“Hoping to turn books into blockbusters”
It’s not quite as traumatic as December 21, 2012, the supposed end of the world as predicted by Mayan calendars. But Hwood does have date hanging out there that leaves a gaping hole in its profit-time-space continuum: 15 July 2011. That’s the day that Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2 debuts, marking the end of an 8-movie, 10-year cycle for family movies. Thus, studios are combing high and low — as reported in this LA Times article — to find new stories to film. Or rather old stories. In addition to Sony and Paramount joining to produce The Adventures of Tintin: The Secret of the Unicorn to movie screens:
Sony and Paramount aren’t the only Hollywood movie studios that are studying childhood classics and plotting strategy. Others are working on “Yogi Bear,” “The Smurfs,” “The Lone Ranger” (with Johnny Depp as Tonto) and a live-action adaptation by director M. Night Shyamalan of Nickelodeon’s animated series “Avatar: The Last Airbender.”
Big-screen versions of popular children’s books are also being readied, including last century’s classic “The Hobbit” by J.R.R. Tolkien and current favorites such as “Goosebumps” by R.L. Stine and Rick Riordan’s “Percy Jackson and the Olympians.”
Hwood has always mined revered books and comic books as movie properties — but now there’s an interesting focus on properties that can travel internationally:
As the recession forces studios to make fewer pictures, a new generation of movies based on popular children’s books is emerging as a keystone of the studios’ strategies. With built-in “brand awareness” — widely known stories that have broad audience appeal — family films represent a safer bet than many of the big-budget movies that have been made for young adult and teen audiences over the last decade.
“There’s an attraction to having global interest and appeal to as many quadrants as possible, male and female, young and old,” said Alan Horn, chairman of Warner Bros., which owns the rights to the “Potter” films.
Ah, there’s that “quadrant” angle again. Only now it appears Hwood is adding a fifth junction point — the international audience.
Does anybody know what a five-pointed variation of quadrant would be?
Whatever the trend, I just know it’s great to be my son Luke now: Two of his favorite story worlds are Tintin and Avatar — although the latter at the hands of M. Night Shyamalan is a bit of a head-scratcher.
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