Willie Lumpkin
Trophy Husband
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- Feb 15, 2003
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If you imagine a good, long novel being adapted, most would probably take 8-13 episodes to do right and include everything in the book (again, we keep coming back to Game of Thrones as a good example).
A two-hour film almost always has to cut a lot out (and typically feels rushed for anything that requires detailed set-up and development) and that's why I think when people read the book and then see the film they generally complain that the book was better.
And I think that's why we've been seeing so many excellent 8-13 episode shows. They fall into a groove that allows viewers to become completely immersed and see a story fully through with all the details and character and story development we're used to in a good novel, but by not having it in an endless, soap-opera format (that traditional long-running series fall into) the story can have a well-defined beginning, middle and end.
We may reach a point (particularly with people becoming less interested in actually going to films and more interested in watching shows in the comfort of their own home on high quality HDTV's) at which the 8-13 episode series actually over-takes the 2 hour film as the premier, most lucrative viewing experience. If you think about it, people pay $40 - $60 for a series on home digital (such as Vudu) and only $15-20 for a two hour film. And once you have production design done, costumes made, cast assembled, etc. it's not much more expensive to do 8 hours of story rather than 2 (at a certain quality level).
We may very well be in the midst of a paradigm shift, and the future may be in high-quality 8-13 episode series. If Disney has the foresight to recognize that (and I'm sure they have people who study these things and know much more than I do) they may be looking ahead and realizing it's worth investing in really doing Inhumans right and creating a series that everybody will be talking about the morning after it airs.
And they may also realize they can do that without Netflix and possibly use it as a tool to start to bring Networks back to their previous glory.
... or maybe that's all completely crazy, wishful thinking on my part.
Fun to think about and discuss in any case.
A two-hour film almost always has to cut a lot out (and typically feels rushed for anything that requires detailed set-up and development) and that's why I think when people read the book and then see the film they generally complain that the book was better.
And I think that's why we've been seeing so many excellent 8-13 episode shows. They fall into a groove that allows viewers to become completely immersed and see a story fully through with all the details and character and story development we're used to in a good novel, but by not having it in an endless, soap-opera format (that traditional long-running series fall into) the story can have a well-defined beginning, middle and end.
We may reach a point (particularly with people becoming less interested in actually going to films and more interested in watching shows in the comfort of their own home on high quality HDTV's) at which the 8-13 episode series actually over-takes the 2 hour film as the premier, most lucrative viewing experience. If you think about it, people pay $40 - $60 for a series on home digital (such as Vudu) and only $15-20 for a two hour film. And once you have production design done, costumes made, cast assembled, etc. it's not much more expensive to do 8 hours of story rather than 2 (at a certain quality level).
We may very well be in the midst of a paradigm shift, and the future may be in high-quality 8-13 episode series. If Disney has the foresight to recognize that (and I'm sure they have people who study these things and know much more than I do) they may be looking ahead and realizing it's worth investing in really doing Inhumans right and creating a series that everybody will be talking about the morning after it airs.
And they may also realize they can do that without Netflix and possibly use it as a tool to start to bring Networks back to their previous glory.
... or maybe that's all completely crazy, wishful thinking on my part.
Fun to think about and discuss in any case.
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