million worldwide.

The sequel cost around the same and did even less domestically. Neither got really good reviews.

Mortal Instruments bombed, so I'm not sure how they are encouraged and will be able to finance a sequel unless they are running some kind of financing scam.