25 Young Adult Would-Be Movie Franchises That Failed
Uncharted
17 مايو، 2022
For every Harry Potter, Twilight, Hunger Games or Maze Runner there are a whole bunch of Young Adult (YA) sci-fi/fantasy novels that Hollywood tried, and failed, to turn into hit movie franchises. Let's take a look at 25 of the most notable...
Alex Rider: Operation Stormbreaker: Alex Pettyfer stars as Alex Rider, a teen superspy who has - to date - starred in 11 popular YA novels but only one movie. Despite an impressive cast that included Ewan McGregor, Bill Nighy, Andy Serkis, Sophie Okonedo and Mickey Rourke, Stormbreaker grossed significantly less than $1 million in the United States, and only made half its budget back overseas. Plans for a sequel were, as you can probably imagine, canceled.
Alex Rider: Operation Stormbreaker: Alex Pettyfer stars as Alex Rider, a teen superspy who has - to date - starred in 11 popular YA novels but only one movie. Despite an impressive cast that included Ewan McGregor, Bill Nighy, Andy Serkis, Sophie Okonedo and Mickey Rourke, Stormbreaker grossed significantly less than $1 million in the United States, and only made half its budget back overseas. Plans for a sequel were, as you can probably imagine, canceled.
Beautiful Creatures: Alice Englert and future Han Solo star Alden Ehrenreich star in a supernatural gothic YA romance about witchcraft and evangelical oppression in South Carolina. But despite impressive performances and imaginative filmmaking, the $60 million adaptation barely broke even, and many fans of the novels were unhappy with the changes made to the characters and story.
The Black Cauldron: Disney scooped up the rights to all five books in Lloyd Alexander's The Chronicles of Prydain, and adapted the first two into an ambitious and costly animated fantasy that defied the expectations of the studio's output, but also was almost universally declared to be not very good. Some of the animation was obviously incredible, but The Black Cauldron lost so much money in 1985 that Walt Disney Animation nearly went bankrupt. Sequels were not on Disney's mind; in fact, the studio didn't even bother releasing The Black Cauldron on home video for 13 years.
Cirque du Freak: The Vampire's Assistant: Chris Massoglia plays the vampire's assistant and John C. Reilly plays the vampire in the first (and only) feature film adaptation of Darren Shan's saga of YA novels, aptly titled The Saga of Darren Shan. Another great cast was assembled - including Salma Hayek, Willem Dafoe, Ken Watanabe, Ray Stevenson and future Hunger Games star Josh Hutchinson - but the film didn't make its money back in theaters, and the series was never completed.
City of Ember: Saoirse Ronan stars in a sci-fi YA adventure about an underground city built to protect the human race from catastrophic natural disasters, but which is now - 200 years later - falling apart. And you guessed it: The cast was full of impressive actors, including Bill Murray, Martin Landau, Toby Jones and Tim Robbins. City of Ember cost $55 million to produce, and grossed less than $18 million worldwide, so the sequels plans were buried too.
Divergent: What started out as a blockbuster YA franchise became, after two successful films, anathema to audiences everywhere. Shailene Woodley stars as a young woman who cannot conform to the rigid social structures of her dystopian society, and leads a revolution. The first two films each grossed nearly $300 million worldwide, but the third film, Allegiant, dropped to two-thirds that much, and made 50% less than the previous film in America. Rather than throw money at an expensive fourth installment, the studio planned to finish the series off on television, but Woodley backed out. The TV version is still allegedly in the works, but the original film series is over as we know it.
Ender's Game: Orson Scott Card's influential and celebrated sci-fi novel Ender's Game tells the story of children drafted into high-tech war games after the nearly successful invasion of Earth by an alien species. Various adaptations had been in the works for years, but by the time Ender's Game came out, A) the material looked familiar to fans of YA stories, and B) Orson Scott Card's history of campaigning against gay marriage rights resulted in widely publicized protests. The film made its money back but didn't make much of a profit, and plans for a series were canceled.
Eragon: Most YA sci-fi/fantasy franchises fall apart because they lost the studio's money. Eragon, despite very negative reviews from critics, actually made quite a bit of money, grossing nearly $250 million worldwide off of a $100 million budget. Apparently it just wasn't enough. The film, based on the first book in Christopher Paolini's Inheritance Cycle, stars Ed Speleers as a farm boy who befriends a dragon and becomes a hero.
The 5th Wave: Another modestly successful but nevertheless failed franchise, this post-apocalyptic sci-fi thriller stars Chloe Grace Moretz as a teen girl who joins the revolution after aliens conquer Earth. The 5th Wave earned a respectable $109 million worldwide off of a modest $38 million budget, but so far no sequel plans have emerged, even though The 5th Wave was only the first part of a trilogy of novels.
The Giver: Lois Lowry's Newberry Medal-winning YA novel The Giver takes place in a seemingly utopian world where human emotions have been muted for the sake of a contented society. It's considered by many to be one of the best children's novels ever published. The film wasn't nearly as celebrated, despite another fine cast (including Oscar-winners Jeff Bridges and Meryl Streep), and was critically panned. The movie made almost $67 million off of a $25 million budget, but that wasn't enough to green light adaptations of the other three books in Lowry's Giver Quartet.
The Golden Compass: The Golden Compass is one of the most expensive YA movies ever made, and one of the most controversial. Fans of Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials books were upset that the movie glossed over Pullman's biting critique of organized religion. Meanwhile, organized religions were upset that Hollywood adapted a book that was critical of organized religions in the first place. Also, the film cost $180 million and made a respectable $372 million worldwide. Unfortunately for New Line, they sold the overseas rights and the film basically tanked in America, where Golden Compass made only $70 million. It wasn't worth the trouble so plans for sequels were scrapped, but The Golden Compass did eventually earn an Oscar for Best Visual Effects, and that's a bigger accolade than most of these other failed YA franchises ever earned.
Holes: Disney's adaptation of Louis Sachar's popular YA novel Holes was critically acclaimed, a respectable hit and helped turn a then-mostly-unknown actor named Shia LaBeouf into a major movie star. But perhaps a proper franchise was never in the cards: Sachar wrote two follow-ups to Holes but one of them was a survival guide, and the other had more to do with concert ticket scalping than the mystery-laden plot of the original.
I Am Number Four: The first book in the lengthy Lorien Legacies YA series became a sci-fi adventure film starring Alex Pettyfer (again) as an alien teenager with superpowers hiding out on planet Earth. The film received poor reviews but was one of the more financially successful failed YA franchises, earning nearly three times its $60 million budget. But that wasn't good enough for the studio, and no sequels were made.
The Indian in the Cupboard: The classic YA fantasy by Lynn Reid Banks became an acclaimed motion picture from director Frank Oz about a young boy who comes into possession of a cupboard that can bring his toys to life. The film got crushed in the summer blockbuster season and couldn't even make its modest $45 million budget back, and the other books in Banks's beloved series were never adapted to the screen.
Inkheart: Cornelia Funke's German YA fantasy series was a big hit in many languages, but not on the big screen. The story of a young girl (Eliza Bennett) who finds out her father (Brendan Fraser) can bring characters from books to life cost $60 million to make, and made only $62 million. The rest of the books in Funke's trilogy, unsurprisingly, were never turned into sequels.
Jumper: Doug Liman's adaptation of Stephen Gould's YA sci-fi novel about teens who can teleport earned $222 million worldwide off of an $85 million budget, which wasn't bad, but wasn't enough to immediately green light a sequel. However, Liman never quite gave up on the film, and a spin-off series called Impulse is in development at YouTube Red and expected to debut later in 2018, 10 years after the release of the first film.
Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events: Another film franchise that derailed, only to find new life in a different medium. Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events is the big budget adaptation of the popular, gloomy YA series about two doomed orphans who keep running afoul of their scheming Uncle Olaf, played in the film by Jim Carrey. The film only earned $210 million off of its whopping $140 million budget, which was ultimately not enough profit to make sequels worth pursuing, but the books were eventually re-adapted into a popular (and excellent) television series on Netflix, with Neil Patrick Harris taking over Carrey's role.
Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children: Tim Burton seemed like a natural fit to adapt Ransom Riggs's YA series about World War II refugees with strange powers who are running from monsters who want to kill them. The film received mixed reviews but did earn a reasonable $296 million off of its $110 million budget. Apparently that wasn't quite enough of a profit to dive right into adapting any of the other books, and the franchise remains in limbo.
The Mortal Instruments: City of Bones: Cassandra Clare's urban fantasy novels became a major motion picture with plans for a massive movie franchise, but when The Mortal Instruments: City of Bones came out in 2013, it earned a paltry $93 million and the franchise seemed dead. That is, until it was resurrected and rebooted as a television series on Freeform, where its soap operatic relationship drama and ornate supernatural mythology eventually found a more appreciative audience.
Nancy Drew: The precocious teen sleuth Nancy Drew has been solving mysteries in novels ever since the 1930s, and eventually co-starred in a hit TV series alongside her counterparts The Hardy Boys in the 1970s. But when the time came to give her a big screen YA reboot starring Emma Roberts, the film received mediocre reviews and only made $30 million off of a $20 million budget. No sequels emerged, but another Nancy Drew TV series is currently in development.
Percy Jackson: The modern day, teenaged children of the ancient Greek gods go on a series of adventures in Rick Riordan's Percy Jackson YA series, and the first film - Percy Jackson and the Olympians: The Lightning Thief, directed by Harry Potter's Chris Columbus - was popular enough to yield one sequel, Percy Jackson: Sea of Monsters. Both films made a similar amount of money ($226 million/$199 million) off of similar budgets ($95 million/$90 million), but it's been four years since there has been any serious talk of developing another sequel.
The Seeker: The Dark Is Rising: The second book in Susan Cooper's classic The Dark Is Rising Sequence became a very unpopular motion picture, which changed many elements of the original story and is said to have displeased the original author. The film, about a boy who discovers he's the last in a long line of powerful warriors, earned an anemic $31 million worldwide, which is not the kind of box office that sequels are made of.
Seventh Son: An apprentice monster hunter (Ben Barnes) falls in love with a witch (Alicia Vikander) and learns valuable lessons from his mentor (Jeff Bridges) in the fantasy epic Seventh Son, a film based on Joseph Delaney's Wardstone Chronicles, which had its release date pushed back repeatedly and eventually came out to shrugs from critics and mainstream audiences alike. Seventh Son cost $95 million and made only $114 million, so this is the last we're probably going to see of it.
The Spiderwick Chronicles: One of the better-reviewed YA franchise failures stars Freddie Highmore as identical twin brothers who discover a world of magical creatures in their new backyard. Mark Waters' film made $162 million off of a $90 million budget, which just wasn't enough money to adapt more of Holly Black and Tony DiTerlizzi's books to the big screen.
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