The reason all the classics have so many remakes is because of what they are: public domain, so anyone can make a version if they want. Probably also the reason why they want to make as much lord of the rings stuff as possible. In 20 years LofR will also be public domain and we will be flooded.
20 years? Noone will care anymore after 💩 like #RingsOfPower . How many people care about The Hobbit? A few simple mindet people like it but most people see it as a cringefest. It's just bad by things you can measure like logic faults and dumb decisions and inconsictencies. It can only get worse / more woke till the woke trend is over and we look at all the franchises woke Hollywood burned.
This reminds me of when The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe movie came out, my mom decided that she wouldn't see it. I enjoyed the movie and told her so, but she told me why she didn't want to watch it: It was because she didn't want the characters of the story to be the movie characters, but those that she had been imagining all these years already. Now, obviously the situation is a little different here as we are talking about two visual representations being close together in time, but I could see a lot of people not watching these new series because they don't want to sully what they already honor and have honored for years, recently. Hope that makes sense. I for one will probably wait for the jury to be out before watching either one.
Years ago, I shopped a screenplay around Hollywood. I was fortunate enough to pitch to New Line Cinema, and Silver Pictures (Joel Silver's company), among others. I kept hearing the same feedback, like: "fresh", "original", "different", etc. Sounds good, right? Well, they all passed because fresh, original, and different = risky. They wanted something that was proven.
It seems like we're in an era when people with their hands on the pursestrings are controlling decisions about creative content more than creative people are. That being the case, they are going to go with what they think will sell, which is why we're inundated with unnecessary remakes while promising new stories are ignored. Thanks for the great video, Bookborn!
The problem is monopoly. Look how much Disney owns. There are now so few media companies that any new ones starting get immediately squeezed out or bought up. Very few people with a break out media company are going to say no to a multimillion dollar buy out. Even if they could make more in the future, the buy out is happening now. Few people give up definite financial security for only the chance at more money later on.
Yeah when you have too few hands holding all the keys, not only are they risk adverse, the profit margins get thinner and thinner. A lot of businesses need to be broken up.
The series version of Dune wasn't widely watched and most people consider the David Lynch film a failure so a proper adaptation is something fans wanted.
@@darkhighwayman1757 Dune part 1 for me was like a perfect, textbook example of "all style no substance." And it's strange given how good I felt the director's Blade Runner sequel was being his own idea rather than an adaption.
You mentioned it but i really think that if the first adaptation was really well done the hill a remake has to climb is so high. If the first adaptation is bad however all i want is a remake. The Wheel of Time show is still on going and i already wish i could get a remake of season 1 lol
But they'll only make remakes of things that already were very successful, because that increases their worst case earnings by a lot. A mediocre new show would bomb spectacularly, but a mediocre remake of an extremely successful thing will always be successful (even if doesn't reach the original in terms of numbers).
@@faultier1158 That's just not true. They will remake ones that are popular and well-known. LOTR had three prior movies that all bombed and the studio still made remakes.
Personally I don’t mind them converting a book into a TV show (if it was previously done as a movie). In my opinion it makes it different enough to warrant the change, since TV shows tend to be more intimate and book like, focusing less on special budget heavy effects and set pieces and more on characters and their relationships with each other (much like books do). I haven’t read or watched His Dark Materials, but I hear the TV show is far better than the movie that came out years ago and benefited from the change in medium.
I liked the LOTR movie trilogy for all it's flaws, and agree we don't really need a new version of the story in that format right now. But the novel could be a brilliant television show-- the books are already set up perfectly for an episodic format, both via it's chapters and it's "books" (technically LOTR is six 'books', not three). The beginning of the Two Towers in particular would make for some excellent television, as it ping pongs between Aragorn's POV and Merry/Pippin's POV and each chapter tends to end on an interesting "cliffhanger". A TV show would also have more time to explore a lot of the stuff that got cut for the movie adaptation (the Elves at Woodhall, Tom Bombadil, The Druedain, the Paths of the Dead, Ioreth/Beregond, The Scouring of the Shire, etc). Ultimately I don't dislike the idea of more adaptations, I just dislike the "franchise" mentality of these big production companies. They aren't interested in creating a good (or even just interesting!) adaptation of the text, they only want to cash in and get out. And I'm not interested in giving views or money to such pursuits.
Your last statement there is just GOLD. EXACTLY. I've lost all good-will I ever had for these productions. I think if someone was actually super passionate and had a vision, these things could turn out amazing. I just don't hold my breath anymore. TBH, the Harry Potter movies didn't do much for me (I was too close to the source material) so the idea of a show could be super cool to get all the details in. I just don't believe it'll actually be good anymore lol.
That's just an unfair judgment and too removed from reality. Take for example collegiate sports. NCAA Men's Football and Basketball generate all the revenue to support other college sports. The entertainment industry is very similar.
@@Bookborn Right, and I feel like that's because you need quality showrunners and writers to dedicate themselves to these projects, and my suspicion is that those people don't want to work for the big studios. They know the studios won't give them free reign and will hang them out to dry for the studio's own poor decisions.
I'm sorry it's just a pet peeve: the Lord of the Rings is one novel published in three volumes. Yes, volumes are each divided into two "books," but neither Tolkien nor his publishers considered the work a trilogy.
My Potterhead friends told me with great excitement about this new series. To be Frank I think I've just grown out of this series and now I'm into other stories so I don't really plan to watch this, but may probably have a peek. That being said, when I think about my feelings about the Harry Potter movies, and as I discussed with my friends, it may be a good move. Where I lived, the movies became much more popular first, and I got to know about the books only later, and I forever live with the regret of having watched the first four movies before starting my favourite book series of my childhood. Most of the Potterhead I know, and I agree with them, believe that in many ways the movies slaughtered the books. So MUCH content was cut down. I do agree with you though, some things HAVE become iconic and unforgettable, I can't imagine anyone else as Snape, however there were also characters whom I wouldn't mind replaced with fresher faces, Harry, Ron and Hermione among them I'm afraid, because especially in the later movies I felt they deviated significantly from the book characters. I also feel that adapting the book into a web series format increases the chances of it being more faithful to the book, more details being captured and overall more effort being put instead of just summarising it somehow and only succeeding in a giving a bunch of spoilers for those who may read the books later.
Here’s the deal. I’m gonna watch the show. I’m the problem. I love Harry Potter. I didn’t like the movies for a lot of reasons you stated (but I must admit they are super successful and well regarded by most). I would love the show to be good. I just don’t trust it anymore haha
I bought Hogwarts Legacy to support the anti-woke idea. It's a beautiful game bus as soon as it was clear that the 🏳️🌈 can't cancel this game I lost interest in the Harry Potter Universe again. A new adaptation can only be a checklist for woke-points at this moment and I am against being preached THE 🏳️🌈 MESSAGE
They know that everyone loves Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings so essentially companies just want to "give us what we want" i.e. fanservice to get money. And they know that even if what they make is bad, that the name recognition of these properties will spark enough curiosity to get a lot of people to watch before people say its bad. The struggle will be if they want to do a series as it may start to die off. The problem with remaking these instead of doing something new will be whether or not people don't feel the need to watch them at all because people feel like they already know the story. I for one have no interest in watching these remakes. I'll just find out how it went second hand via youtube.
I have more interest watching the HP one but only because I"m in the minority and didn't love the movies other than their casting. However, I do think the whole "fan service" thing is funny because it feels like they rarely know what fans *actually* want (that's me side-eyeing Obi Wan, for example)
The reason for remakes is money. Plain and simple. Hollywood doesn’t really have a lot of creativity and as you said, they are risk averse. How will they have actors playing HP and crew for 10 years? I probably won’t watch them. There’s so many great fantasy and sci fi stories that can be adapted.
One thing you didn't mention is additional products tied to remaking content. Toys, t-shirts, theme parks, other media formats, and others are huge decision factors to go with remakes than taking risks by introducing new content.
@@Bookborn I read an article that Star Wars generate more revenue from Star Wars IP/promotional products than actual TV shows and movies by a far margin and they are a steady source of revenue for Disney.
On the question of like "Who cares? Good content is good content, that's all that matters" -- I think it matters a huge deal. If we take stories seriously, then we have to appreciate they're not just "content" made for passive entertainment. They're how a culture defines itself -- how people learn to see themselves in a place and time, and how they express their perspective. Constant remakes and adaptations and sequels ensure that the same group of people get their stories told over and over, without any room for new generations to tell their own. It's the boomerfication of fiction. I love the Earthsea books. They came out about thirty years before Harry Potter and never got a good adaptation. But I wouldn't want a world where Earthsea adaptations became so dominant they prevented the possibility of Harry Potter movies, and I think that's what happens when we recycle the same ideas. There's only so much money to go around, so, how do we make sure we're not blocking the next Harry Potter or MCU from ever occurring? Part of this is on the fans letting go a little, and not accepting fanservice as enough of a reason to watch something mediocre. Studios need to have an incentive to produce different things. I don't think that'll happen, but I think that's what we need.
People want the stories they love to remain pure and sacred, and they hate it when the same amount of appreciation and care was not put into the adaptation. People do not really care how close it is to the original work as long as it is good. It makes people, either a fan or not enjoy the story, and it put people closer to the original work. I remember when The Hobbit came out, people hated the movie, but it made people interested in LOTR again or read the book.
Yeah, and I think that's why in a lot of ways despite the fact Jackson changed a decent amount of LOTR, people still attach to it and love it, because so much CARE was put into it. It doesn't have to be perfect, it just has to give you the feeling of your favorite stories.
I'm ready for a remake of Wheel of Time. ;) I'm good with the remake of Harry Potter as Prisoner of Azkaban on were only inspired by the books and left so many story lines out. If they were doing it as movies, I wouldn't be cool with it. #justiceforron #justiceforpeeves
I think one thing to keep in mind is fans vs audience. They're not the same thing...fans keep the longevity going for those long-term gains. But even a person who isn't a fan and doesn't convert to one is still an audience who bought the ticket, maybe bought some merch for a fan friend or relative...and the studios are looking at grabbing the audience even over the fandom. The fandom acts as yes, potential income, but more so revenue in the form of word-of-mouth and social media marketing. Good or bad, getting the word out by people who are intimately acquainted with the series, are going to be some of the loudest voices out there helping propagate it to a larger audience. Twenty years doesn't seem long to me, at 37, but considering the generation coming up behind who are now working and consumers, getting the chance to "buy-in" on the remakes...that's a huge untapped audience (i.e., income) for that type of experience.
That's a good perspective; I also wonder if the time seems less because it's harder for things to leave the public consciousness now. Back in a time where you didn't have home televisions, or didn't have VCRs, or going to the movies was a big production - having new remakes close together perhaps had a place. Now, with so much media to consume, it can often feel overwhelming.
"1590+" 😂 My history brain greatly appreciates the history of the remake section! Super well researched! More content is more content but the reality is that the content given to us is so rarely good. In the last two decades, if we look at all of the adaptations for SFF, most have been really terrible. Harry Potter is debatable as being decent, Fantastic Beasts is terrible, the Hobbit is awful, Rings of Power is terrible, Game of Thrones took a sharp turn, etc. Fans continued to be burned but we remain the ever optimists when they start but ,rarely do we have the gratification and satisfaction of a job well done.
lol I didn't know how to represent stories that were written over decades 🤣 Yeah, I'm actually not a fan of the Harry Potter movies; I was way too close to the books and so every change felt too gut-wrenching. However, I can't deny they were huge successes and most people love them. That being said, I still think their casting (other than about 5 huge miscasts) was incredibly spot-on. I mean, even as much as I don't love the movies, I envision some of the movie counterparts when I read now. They just NAILED it.
@@Bookborn yes- I know Alan Rickman was highlighted in the video and he was absolutely spot on. I also felt that Richard Harris’ Dumbledore was exactly how I had pictured him.
RE: The Squaw Man I think one of the challenges modern remakes have is visibility of the original. With The Squaw Man, it's probably fair to say that the percentage of people who saw the original was fairly low compared to, say, Harry Potter. So a remake made sense. But these days we're starting to see remakes of HUGE properties. It's harder to find an audience who never saw these originals. That makes modern remakes more and more difficult in smaller time frames. Compare that to the Oceans 11, where there was the 40 year gap that you mentioned. Not only has technology changed, but the audience for the remake is drastically different. I hadn't even heard of the original Oceans 11 when the remake came out.
One remake that I hope will be better than the previous version (fingers crossed) is the Percy Jackson show coming on Disney plus. With the author so heavily involved, I am hoping that it is a better adaptation than the 2 movies.
I agree with what you’re saying. An issue is these companies like Amazon don’t want to admit they’re wrong. With only 37% of your audience finishing The Rings of Power, along with it being the most expensive show ever, there’s absolutely no way your show is a success. The same with Wheel of Time. The only show worse than Rings of Power was Willow. Wheel of Time was equally as bad as Rings, and I love those properties. Unfortunately I watched all 3 train wrecks. Just can’t help it. And I’m part of the problem
Great video! A few things I would point out, Amazon has called ROP a success not profitable, cause there is no way it was. We have the data on Nielson streaming data and it was below HoTD which cost half of its budget. Secondly when looking at profit margins people always fail to take into account marketing is not in the budget. The general rule is marketing is about half the budget of the film, so 200 million film will have about 100 mil marketing making it actually cost 300 million. Domestic cut is about 60% of that going to the studio and international is about 45%, except china which is 25%. So the general rule of thumb from people who do this for a living is take the budget and marketing and double it thats around what a film needs to make a profit. So if a movie has a budget of 200 million we can assume another 100 for marketing so 300x2=600 million to make a profit. A lot of people see the budget and the gross and think all these movies make money and that's simply not the case a lot of the time. I think with the recent Disney Marvel and Disney Star Wars failures people are starting to come around to wanting new IP's and I am rooting for it to happen ASAP. Cheers!
Also, Amazon is not going to put out a press release saying their series was a failure. They will only ever put out positive statements about success. Are they making more? If it was a major success they’d keep it going any way possible, no matter what PR says about a story ending.
Music historian Ted Gioia has what he calls the "idiot nephew theory" to explain risk aversion in the music business. In that case, Silicon Valley tech companies are now controlling the distribution of new music, whereas the LA-based record companies (Universal, Sony, etc) make all their money from Led Zeppelin and Bob Marley, i.e. people who've already produced their work decades ago. Gioia's theory is that the merit-based Silicon Valley took over because of changes in technology, and the record companies simply gave up their culture of risk-taking. Before, people would hire their relatives to handle new artists. This led to a lot of experimenting because people really didn't know what they were doing. People would get signed and record companies would put a lot of money into developing their talent before releasing their music, and/or they'd have to hook them up with talented record producers who could make gold out of sh*t. Either way, a lot of music got released that otherwise wouldn't have, if the companies were more careful. I think something similar is going on in the movie world, and it's bleeding into publishing. Now that film distributors have to compete with TH-cam&co, they aren't going to be interested in trying new things. Besides (they might say), if someone wants to get experimental and make a movie out of a popular scifi book or a spec script, they can just release it on TH-cam or even Amazon. The big film studios just don't have that role anymore. I think that's kinda sad, because I remember when you could go to see a movie in a theater (a big theater) that would be kinda obscure or middle-of-the-road. Not every movie has to be a huge event like Avengers: Endgame, you know? I also think book publishers are getting more risk-averse because of self-publishing and competition from small publishers. They just don't see putting out "midlist" books as their role any more. I like seeing "mid-list" at the bookstores; I like to pick up the books and browse. Browsing the web isn't the same. I think another factor they don't pay attention to is that certain stories lend themselves to "remakes" more than others. Lord of the Rings isn't one, nor is Harry Potter. OTOH Conan the Barbarian should be remade every ten years (but without that Riddle of Steel nonsense). It would also make a great TV show WITHOUT an arc, just one adventure after another. I feel like people have forgotten how to make a series that isn't like Game of Thrones. I'd rather watch something that I could tune in to any time without having to watch hours and hours of previous episodes. I'd like a Law & Order for fantasy ;)
As a fantasy fan living in this amazing era for adaptation, I have this fear that it will end before some of my favourite stories are brought to life, so I do understand the fear that these fantasy monoliths are crowding out stories with less of a reputation. As a Harry Potter fan though, this fear also has an impact on me. Like many I have always feltt so much was left out from the movies, some of which because HP was walking so other fantasy could run. I'm glad we can see a more faithful adaptation with some of those iconic characters and plot lines - Peeves, the whole of Goblet of Fire, the Marauders. And I've always dreamed of seeing other stories from the world being told. I'm happy this is happening just in case the fantasy era does die out, so I can see these stories play out in live action. I hope HP isn't just more faithful, but expands on characters and plots we didn't get to see in the books.
yeah, I cut out the section of me talking about this because the video was too long; but I am a giant HP Fan and wasn't a fan of the movies (other than most of the casting). It left out too much for me, and I've always dreamed of a tv show where they might be more faithful and give us more details. However, I've just...lost all faith at this point LOL. Too many adaptations have been bad. I'm desperately hoping to be proved wrong.
Remakes can be tiring, and often don't engender very much interest in me personally, but with that being said, some seem to move in the correct direction. Off of the top of my head, one that seems to fall very nicely under your rules for a successful remake would be the recent release of Dude, by Denis Villeneuve. David Lynch's adaptation is nearly 40 years old, and wasn't well received, although it has gained a bit of a cult following. After that, a miniseries adapatation was made of the novel in 2000 by the Sci-Fi Channel (followed by another miniseries which encompassed the first two sequel novels in 2003), and if I recall these were two of the highest rated TV programs put out by that channel. All of these had significate departures from the novels, in order to make the story more accessable to non-readers of the novels Now, nearly 20 years on from the last attempt, Villeneuve seems to be leaning hard into the source material for his adaptation, and is definitely taking full advantage in the current abilites of motion picture and CGI technology. The first movie didn't even make it half way through the story of the first book, but (imo at least) they made a good start at the "origin story", and I hope the movies continue to be successful enough to let him continue
A lot of people have been talking about Dune, but it was 40 years (so double what we are talking here) and tech has changed significantly. Of course, I didn't even know the mini-series existed until right now - I don't think it reached nearly the same fame as the original movie, and so wasn't as much in the public's consciousness. I wonder if some of my fatigue right now is that EVERYTHING seems to be a remake/adaptation of previous adaptations / hitting IPs into the ground: we have marvel, and star wars, and disney's live actions, etc etc...
More than ever, it feels like media companies are just mining existing material for new content, extracting what they can. You see this in the amount of movies that are biopics- Movie studios mining the lives of public figures for cheap source material. Studios just remaking and spinning off IPs that have name recognition, over and over. I have so much respect for someone who makes something all original now.
The original Ocean's 11 outside of the concept of gathering a team for a heist has nothing in common with the remake. And 4 years at the dawn of cinema is a long time since technology was developing rapidly and new technics were invented constantly, also watching older movies was a challenge back then.
I was a huge movie buff. It was my main hobby. During the pandemic I switched to the books and gradually I was watching less and reading more. Now I have almost no desire to watch anything. Those recent announcements concerning HP and LOTR remakes made me finally realase why. It's because movies/tv shows are very derivative (it's a little bit better with tv shows, but they are also longer). People in charge are afraid to take chances and keep making the same stuff! And it's so tiring. I'm sure HP tv show will be fine. At least it's not the same format, so they have something they can do different. But just an idea of new LOTR movies is a bit scary. Especially after Rings of Power. All my cynicism from when I was a movie watcher comes back. I hate it. I wish they'll make new things. :( Oh, and about Twilight. One of the actress from the movies made a podcast about books/movies. I've listened to few episodes. She said that after Twilight movies landed on Netflix, franchise experienced revival and gained new young fans. So maybe this remake is connected to that.
Yeah, out of this three Twilight is the most interesting to me. Probably because I'm not emotionally attached to it. :D Also I'm pretty sure recently there's been some kind of announcement about next Twilight book. That S. Meyer want to write next book about Renesme or something. Tv show could create some hype. So everything fits together.
As much as I love Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter and Game of Thrones, I wish some other big fantasy epics would get a chance for a faithful adaptation. There's classics like Elric, Chronicles of Amber, Conan, Belgariad, Book of the Black Sun, Farseer Saga, The Black Company, etc. And of course there's a new wave of amazing adult fantasy series like First Law, Broken Empire, Poppy War, Malazan, Powder Mage, Stormlight Archives, Manifest Delusions, Second Apocalypse, and SOOOOOOOOO much more!
Yeah I just think we need to freshen stuff up. Even if some of these new adaptations are good - and I hope they are - i think at large we are just getting franchise fatigue. I know I’ve felt it with Star Wars and marvel.
Just a couple of stray thoughts: although the first Sherlock Holmes story was published in 1887, the last was published in 1927. By this time the franchise had been adapted into a long-running play (featuring the very influential characterization by William Gillette,) several silent movies, and the first talkie was made the first year there were talkies. Tarzan of the Apes was published in October 1912, was a best seller in 1914, and was made into eight movie serials between 1918 and 1929 with five different actors playing Tarzan. In the sound era, more than 40 Tarzan movies have been made with more than eight actors playing the part. And Tarzan novels were published until 1970. Tarzan of the Apes, the first book in the series, has been adapted at least four times I can think of. The original James Bond novels were published between 1953 and 1966. Licensed novels continue to the present. The first James Bond film appeared in 1962 and they continue to the present. Casino Royale has been done twice. The point of this recitation? This is the DNA of Hollywood. I haven't even talked about original Hollywood films that have been repeated, like the Broadway Melody series of musicals. Or the Thin Man movies where only the first even tries to adapt the original work. And then all of these cases I am talking about adapting materials that were not in the public domain at the time. You can write odd public domain repetition based on saving money, but these repeats...
Another layer for the difficulty of adapting LOTR and HP: Music. For many of us, the theme music for these properties is now synonymous with the books and world, regardless of how much we like them. What are they going to do with the HP theme song? With the Wizarding World theme parks? If the new show used the same theme music, would that feel appropriate? If it didn't, would that feel any better?
I agree with what you say about the short sighted-ness of monetary gain. Lots of these mega studios are public companies now, so they have shareholders that they need to keep happy. But the fan in me wishes that more risk could be taken and that there could be an understanding that that's what original work is all about. One day, people will have to realize that legacy IP's can't generate substantial cash flow perpetually. There's also their issue in technology where innovaition and scalability have made movies so expensive that maybe Hollywood has ironically and unintentionally boxed themselves into creative stagnation. I think the other problem is the fans ourselves. We always look towards the next LOTR or the next HP. We shouldn't want for the next of its kind, we should be open towards the next "something" that is one of a kind. I think the problem is pretty complex on both sides.
Just discovered your channel and I've been binging all your videos! In this video, you mentioned that you can't get better than the source material. But just one counter-example: George R R Martin has said that Paddy Considine's portrayal of King Viserys in House of the Dragon is better than his version of Viserys in Fire & Blood. Quote: "Your Viserys is better than my Viserys."
I feel like it’s a self fulfilling prophecy. The mindset shouldn’t be “if we remake this thing we will make an incredible amount of money.” It should be “we have a huge passion for this project and know if we get the correct budget and casting, it’s going to be a huge success.” A lot of books and adaptations or even actors and actresses that became huge successes weren’t well known until they had their “big break” as they say. I’m so tired of old shows and movies being remade, take a risk people!!!
The Maltese Falcon was adapted to film three times in 1931, 1936 and 1941. The third version, which would have been blocked by you as culture czar, is considered one of the greatest American films ever made. Thanks.
Lollll I’m not trying to be culture czar 🤣 I think you have to realize the vast differences between how tv/movies were made them versus now, and it’s something I wish I would’ve talked about. The availability of media was much less before the household tv, and it’s now even more saturated with internet and streaming. So those remakes probably didn’t feel the same as there was less access to media
Unfortunately I think this is more a reflection on the state of Hollywood. Hollywood has not been hitting the big numbers they need/want for some time. Add to that the fact that more and more are opting out of the most profitable end of their media content (i,e going to the movies) makes all the studios scared to take risks. A risk to them is anything that doesn't already have a big money spending fan base baked in. It's why we were bombarded with Marvel and DC movies, they knew those characters had money spending fans. Meanwhile, it's hard to tell if a book series has money spending fans before getting to the screen. Book fans don't have the opportunity nor do they in general buy the products of their book series. What book sells action figures like the comics did? TL:DR Hollywood is scared of risks and wont do anything new. This includes book adaptations.
PS Hollywood is really failing now, they could have hit it big with Steven Kings The Dark Tower and that just flopped. I think all the good script writers and such left or something. I have no faith in Hollywood anymore.
Very insightful, as always. Hollywood's shift to "Content" is the key to all of this. It seems to me that there is an intentional destruction of creativity. I believe that Millennial/Gen Z audiences have been excessively & deliberately trained to be satisfied with repetition rather than innovation.
We can tell from the sales, that Hogwarts legacy proves that the potterverse has ample growth potential, and a completely new cast of characters getting their letter delivered by owl would go down well. But I have no idea why they want to revamp Harry, Hermione, and Ron and have recasts on the faculty members. Twilight has me scratching my head asking why, I figured we had reached peak zombie, but apparently we have not reached peak vampire/werewolf. So if they stay away from the legacy characters and introduce new characters in the potterverse, it should do well. Lord of the Rings, most of us nerds would watch it, for the hatewatch but with Rings and Wheel of time, I have no expectation that this wont be another video fan fic as to how the author would have wrote it, if he was a current author. One thing I noticed with a listing of movies with remake vs new properties, was Top Gun Maverick right at the top, and have to disagree that this was a remake and more like book 2, the conclusion. A remake to me would have the main actors recast with the same story.
Excellent as always and much more reasonable than I would be! A known property makes for easier advertising and more people watching. So yeah, money. I would favor a single movie Hobbit remake for LOTR. Mostly, I am willing to give them a chance early on and see if they can tell a story.
I'm probably on the high end of your viewership's age demographic, so I doubt many folks here will recall Ralph Bakshi's cartoon version of LoTR in the late 70s. I was a teen, a huge fan (who'd already read it several times) and just LOATHED it. Which made me so resistant to the Peter Jackson movies. I clearly recall reading about them in Time Magazine, and just feeling deflated. I complained to my wife (more than she cared to hear about it). And yet, I still went to Fellowship on its opening weekend (carrying my dread with me). And was not just pleasantly surprised, but delighted! I still credit that movie for being among the very first sparks of the that rekindled my writing journey (which had been dormant for a couple of decades). (You also have to remember that it came out just 3 short months after 9/11, which was definitely a "life's too damn short to put this off any longer" event. To top things off, I turned 40 that year, so...) I guess that experience will always temper my reactions to these remake announcements (even after my dread came true with The Hobbit movies). I always appreciate your thorough and even-handed analysis. And, as an aside, I've been watching you since darn near the beginning, and can I tell you what a natural you are on camera now? Not that you ever lacked on-camera personality, but it just really shines now. You come across like someone we've all known forever, which is pretty rare. Kudos!
Thanks Vaughn, that compliment really means a lot to me! I've been trying to improve my game and it's fun to see somehow still around since the very beginning. (PS I did actually buy that book you recommended ages ago and just still haven't read it yet lol, "The Amazons"! I've had a video I've wanted to do about that subject for over a year but it just takes too much research and turn around time for my current life. I hope to get to it maybe next year when my schedule opens up). I really like this perspective, though. I think I've just felt super burned out lately on all the big franchises - Star Wars, Marvel, RoP - all these things that keep releasing more and more but aren't necessarily quality. It's made me jaded. I need to remain hopeful instead!
@@Bookborn I'm glad that my sincere take, which happens to be praise, seems to resonate. And it's cool that you've sincerely sought to up your game--it shows! If I can trust any topic to hang around until you get to it, it's warrior women. And I'll be among the first here for it! Hope you enjoy the book. Here's to finding the things that knock us out of our jadedness. Cheers!
The remake thing is a symptom of a bigger problem than it looks at first. Most of our high budget entertainment is becoming unsustainable. Budgets get higher and higher while the public expects to pay less and less for it. Why would anyone watch a Disney movie in theaters if they can just wait for Disney plus? They NEED to convince huge swaths of people to pay the top value of anything they make in order to justify how much they spent on it. That's why nothing original gets green lit or if it does, it gets a low budget: they can't afford to gamble. They're just forgetting that MOST of those successful franchises were a gamble to begin with. Lord of the Rings wasn't seen as a guaranteed success when the movies came out and neither was Harry Potter. Hell, STAR WARS of all things was expected to flop spectacularly.
Commenting before I watch*** I was curious so I looked up a classic in Mutiny on the Bounty. Movies in 1935, 62, and 84. That’s 27 and 22 years apart. That would mean HP and LOTR coming out either in 2028 or 2023 to be equivalent. I think time seems shorter in modern times. Things stick around longer and can have a longer shelf life due to being able to own copies of media, the rise of the internet, etc.
I think that's a really interesting addition to the conversation; how does the internet and things having more availability change how we perceive things? when there weren't televisions or streaming in our very own homes, seeing movies or shows was much more of a production and less likely to carry over the years.
When the film or tv show imagery and casting reach icon status, then I think we need to lay that franchise to rest. The only way I would be interested in new Lord of the Rings movies is if they were animated. If you're changing up the medium, then it's a little more tenable to me. I've seen the Rankin/Bass adaptations, but I don't think they're as widely known to a larger audience. There are a lot of interesting things you can do in animation that could show off some really cool stuff. But what I want most of all is just to adapt new IP because there is so much good content out there instead of rehashing the old stuff.
Yeah I do think changing format can be interesting (arguably Hp is sort of doing that with movie to tv show) but ultimately you’re right in that when something becomes iconic, it needs to be decades before we retry.
@@Bookborn HBO has been doing a good job with adaptations, House of the Dragon and Last of Us had the creators very closed involved, JK will be very much involved in this show as well so we´re surely getting an adaptation much more faithful to the books than the movies with 2 hours could ever had.
Not in the Twilight fandom, but I was the one to break the news about the show to my sister who I think enjoyed the books and films back in the day. Her answer was "isn't there already a million vampire shows, why do they need to make more?" Huge contrast to when I told her about the HP news: "Yay, they get to make good adaptation, the movies sucked since they couldn't include everything." Yeah, she doesn't have context to what an actually bad adaptation looks like, since HP and twilight are the only books she read as a teenager. Probably precisely because they got good adaptations that helped them become mainstream.
The movies sucked because they were really bad movies. A lot of movies don't ram the whole book into a script and are extraordinary good. She doesn't understand what makes an adaptation grwat, but there are plenty of video analyse about this topic. Plus Twilight is just a stack of awfully written books with a totally toxic "love" story.
What's really concerning for me these days is how so many "creatives" get to helm and create shows when it seems apparent upon release that they didn't really respect the material or the fans. For instance: Game of Thrones: D+D dropped the ball when they ran out of George's material. The Witcher: Apparently, the writers actively mocked and showed disdain for the books. The Wheel of Time: Brandon had positive things to say but the show is rushed and makes so many unliked creative changes and really underdid the worldbuilding. Rings of Power: Created a show without all the rights to the source material and is clear that they probably would've followed their own path anyway. I was initially excited for the Kingkiller adaptation with Lin Manuel Miranda, but I think that's probably left shelved for now.
I actually agree with you about not being sure why they would remake Harry Potter already, though. Buut I'm kinda on the fence about LotR, but maybe that's because I'm aware of the animated versions, so I know that the Peter Jackson movies and the books already aren't the only versions out there(and that's not even mentioning video games)-and there is also the fact that there are multiple versions of certain stories from Tolkien himself, too(The Hobbit before and after being edited to be in the same world as the later trilogy, just for one example).
We did have multiple adaptations/reboots of Planet of the Apes. The original SF book was published in 1963 (it was great by the way) with the first movie in 1968 (and follow up movies until 1973). there was a remake in 2001 and then 'reboot' of the series in 2011-2017. Interestingly there were animated series (1975), comic books (mid 1970s) and rebooted comics in 1990 and even video games. I think most would say the movies are pretty decent...
The difference (to me) when it comes to something like Planet of the Apes, or something like Sherlock Holmes or even Star Trek, is that all those movies/shows were not telling the same story over and over. And BTW the Tim Burton one is considered a bomb by most. The original 70s movies and tv show were more like continuing tales from the same world. Then you have major changes to technology and screenwriting between then and the most recent series, which exactly fits the point of when remakes seem appropriate. It seems you are just quibbling about when the book was written to quibble. Now if the new LOTR movies were just set in that universe, that’s one thing. But there is little need to tell the same story over again when nothing much has changed, they were so well received, and little time has passed. It’s nothing but a money grab. With Harry Potter, cynical me thinks the studio built a massive theme park and perhaps admission is down, they latest movies bombed, and now they’re getting nervous. It’s all about money.
I always say no with some choice words at the end of it and that'll be that. And then several days, weeks, months and/or years after the fact i remember they did it and try it because I'm too bored to look for another show and/or film to kill time. And then ended up either loving it or hating it (but mostly loving it because I'm easy to please but-) for one unecessary reason or another. When it comes out, it'll probably be the same thing i do with every other property (minus LotR, that i was resolute in not watching it nor ever watching it even if my boredom ultimately ends me. I did somehow enjoy WoT adaptation despite the fact i didn't read the books and that i noticed some flaws. My bad on the not reading part). I'm sure there are others who do the same and won't say it aloud. Y'all aren't alone here people. Much love and respect. P.S.: i'll just watch it day one so that i won't have to down the line. And yes, i'm excited about WoT season 2. @ me.
lmao this comment is wayy too real. "I won't do it until I'm super bored a few years later" hard relate. I'm excited for Season 2 as well, actually. I didn't like decisions they made in season 1, especially episode 8, but it's hardly dead to me.
It’s always fun listening to your long winded rants with stats and history and bookish opinions. I’m excited for new Harry Potter books over any other medium for sure, except maybe Hogwarts Legacy 2. We NEED Quidditch!Also don’t stop making these videos!
Totally agree 100% I'm very apprehensive of the remakes. On the 3rd Fantastic Beasts movie it may be noteworthy that there was probably a bit of a boycott as a result of the Johnny Depp situation. I imagine that had a significant impact.
Unlike remakes of the past, you can more often than not tell what the quality of the film/show is going to be like just by who's involved in it and how much they care about the source material. No one involved in Amazon's Waste of Time or Rings of Prime know anything about the books and even worse don't care or actively hate the material they are adapting and you can see that when they talk about it. The SHEER hubris and audacity of the writers of ROP to claim they were making the 'story Tolkien never wrote' shows you that they believe themselves better than Tolkien and that they were not only changing but improving the world he created. Or the Witcher, where Cavil had to fight tooth and nail with the creators to try and keep them true to the world before he decided he'd had enough and walked. All of these shows have a pattern to them. People with little to no skills are being given massive projects for worlds they don't understand, don't care about, or hate so they twist it to fit their worldview and 'improve' it according to how they think it should look like. Compare to the behind the scenes of the OG LOTR, where McKellen would be reading the books while on set so he better understood the character he was playing and the world of Tolkien. Where Jackson wanted to stay true to the messages and ideals of Tolkien without interjecting his own views into the work. Where you had guys literally spending every waking moment making plastic chainmail shirts for the cast to the point where they wore off their fingerprints. THAT level of love for a piece of work and the self-sacrifice that was put into making it is why it is one of if not THE best trilogy of all times and why all of these soulless remakes filled with modern-day political crap can't hope to measure up or even come close to because they've already dated themselves and butchered the original work so it could be used as a known IP while having absolutely nothing to do with what people know and more importantly care about. 20 years from now, people will still remember Jackson's trilogy. The same cannot be said for Rings of Power, Wheel of Time, the Witcher, Willow, Halo, or whatever other 'adaptation' they've made that I've already forgotten.
I ultimately don't care about LotR remakes. I have what I have, and I will always have the books. Also, I REALLY don't think we're getting LotR remakes any time soon. Like War of the Rohirrim, I believe that we'll be getting LOTR adjacent content. I don't think PJ & Co are interested in going back to that. But there are so many stories to be told that tie in to the trilogy.
What books would you like to see be made into a movie? To be a bit fair though, the HP remakes could go deeper into the books and get the characters better. I'd have called The Next Generation more of a sequel to the original series. Honestly though, i liked the "Fantastic Beast" movies; though i was a bit annoyed at the second due to the mystery of who Creedence was being left unresolved and Queenie going to the bad guys.
I'm excited for the upcoming Sanderson adaptation that he has hinted at, but do you guys think it has any chance of actually living up to expectations?
I know plenty of people who dislike the peter Jackson interpretations of J.R.R. Tolkien's works, as well as many who dislike the harry potter films. Just because it was widely successful and well liked and a part of the cultural zeitgeist does not mean that we cannot have multiple interpretations and adaptations. Peter Jackson didn't invent Lord of the Rings and he sure as hell isn't the only person who read them and wanted to make a movie about them. My main argument being the hobbit, which was meant to be a Del Toro film, but went to Jackson and we all know ho that went. I don't think this comes down to things being successfully done already or not, it comes down to interpretation and adaption. I mean, Spider-Man is one of the most popular character of all time and we are constantly remaking his movies' and re-connecting them.. There is power in alternate perspectives. Usually we don't want these remakes because it feels like its for the sake of money, or it's because we cherish our childhood first interaction with the media and don't want to lose that feeling or view of that medium. An adaptation doesn't need to be "better" but it needs to be unique and offer it's own interpretation. The batman, Batman 1989, and Batman begins is an amazing example. Personally, I think the Lord of the Rings Aesthetic Jackson and crew came up with has completely altered Fantasy for the worst in a lot of ways and would be excited for a new interpretation to breathe life into the fantasy genre.
For me, I think the main problem with remakes is how exhausting it is. My enthusiasm for the property X was high when it first came out, and now I have to manufacture the same level of enthusiasm for property X . . . again? Maybe we feel an unnecessary obligation to our fandoms? i.e., Since I'm a Marvel fan, I guess I need to see this Marvel movie even though I'm not really feeling it-because if I miss it, then I'm not a true fan, and I can't be part of the never-ending conversation.
Absolutely nailed it. I'm a giant HP fan, so I feel like I should be super excited about the TV show. In theory I am (since I'm not a fan of the movies, really, they left too much out, despite spot-on casting) - but I've felt a similar exhaustion recently with everything that's coming out that I "should" watch. Star Wars, Marvel, Rings of Power, etc etc... it's almost like all the fandoms doing it at one time is causing the burn out.
Another comment had me thinking: it could also be that movies were not as widely produced as they are now: we have streaming, ability to buy movies for in-home watching, etc. We are more exposed/inundated with content now then back then, especially the early 1900s when the Squaw Man films were being made.
I usually assume the people who love HP movies never read the books, because the movies were straight trash. I can't wait for a HP adaptation worthy of the books
Yeah I mean I don’t think the movies are trash (I’ll stand behind most of the casting as incredible) but as a giant HP fan I’ve only seen each movie once lol like they didn’t do it for me, I was too connected to the details. That being said, I don’t really trust them making another lol
@Bookborn uff, if you thought the movies were too close to the books (in my opinion they were loose imitations), I'm betting you will hate the new adaptation. Look forward to seeing your thoughts anyway 😊 (if you will watch it)
Nice video! I do think some of your conclusions mainly apply to Western fantasy and Hollywood though. If you check out the works of Jin Yong in Asia, many of his novels get adapted every few years into yet another TV show.
I am actually pretty hyped about the Harry Potter series. While the films were fun, the constraints of the film per book format meant that they left a lot of material from the books out, and a lot of the joy of the books, imo, lay in all the small, whimsical details of the wizarding that made it fell so wondrous and exotic. A TV series would have more breathing room to showcase these elements, and if they added more material to fill in the episodes I would fine with it as long as the new stuff mixed well with the original. Fantasy literature leaves so much to the imagination that I think it would be shame for the great works of the genre to only get one adaptation, I want to see how different directors and artists visualize the fantastical elements of this story. Dune for example, is such a strange and deep novel that I don't think any one movie could do it justice, but the David Lynch, Sci-fi channel and Denis Villeneuve adaptations all bring different things to the table in terms of telling its story. While its true that many remakes are cash grabs with little artistic value, I don't think we should write off the practice entirely when it has so much potential to expand on existing stories.
One way to measure success is if you can adapt the remake as a stageplay and perform it with talented but unknown actors and limited special effects. If this distilled version recreates the magic of the original story then it can be enhanced with a big budget. If not, there is no foundation, it is simply bad writing relying on brand recognition and CGI. Then all you have to do is capture lightning in a bottle! Peter Jackson did it three times but no more.
I feel there is a collective mandela effect going on, in the sense that, the big studios are just either not capable or, unwilling to faithfully adapt any ideals of the previous generations. So we are left to be wary of news about adaptations of our beloved materials.
My opinion on the Harry Potter show is that I'm very excited! I'm so excited to get a different, less rushed take, with hopefully better actors for a lot of the kids. My teen children are offended, however, because they are so synonymous with the books. I started reading them right before the first movie came out when I was a junior in high school and never attached any of the movie actors to book characters. For me, seeing each movie was part "oh this is fun!" and part major disappointment. The only movie that I just loved without much disappointment was #7. Now...I saw the LOTR movies before reading each book, and I would be very annoyed if they tried to remake Peter Jackson's movies! I bet likely might refuse to watch them.
Interesting take on when you read the books vs saw the movies. As a giant, giant HP fan, I'll admit that the idea of a TV show has always interested me because the movies left too much out. I just...don't trust anything anymore LOL. But I hope it's good!
The presence of these remakes for me personally is that it reinforces this idea that they supposedly replace the originals, just merely by existing. It's like rewriting history almost and I honestly hate that, because my belief is that remakes shouldn't be made for the sake of replacing something, in fact some shouldn't even be done at all. Mind you that this is coming from my background in gaming and not so much as movies and tv shows. The truth is, it's to make easy money, because it's guaranteed. As for the show. It's going to look good, but it's never going to be able to encapsulate the magic and chemistry that the originals films had. The wonder and discovery of Hogwarts, the adventure from exploring a magical world full of characters that felt like friends growing up etc.
I was excited to hear about a series in the Potter-universe, but I feel like they have missed the mark on doing a remake. The movies aren't dated enough to warrant it imho. I'd much rather see some auror-spinof set either before or after the movies. Give me an noir-esque auror-detective show!
In regards to Harry Potter, I'm surprised a TV adaptation wasn't announced sooner. As to whether or not it should be adapted again so soon after such a popular and beloved adaptation, to be honest, I'm oddly indifferent. I haven't read the books, I watched films and enjoyed them (still have 0 desire to watch the Fantastic Beast films) but I think I've just accepted that some form of remake is inevitable for potentially any property, whether its warranted or not.
What irks me about all the remakes is that I can see the corporate mentality behind it. "There's a brand with an established IP like Lord of the Rings, so let's keep milking it". That mentality just doesn't mesh with creativity and entertainment. Personally, I did not like Rings of Power. I especially didn't like the Harfoots in it because they spent a lot of screen time playing a small role in the story. Why were Harfoots in it? Brand recognition. When you think of Lord of the Rings, you think of hobbits like Sam and Frodo. So the brand must continue with Harfoots. That is a corporate mentality that has NO BUSINESS being in writing.
Personally, I'm perfectly fine with remakes of popular IP. I'm going to go a different route to explain why. I love many of the Disney classics. IE: Beauty & the Beast, The Little Mermaid, Lion King, Aladdin, etc. Even more bafflingly, these aren't really a different take on "the Aladdin story", the only major differences are the live action element and then bloating their runtimes with added content. Frankly, I haven't liked any of them. But they've been grossing upwards of a billion dollars regularly because people go see them. In regard to them existing, I don't care. To me, it can only be a good thing. Something that has already been adapted well isn't nearly as risky, and a single failed adaptation won't destroy its legacy. As you pointed out, the Fantastic Beasts movies have been on a steady decline to the point that a fourth movie is questionable at best. And yet, here comes a new Harry Potter tv show. Warner Bros was clearly not deterred by the lack luster results and are willing to try again. As for my personal reception: If it's done well, I get a second really good adaptation. (I adore both versions of Planet of the Apes, Battlestar Galactica, multiple versions of our comic book superheroes, Invasion of the Body Snatchers, 12 Monkeys, etc). If it's bad, I still have a really good version of the work already. Personally, the argument that the new one taints the original doesn't hold a lot of weight with me. But finally, I think these remakes are good and necessary in modern Hollywood. Currently, fans complain about the lack of original content when there are more original movies being made than ever before. The public doesn't support them though. There are thousands of movies coming out each year. The public movie-going audience supports franchise installments and big remakes above all else. As someone who goes to the movies 2-3 times per week, it's always disheartening to see an empty theater during a great movie. So studios are making this content because it is what will make them money. And having a sure thing in the bank is what allows them to roll the dice. Take a look at Sony's entire movie slate or Warner Bros entire movie slate or Disney or Universal etc. Yes, Sony makes a billion Spider-man movies, but they also has a huge budget Napoleon movie that is not a guaranteed hit coming out later this year. I'm not exactly excited for A Little Mermaid (but I'm going to see it because: fuck the racists), but every dollar Little Mermaid makes allows them to increase the budget of upcoming original movies like Elemental, Wish, Haunting in Venice (based on a book), The Creator, Next Goal Wins, etc. Don't get me wrong, I understand the initial aversion, but to me, the original stuff doesn't get nearly as supported by the public, so the only way the original stuff is going to get made is if the public does start supporting original content or if the studios pocket enough money on recognizable stuff to make up for it. I'd love to get your thoughts!
"More content is more content" is a really shallow way to look at things imo. I personally don't want 10 seasons of mediocrity or trash when watching a show. I'd rather have 1 or 2 seasons of quality with a good ending. It gives me more to enjoy and tall about than 10 seasons of trash. I was listening to a gentleman on YT called Little Platoon who said, in reference to Mario, " if you had a choice between fun and entertaining or fun, entertaining, and well written, which would you choose?" And I think that's a no brianer. As to the Harry Potter I don't want a remake TV show, but if it's good I'll watch it. Just like House of the Dragon, if it's good I'll watch it. It's a win win. I get something good to watch, and they get told that this thing they made is good so they will hopefully make more (well if they actually see why it was good). Ultimately, however, I don't want any remakes. And I don't want them to adapt anything new. I don't trust hollyweird. But if their response was "we have to make something, so what should we make" I'd respond that they should adapt something that was already made and flopped. And I love you brought up Eragon, cause that's the example I'd use when pitching. That show flopped, but people still love the books so let's try again and stay as faithful as we can. Great video, it's always a joy to see!
I’ve never wanted a remake more than “The Dark Tower”. They told the shell of the story, and none of the heart. “Go then, there are other worlds than these.”
So, I will say, I am probably not going to watch them. Voting with our dollar is probably not going to matter, but I will say I think it has a much better chance than some. Usually when these things happen, the book fans are mad and try and vote with their dollar, and fail....because their are dozens of us. But this time, it is the movie fans who also likely think this is dumb. Obviously commercially the new LotR and HP stuff is probably going to succeed at least for a while. Which is what they care about, but it is annoying because LotR especially will almost certainly be considered a failure in the public eye. Because to be a success it will have to be at least comparably good to the current Lord of the Rings movies.
I feel like making adaptations of books is sooooo easy compared to writing the books. Imagine the time and effort invested in The Lord of The Rings and then some dude makes a cheap adaptation but everybody watches it, because the former work was so successful. It is easy money, every movie is the same (filled with cheap jokes) and it is easier to watch a movie or a show than read the damn book.
Hilariously, fans actually successfully voted with their dollars to CONTINUE the Twilight movies-even after thinking the first one didn't actually do the best job that it could have. They collectively decided to rewatch it in cinemas repeatedly anyhow, to give the movies a chance to improve. And because this also happened at the advent of social media as we know it today, fans were online commenting the creators or production company or such directly, making it clear that they wanted movie #2 to do it better or they would vote with their dollars again so it bombed if it didn't. Lol Most people seem to agree that the movies did "get better" as the series went along-except for those occasional exceptions who actually think they got worse because they personally just prefer the more arthouse-y and stylized or whatever filmmaking from the first movie best. Lol
I think remakes of already existing adaptations should only happen if the original adaptation was bad. For example, I adore the recent film adaptation of Dune. The original was pretty bad while the new version adds a lot. It the original is beloved I think the property shouldn't be touched because good films last for so long. For example, the movie Aliens which came out the year I was born is timeless. From the story to the casting to the effects, to the script etc, it is an immaculate movie. I would be incredibly sceptical if they remade it because it really doesn't need to be touched. Harry Potter and LOTR are similar, let the art stand alone in its excellence.
I'm completely uninterested in a Harry Potter remake. I used to be a huge fan. I started reading the books in high school in 1997, before the movies and before anyone knew about them. I've just had enough of it. And the same with GoT. I still have 2 episodes left of HotD that I haven't watched because I can't make myself get into it. I would love to see some new SFF adaptations. Maybe I'm just getting old and out of touch, though. Lol
Yeah, I started reading HP before the movies came out too! I'm like...a giant, giant fan. The idea doesn't bother me, I just don't trust them at all to get it right lol.
I wasn't surprised to hear they were remaking Twilight at all! Even though the movies were incredibly successful, there's still quite a lot that was left out from the movies that plenty of fans wish had been incorporated into them somehow. (The backstories of all of the vampires, just for one small example; and a lot of the '[monster ]mythos' or 'lore' and whatever of the Twilight world, or such, in general.) There is also quite a lot that many people feel could have been improved or done differently / "better" or such even from what was done in the books. So there is plenty of room for them to take another crack at adapting the story, and more than just one way that they could go about approaching doing so too. However, I literally just suspected that someone was going to for some reason JUST because Netflix suddenly started streaming the entire series, and something about the way Netflix went about that just vibed to me very similarly to how Netflix went about streaming the animated Avatar: The Last Airbender series and such before announcing there was a new live-action version in the works. There's also the fact that the 'Midnight Sun' book (Twilight but from Edward's POV) finally came out, and the fact that there was a whole wave of people reading or watching Twilight for the first time and challenging themselves to question whether or not they believed it truly deserve the level of hate it had gotten(because the Twilight franchise has always gotten just as much hate as it has gotten adoration). So.. you could say, if you will, there has been a fair bit of renewed interest in the series in the last year or two or so-probably making it rather ripe to revisit for a new generation. But maybe that's just me and my own way of looking at it; idk!
For a remake to be successful, the remake needs to be better than the original. This is why I think the Harry Potter tv show has a long shot at being successful. The Potter movies are generally considered good, not great. There aren’t many claiming Harry Potter are the best movies ever. Lord of the Rings was already adapted perfectly and is universally considered one of the best movie trilogies ever. There is almost no chance a remake would be successful. Even attempting a remake is borderline insulting because it could tarnish the overall LoTR brand.
I think it's just simple corporate greed. The fandom and the story are already there and the high earnings almost guaranteed. Right there for the taking.
Issue with Harry Potter is the company own the rights to 'The Wizarding World' and they want to do stuff with that. However, they've deemed taking a risk and expanding the world as dead because Fantastic Beasts sucked and didn't have good numbers at the box office. The other profitable option would be doing a sequel tapping into nostalgia with the original trio but the actors won't come back and they can't just do it without them as that wouldn't tap into the nostalgia money. The only other option they have if they want to keep Harry Potter and generating movies/tv out of it is to redo it.
Thanks for another great video. I agree with your economic analysis (who couldn't). And that is the problem. The non-artistic is dominating. And everybody will go watch, even if it is just to be able to bash it. And if they're smart they will mess it up with some really controversial choices, because that will give even more traction than just a moderate review. So my somewhat cynical thoughts based on your statement "the only way to make a better remake is to go closer to the source material" are: 'Yes given the current self-glorifying its-the-fanbase-fault attitude in hollywood, that is what they probably will do' 😜 But let's see if I'm right.
I actually disagree that the only way to make a "better" adaptation is to make a more faithful one. I'm a strong believer in creative freedom, and as much as I want there to be faithful adaptations, I also want there to be more loose adaptations that feel free to make creative differences and/or reimagine existing stories in new ways or through new lenses and such too!. I'm that weird person who actually loves remakes. And "updated versions"-and such. I love seeing new creators' takes on the same stories. Even when a previous version was already quite successful or well-done and wasn't a flop! ^--^ (But, then again, I'm also the kind of person who can derive just as much enjoyment from reading or watching stories that some people call boring or too alike for basically just being each other but with one tiny difference[ such as angels instead of vampires or so on] as I can get from reading or watching super unique and different or fresh and original stories or such as well. Loll)
It is too soon for LOTR and Harry Potter. It is already time for a new Wheel of Time adaptation. The quality of the adaptation makes a difference. I do get nervous now about remakes or a relaunch of show if Amazon or Disney or WB are involved...
The Lord of the Rings remake is going to have to be something special indeed to get one dollar out of me, but I can already tell you I won't be watching the Harry Potter series. I feel like J.K. has already made enough money off those seven books. I feel certain I can find something else to watch. Or a good book to read.
As for me, I'm waiting on another remake of The Squaw Man.
True Squaw-heads are all about the 1931 version. Everyone else is a fake fan.
The reason all the classics have so many remakes is because of what they are: public domain, so anyone can make a version if they want. Probably also the reason why they want to make as much lord of the rings stuff as possible. In 20 years LofR will also be public domain and we will be flooded.
I can't believe I didn't even think of the public domain aspect; that would've been a really interesting thing to go in to. Great point.
There are so many caveats to the public domain laws and there are plenty of loopholes they can use to extend it further down the line
20 years?
Noone will care anymore after 💩 like #RingsOfPower .
How many people care about The Hobbit?
A few simple mindet people like it but most people see it as a cringefest. It's just bad by things you can measure like logic faults and dumb decisions and inconsictencies.
It can only get worse / more woke till the woke trend is over and we look at all the franchises woke Hollywood burned.
Copyright lasts for the life of the author plus 75years or more, so public domain might not be a dominant factor for a lot of remakes
they could make anything. there are more stories.
I can't imagine what's going on in the head of someone who looks at Jackson's trilogy and thinks, "I'm going to remake that."
Money
This reminds me of when The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe movie came out, my mom decided that she wouldn't see it. I enjoyed the movie and told her so, but she told me why she didn't want to watch it: It was because she didn't want the characters of the story to be the movie characters, but those that she had been imagining all these years already. Now, obviously the situation is a little different here as we are talking about two visual representations being close together in time, but I could see a lot of people not watching these new series because they don't want to sully what they already honor and have honored for years, recently. Hope that makes sense. I for one will probably wait for the jury to be out before watching either one.
Years ago, I shopped a screenplay around Hollywood. I was fortunate enough to pitch to New Line Cinema, and Silver Pictures (Joel Silver's company), among others. I kept hearing the same feedback, like: "fresh", "original", "different", etc. Sounds good, right? Well, they all passed because fresh, original, and different = risky. They wanted something that was proven.
Very salient point, thank you for sharing this one with us
Man that is just sad. Hope it gets made someday.
It seems like we're in an era when people with their hands on the pursestrings are controlling decisions about creative content more than creative people are. That being the case, they are going to go with what they think will sell, which is why we're inundated with unnecessary remakes while promising new stories are ignored. Thanks for the great video, Bookborn!
The problem is monopoly. Look how much Disney owns. There are now so few media companies that any new ones starting get immediately squeezed out or bought up. Very few people with a break out media company are going to say no to a multimillion dollar buy out. Even if they could make more in the future, the buy out is happening now. Few people give up definite financial security for only the chance at more money later on.
Yeah when you have too few hands holding all the keys, not only are they risk adverse, the profit margins get thinner and thinner. A lot of businesses need to be broken up.
Dune is a good example of a SFF book that's been successfully re-adapted. I don't know of anyone who was mad about that 😂
The series version of Dune wasn't widely watched and most people consider the David Lynch film a failure so a proper adaptation is something fans wanted.
I hated the new dune movie. I know many did but I didn't.
@@darkhighwayman1757 Dune part 1 for me was like a perfect, textbook example of "all style no substance." And it's strange given how good I felt the director's Blade Runner sequel was being his own idea rather than an adaption.
You mentioned it but i really think that if the first adaptation was really well done the hill a remake has to climb is so high. If the first adaptation is bad however all i want is a remake. The Wheel of Time show is still on going and i already wish i could get a remake of season 1 lol
Yes exactly this! If something is super well received I feel like the time difference between the two has to be sooo much larger.
I already wish RoP remake...
But they'll only make remakes of things that already were very successful, because that increases their worst case earnings by a lot. A mediocre new show would bomb spectacularly, but a mediocre remake of an extremely successful thing will always be successful (even if doesn't reach the original in terms of numbers).
@@faultier1158 That's just not true. They will remake ones that are popular and well-known. LOTR had three prior movies that all bombed and the studio still made remakes.
@@thomasc9036 The PJ trilogy are NOT remakes though.
Bookborn: Makes series of well-reasoned arguments
Me: HP, LOTR and Twilight again? Where's my faithful Earthsea adaptation? 🤭
Here, here, that Sci Fi movie "Earthsea" was a travesty.
Personally I don’t mind them converting a book into a TV show (if it was previously done as a movie). In my opinion it makes it different enough to warrant the change, since TV shows tend to be more intimate and book like, focusing less on special budget heavy effects and set pieces and more on characters and their relationships with each other (much like books do). I haven’t read or watched His Dark Materials, but I hear the TV show is far better than the movie that came out years ago and benefited from the change in medium.
I liked the LOTR movie trilogy for all it's flaws, and agree we don't really need a new version of the story in that format right now. But the novel could be a brilliant television show-- the books are already set up perfectly for an episodic format, both via it's chapters and it's "books" (technically LOTR is six 'books', not three). The beginning of the Two Towers in particular would make for some excellent television, as it ping pongs between Aragorn's POV and Merry/Pippin's POV and each chapter tends to end on an interesting "cliffhanger". A TV show would also have more time to explore a lot of the stuff that got cut for the movie adaptation (the Elves at Woodhall, Tom Bombadil, The Druedain, the Paths of the Dead, Ioreth/Beregond, The Scouring of the Shire, etc).
Ultimately I don't dislike the idea of more adaptations, I just dislike the "franchise" mentality of these big production companies. They aren't interested in creating a good (or even just interesting!) adaptation of the text, they only want to cash in and get out. And I'm not interested in giving views or money to such pursuits.
Your last statement there is just GOLD. EXACTLY. I've lost all good-will I ever had for these productions. I think if someone was actually super passionate and had a vision, these things could turn out amazing. I just don't hold my breath anymore. TBH, the Harry Potter movies didn't do much for me (I was too close to the source material) so the idea of a show could be super cool to get all the details in. I just don't believe it'll actually be good anymore lol.
That's just an unfair judgment and too removed from reality. Take for example collegiate sports. NCAA Men's Football and Basketball generate all the revenue to support other college sports. The entertainment industry is very similar.
@@Bookborn Right, and I feel like that's because you need quality showrunners and writers to dedicate themselves to these projects, and my suspicion is that those people don't want to work for the big studios. They know the studios won't give them free reign and will hang them out to dry for the studio's own poor decisions.
I'm sorry it's just a pet peeve: the Lord of the Rings is one novel published in three volumes. Yes, volumes are each divided into two "books," but neither Tolkien nor his publishers considered the work a trilogy.
My Potterhead friends told me with great excitement about this new series.
To be Frank I think I've just grown out of this series and now I'm into other stories so I don't really plan to watch this, but may probably have a peek. That being said, when I think about my feelings about the Harry Potter movies, and as I discussed with my friends, it may be a good move. Where I lived, the movies became much more popular first, and I got to know about the books only later, and I forever live with the regret of having watched the first four movies before starting my favourite book series of my childhood. Most of the Potterhead I know, and I agree with them, believe that in many ways the movies slaughtered the books. So MUCH content was cut down. I do agree with you though, some things HAVE become iconic and unforgettable, I can't imagine anyone else as Snape, however there were also characters whom I wouldn't mind replaced with fresher faces, Harry, Ron and Hermione among them I'm afraid, because especially in the later movies I felt they deviated significantly from the book characters. I also feel that adapting the book into a web series format increases the chances of it being more faithful to the book, more details being captured and overall more effort being put instead of just summarising it somehow and only succeeding in a giving a bunch of spoilers for those who may read the books later.
Here’s the deal. I’m gonna watch the show. I’m the problem. I love Harry Potter. I didn’t like the movies for a lot of reasons you stated (but I must admit they are super successful and well regarded by most). I would love the show to be good. I just don’t trust it anymore haha
I bought Hogwarts Legacy to support the anti-woke idea.
It's a beautiful game bus as soon as it was clear that the 🏳️🌈 can't cancel this game I lost interest in the Harry Potter Universe again.
A new adaptation can only be a checklist for woke-points at this moment and I am against being preached THE 🏳️🌈 MESSAGE
They know that everyone loves Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings so essentially companies just want to "give us what we want" i.e. fanservice to get money. And they know that even if what they make is bad, that the name recognition of these properties will spark enough curiosity to get a lot of people to watch before people say its bad. The struggle will be if they want to do a series as it may start to die off.
The problem with remaking these instead of doing something new will be whether or not people don't feel the need to watch them at all because people feel like they already know the story. I for one have no interest in watching these remakes. I'll just find out how it went second hand via youtube.
I have more interest watching the HP one but only because I"m in the minority and didn't love the movies other than their casting. However, I do think the whole "fan service" thing is funny because it feels like they rarely know what fans *actually* want (that's me side-eyeing Obi Wan, for example)
The reason for remakes is money. Plain and simple. Hollywood doesn’t really have a lot of creativity and as you said, they are risk averse. How will they have actors playing HP and crew for 10 years? I probably won’t watch them. There’s so many great fantasy and sci fi stories that can be adapted.
One thing you didn't mention is additional products tied to remaking content. Toys, t-shirts, theme parks, other media formats, and others are huge decision factors to go with remakes than taking risks by introducing new content.
Ohhh that’s a super fascinating angle. Very true that the known properties have way more potential for that
@@Bookborn I read an article that Star Wars generate more revenue from Star Wars IP/promotional products than actual TV shows and movies by a far margin and they are a steady source of revenue for Disney.
On the question of like "Who cares? Good content is good content, that's all that matters" -- I think it matters a huge deal. If we take stories seriously, then we have to appreciate they're not just "content" made for passive entertainment. They're how a culture defines itself -- how people learn to see themselves in a place and time, and how they express their perspective. Constant remakes and adaptations and sequels ensure that the same group of people get their stories told over and over, without any room for new generations to tell their own. It's the boomerfication of fiction.
I love the Earthsea books. They came out about thirty years before Harry Potter and never got a good adaptation. But I wouldn't want a world where Earthsea adaptations became so dominant they prevented the possibility of Harry Potter movies, and I think that's what happens when we recycle the same ideas. There's only so much money to go around, so, how do we make sure we're not blocking the next Harry Potter or MCU from ever occurring?
Part of this is on the fans letting go a little, and not accepting fanservice as enough of a reason to watch something mediocre. Studios need to have an incentive to produce different things. I don't think that'll happen, but I think that's what we need.
People want the stories they love to remain pure and sacred, and they hate it when the same amount of appreciation and care was not put into the adaptation. People do not really care how close it is to the original work as long as it is good. It makes people, either a fan or not enjoy the story, and it put people closer to the original work. I remember when The Hobbit came out, people hated the movie, but it made people interested in LOTR again or read the book.
Yeah, and I think that's why in a lot of ways despite the fact Jackson changed a decent amount of LOTR, people still attach to it and love it, because so much CARE was put into it. It doesn't have to be perfect, it just has to give you the feeling of your favorite stories.
I'm ready for a remake of Wheel of Time. ;)
I'm good with the remake of Harry Potter as Prisoner of Azkaban on were only inspired by the books and left so many story lines out. If they were doing it as movies, I wouldn't be cool with it. #justiceforron #justiceforpeeves
and that terrible Rings of power. Both those shows are terrible
I think one thing to keep in mind is fans vs audience. They're not the same thing...fans keep the longevity going for those long-term gains. But even a person who isn't a fan and doesn't convert to one is still an audience who bought the ticket, maybe bought some merch for a fan friend or relative...and the studios are looking at grabbing the audience even over the fandom. The fandom acts as yes, potential income, but more so revenue in the form of word-of-mouth and social media marketing. Good or bad, getting the word out by people who are intimately acquainted with the series, are going to be some of the loudest voices out there helping propagate it to a larger audience. Twenty years doesn't seem long to me, at 37, but considering the generation coming up behind who are now working and consumers, getting the chance to "buy-in" on the remakes...that's a huge untapped audience (i.e., income) for that type of experience.
That's a good perspective; I also wonder if the time seems less because it's harder for things to leave the public consciousness now. Back in a time where you didn't have home televisions, or didn't have VCRs, or going to the movies was a big production - having new remakes close together perhaps had a place. Now, with so much media to consume, it can often feel overwhelming.
"1590+" 😂
My history brain greatly appreciates the history of the remake section! Super well researched!
More content is more content but the reality is that the content given to us is so rarely good. In the last two decades, if we look at all of the adaptations for SFF, most have been really terrible. Harry Potter is debatable as being decent, Fantastic Beasts is terrible, the Hobbit is awful, Rings of Power is terrible, Game of Thrones took a sharp turn, etc.
Fans continued to be burned but we remain the ever optimists when they start but ,rarely do we have the gratification and satisfaction of a job well done.
lol I didn't know how to represent stories that were written over decades 🤣
Yeah, I'm actually not a fan of the Harry Potter movies; I was way too close to the books and so every change felt too gut-wrenching. However, I can't deny they were huge successes and most people love them. That being said, I still think their casting (other than about 5 huge miscasts) was incredibly spot-on. I mean, even as much as I don't love the movies, I envision some of the movie counterparts when I read now. They just NAILED it.
@@Bookborn yes- I know Alan Rickman was highlighted in the video and he was absolutely spot on. I also felt that Richard Harris’ Dumbledore was exactly how I had pictured him.
@@Bookborn What were those miscasts?
RE: The Squaw Man
I think one of the challenges modern remakes have is visibility of the original. With The Squaw Man, it's probably fair to say that the percentage of people who saw the original was fairly low compared to, say, Harry Potter. So a remake made sense. But these days we're starting to see remakes of HUGE properties. It's harder to find an audience who never saw these originals. That makes modern remakes more and more difficult in smaller time frames.
Compare that to the Oceans 11, where there was the 40 year gap that you mentioned. Not only has technology changed, but the audience for the remake is drastically different. I hadn't even heard of the original Oceans 11 when the remake came out.
One remake that I hope will be better than the previous version (fingers crossed) is the Percy Jackson show coming on Disney plus. With the author so heavily involved, I am hoping that it is a better adaptation than the 2 movies.
I agree with what you’re saying. An issue is these companies like Amazon don’t want to admit they’re wrong. With only 37% of your audience finishing The Rings of Power, along with it being the most expensive show ever, there’s absolutely no way your show is a success. The same with Wheel of Time. The only show worse than Rings of Power was Willow. Wheel of Time was equally as bad as Rings, and I love those properties. Unfortunately I watched all 3 train wrecks. Just can’t help it. And I’m part of the problem
Great video! A few things I would point out, Amazon has called ROP a success not profitable, cause there is no way it was. We have the data on Nielson streaming data and it was below HoTD which cost half of its budget. Secondly when looking at profit margins people always fail to take into account marketing is not in the budget. The general rule is marketing is about half the budget of the film, so 200 million film will have about 100 mil marketing making it actually cost 300 million. Domestic cut is about 60% of that going to the studio and international is about 45%, except china which is 25%. So the general rule of thumb from people who do this for a living is take the budget and marketing and double it thats around what a film needs to make a profit. So if a movie has a budget of 200 million we can assume another 100 for marketing so 300x2=600 million to make a profit. A lot of people see the budget and the gross and think all these movies make money and that's simply not the case a lot of the time. I think with the recent Disney Marvel and Disney Star Wars failures people are starting to come around to wanting new IP's and I am rooting for it to happen ASAP. Cheers!
Also, Amazon is not going to put out a press release saying their series was a failure. They will only ever put out positive statements about success. Are they making more? If it was a major success they’d keep it going any way possible, no matter what PR says about a story ending.
Music historian Ted Gioia has what he calls the "idiot nephew theory" to explain risk aversion in the music business. In that case, Silicon Valley tech companies are now controlling the distribution of new music, whereas the LA-based record companies (Universal, Sony, etc) make all their money from Led Zeppelin and Bob Marley, i.e. people who've already produced their work decades ago. Gioia's theory is that the merit-based Silicon Valley took over because of changes in technology, and the record companies simply gave up their culture of risk-taking. Before, people would hire their relatives to handle new artists. This led to a lot of experimenting because people really didn't know what they were doing. People would get signed and record companies would put a lot of money into developing their talent before releasing their music, and/or they'd have to hook them up with talented record producers who could make gold out of sh*t. Either way, a lot of music got released that otherwise wouldn't have, if the companies were more careful.
I think something similar is going on in the movie world, and it's bleeding into publishing. Now that film distributors have to compete with TH-cam&co, they aren't going to be interested in trying new things. Besides (they might say), if someone wants to get experimental and make a movie out of a popular scifi book or a spec script, they can just release it on TH-cam or even Amazon. The big film studios just don't have that role anymore. I think that's kinda sad, because I remember when you could go to see a movie in a theater (a big theater) that would be kinda obscure or middle-of-the-road. Not every movie has to be a huge event like Avengers: Endgame, you know? I also think book publishers are getting more risk-averse because of self-publishing and competition from small publishers. They just don't see putting out "midlist" books as their role any more. I like seeing "mid-list" at the bookstores; I like to pick up the books and browse. Browsing the web isn't the same.
I think another factor they don't pay attention to is that certain stories lend themselves to "remakes" more than others. Lord of the Rings isn't one, nor is Harry Potter. OTOH Conan the Barbarian should be remade every ten years (but without that Riddle of Steel nonsense). It would also make a great TV show WITHOUT an arc, just one adventure after another. I feel like people have forgotten how to make a series that isn't like Game of Thrones. I'd rather watch something that I could tune in to any time without having to watch hours and hours of previous episodes. I'd like a Law & Order for fantasy ;)
As a fantasy fan living in this amazing era for adaptation, I have this fear that it will end before some of my favourite stories are brought to life, so I do understand the fear that these fantasy monoliths are crowding out stories with less of a reputation. As a Harry Potter fan though, this fear also has an impact on me.
Like many I have always feltt so much was left out from the movies, some of which because HP was walking so other fantasy could run. I'm glad we can see a more faithful adaptation with some of those iconic characters and plot lines - Peeves, the whole of Goblet of Fire, the Marauders. And I've always dreamed of seeing other stories from the world being told.
I'm happy this is happening just in case the fantasy era does die out, so I can see these stories play out in live action. I hope HP isn't just more faithful, but expands on characters and plots we didn't get to see in the books.
yeah, I cut out the section of me talking about this because the video was too long; but I am a giant HP Fan and wasn't a fan of the movies (other than most of the casting). It left out too much for me, and I've always dreamed of a tv show where they might be more faithful and give us more details. However, I've just...lost all faith at this point LOL. Too many adaptations have been bad. I'm desperately hoping to be proved wrong.
Remakes can be tiring, and often don't engender very much interest in me personally, but with that being said, some seem to move in the correct direction. Off of the top of my head, one that seems to fall very nicely under your rules for a successful remake would be the recent release of Dude, by Denis Villeneuve. David Lynch's adaptation is nearly 40 years old, and wasn't well received, although it has gained a bit of a cult following. After that, a miniseries adapatation was made of the novel in 2000 by the Sci-Fi Channel (followed by another miniseries which encompassed the first two sequel novels in 2003), and if I recall these were two of the highest rated TV programs put out by that channel. All of these had significate departures from the novels, in order to make the story more accessable to non-readers of the novels
Now, nearly 20 years on from the last attempt, Villeneuve seems to be leaning hard into the source material for his adaptation, and is definitely taking full advantage in the current abilites of motion picture and CGI technology. The first movie didn't even make it half way through the story of the first book, but (imo at least) they made a good start at the "origin story", and I hope the movies continue to be successful enough to let him continue
A lot of people have been talking about Dune, but it was 40 years (so double what we are talking here) and tech has changed significantly. Of course, I didn't even know the mini-series existed until right now - I don't think it reached nearly the same fame as the original movie, and so wasn't as much in the public's consciousness. I wonder if some of my fatigue right now is that EVERYTHING seems to be a remake/adaptation of previous adaptations / hitting IPs into the ground: we have marvel, and star wars, and disney's live actions, etc etc...
Just a tip: make sure your audio levels aren’t clipping when recording. Try and keep your levels around -12 db and bring them up in post if necessary
More than ever, it feels like media companies are just mining existing material for new content, extracting what they can. You see this in the amount of movies that are biopics- Movie studios mining the lives of public figures for cheap source material. Studios just remaking and spinning off IPs that have name recognition, over and over. I have so much respect for someone who makes something all original now.
The original Ocean's 11 outside of the concept of gathering a team for a heist has nothing in common with the remake. And 4 years at the dawn of cinema is a long time since technology was developing rapidly and new technics were invented constantly, also watching older movies was a challenge back then.
I was a huge movie buff. It was my main hobby. During the pandemic I switched to the books and gradually I was watching less and reading more. Now I have almost no desire to watch anything. Those recent announcements concerning HP and LOTR remakes made me finally realase why. It's because movies/tv shows are very derivative (it's a little bit better with tv shows, but they are also longer). People in charge are afraid to take chances and keep making the same stuff! And it's so tiring. I'm sure HP tv show will be fine. At least it's not the same format, so they have something they can do different. But just an idea of new LOTR movies is a bit scary. Especially after Rings of Power. All my cynicism from when I was a movie watcher comes back. I hate it. I wish they'll make new things. :( Oh, and about Twilight. One of the actress from the movies made a podcast about books/movies. I've listened to few episodes. She said that after Twilight movies landed on Netflix, franchise experienced revival and gained new young fans. So maybe this remake is connected to that.
Oohh that’s super interesting context for twilight! I wonder how/if they’ll change the movies or if they are trying to do a straight adaptation
Yeah, out of this three Twilight is the most interesting to me. Probably because I'm not emotionally attached to it. :D Also I'm pretty sure recently there's been some kind of announcement about next Twilight book. That S. Meyer want to write next book about Renesme or something. Tv show could create some hype. So everything fits together.
As much as I love Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter and Game of Thrones, I wish some other big fantasy epics would get a chance for a faithful adaptation. There's classics like Elric, Chronicles of Amber, Conan, Belgariad, Book of the Black Sun, Farseer Saga, The Black Company, etc. And of course there's a new wave of amazing adult fantasy series like First Law, Broken Empire, Poppy War, Malazan, Powder Mage, Stormlight Archives, Manifest Delusions, Second Apocalypse, and SOOOOOOOOO much more!
Yeah I just think we need to freshen stuff up. Even if some of these new adaptations are good - and I hope they are - i think at large we are just getting franchise fatigue. I know I’ve felt it with Star Wars and marvel.
Just a couple of stray thoughts: although the first Sherlock Holmes story was published in 1887, the last was published in 1927. By this time the franchise had been adapted into a long-running play (featuring the very influential characterization by William Gillette,) several silent movies, and the first talkie was made the first year there were talkies.
Tarzan of the Apes was published in October 1912, was a best seller in 1914, and was made into eight movie serials between 1918 and 1929 with five different actors playing Tarzan. In the sound era, more than 40 Tarzan movies have been made with more than eight actors playing the part. And Tarzan novels were published until 1970. Tarzan of the Apes, the first book in the series, has been adapted at least four times I can think of.
The original James Bond novels were published between 1953 and 1966. Licensed novels continue to the present. The first James Bond film appeared in 1962 and they continue to the present. Casino Royale has been done twice.
The point of this recitation? This is the DNA of Hollywood. I haven't even talked about original Hollywood films that have been repeated, like the Broadway Melody series of musicals. Or the Thin Man movies where only the first even tries to adapt the original work. And then all of these cases I am talking about adapting materials that were not in the public domain at the time. You can write odd public domain repetition based on saving money, but these repeats...
Another layer for the difficulty of adapting LOTR and HP: Music. For many of us, the theme music for these properties is now synonymous with the books and world, regardless of how much we like them. What are they going to do with the HP theme song? With the Wizarding World theme parks? If the new show used the same theme music, would that feel appropriate? If it didn't, would that feel any better?
I agree with what you say about the short sighted-ness of monetary gain. Lots of these mega studios are public companies now, so they have shareholders that they need to keep happy. But the fan in me wishes that more risk could be taken and that there could be an understanding that that's what original work is all about. One day, people will have to realize that legacy IP's can't generate substantial cash flow perpetually. There's also their issue in technology where innovaition and scalability have made movies so expensive that maybe Hollywood has ironically and unintentionally boxed themselves into creative stagnation.
I think the other problem is the fans ourselves. We always look towards the next LOTR or the next HP. We shouldn't want for the next of its kind, we should be open towards the next "something" that is one of a kind. I think the problem is pretty complex on both sides.
Just discovered your channel and I've been binging all your videos!
In this video, you mentioned that you can't get better than the source material. But just one counter-example:
George R R Martin has said that Paddy Considine's portrayal of King Viserys in House of the Dragon is better than his version of Viserys in Fire & Blood.
Quote: "Your Viserys is better than my Viserys."
I feel like it’s a self fulfilling prophecy. The mindset shouldn’t be “if we remake this thing we will make an incredible amount of money.” It should be “we have a huge passion for this project and know if we get the correct budget and casting, it’s going to be a huge success.” A lot of books and adaptations or even actors and actresses that became huge successes weren’t well known until they had their “big break” as they say. I’m so tired of old shows and movies being remade, take a risk people!!!
AMEN AMEN AMEN. The entire "look at our giant budget" has been driving me crazy. Give me passionate people who are excited for the project.
The Maltese Falcon was adapted to film three times in 1931, 1936 and 1941. The third version, which would have been blocked by you as culture czar, is considered one of the greatest American films ever made. Thanks.
Lollll I’m not trying to be culture czar 🤣 I think you have to realize the vast differences between how tv/movies were made them versus now, and it’s something I wish I would’ve talked about. The availability of media was much less before the household tv, and it’s now even more saturated with internet and streaming. So those remakes probably didn’t feel the same as there was less access to media
Unfortunately I think this is more a reflection on the state of Hollywood. Hollywood has not been hitting the big numbers they need/want for some time. Add to that the fact that more and more are opting out of the most profitable end of their media content (i,e going to the movies) makes all the studios scared to take risks. A risk to them is anything that doesn't already have a big money spending fan base baked in. It's why we were bombarded with Marvel and DC movies, they knew those characters had money spending fans. Meanwhile, it's hard to tell if a book series has money spending fans before getting to the screen. Book fans don't have the opportunity nor do they in general buy the products of their book series. What book sells action figures like the comics did?
TL:DR Hollywood is scared of risks and wont do anything new. This includes book adaptations.
PS Hollywood is really failing now, they could have hit it big with Steven Kings The Dark Tower and that just flopped. I think all the good script writers and such left or something. I have no faith in Hollywood anymore.
Very insightful, as always. Hollywood's shift to "Content" is the key to all of this. It seems to me that there is an intentional destruction of creativity. I believe that Millennial/Gen Z audiences have been excessively & deliberately trained to be satisfied with repetition rather than innovation.
We can tell from the sales, that Hogwarts legacy proves that the potterverse has ample growth potential, and a completely new cast of characters getting their letter delivered by owl would go down well. But I have no idea why they want to revamp Harry, Hermione, and Ron and have recasts on the faculty members. Twilight has me scratching my head asking why, I figured we had reached peak zombie, but apparently we have not reached peak vampire/werewolf.
So if they stay away from the legacy characters and introduce new characters in the potterverse, it should do well. Lord of the Rings, most of us nerds would watch it, for the hatewatch but with Rings and Wheel of time, I have no expectation that this wont be another video fan fic as to how the author would have wrote it, if he was a current author.
One thing I noticed with a listing of movies with remake vs new properties, was Top Gun Maverick right at the top, and have to disagree that this was a remake and more like book 2, the conclusion. A remake to me would have the main actors recast with the same story.
Excellent as always and much more reasonable than I would be! A known property makes for easier advertising and more people watching. So yeah, money. I would favor a single movie Hobbit remake for LOTR. Mostly, I am willing to give them a chance early on and see if they can tell a story.
Missing these notifications! Big up Bookborn, love your channel!
I'm probably on the high end of your viewership's age demographic, so I doubt many folks here will recall Ralph Bakshi's cartoon version of LoTR in the late 70s. I was a teen, a huge fan (who'd already read it several times) and just LOATHED it. Which made me so resistant to the Peter Jackson movies. I clearly recall reading about them in Time Magazine, and just feeling deflated. I complained to my wife (more than she cared to hear about it). And yet, I still went to Fellowship on its opening weekend (carrying my dread with me). And was not just pleasantly surprised, but delighted! I still credit that movie for being among the very first sparks of the that rekindled my writing journey (which had been dormant for a couple of decades). (You also have to remember that it came out just 3 short months after 9/11, which was definitely a "life's too damn short to put this off any longer" event. To top things off, I turned 40 that year, so...)
I guess that experience will always temper my reactions to these remake announcements (even after my dread came true with The Hobbit movies). I always appreciate your thorough and even-handed analysis. And, as an aside, I've been watching you since darn near the beginning, and can I tell you what a natural you are on camera now? Not that you ever lacked on-camera personality, but it just really shines now. You come across like someone we've all known forever, which is pretty rare. Kudos!
Thanks Vaughn, that compliment really means a lot to me! I've been trying to improve my game and it's fun to see somehow still around since the very beginning. (PS I did actually buy that book you recommended ages ago and just still haven't read it yet lol, "The Amazons"! I've had a video I've wanted to do about that subject for over a year but it just takes too much research and turn around time for my current life. I hope to get to it maybe next year when my schedule opens up).
I really like this perspective, though. I think I've just felt super burned out lately on all the big franchises - Star Wars, Marvel, RoP - all these things that keep releasing more and more but aren't necessarily quality. It's made me jaded. I need to remain hopeful instead!
@@Bookborn I'm glad that my sincere take, which happens to be praise, seems to resonate. And it's cool that you've sincerely sought to up your game--it shows! If I can trust any topic to hang around until you get to it, it's warrior women. And I'll be among the first here for it! Hope you enjoy the book. Here's to finding the things that knock us out of our jadedness. Cheers!
The remake thing is a symptom of a bigger problem than it looks at first. Most of our high budget entertainment is becoming unsustainable. Budgets get higher and higher while the public expects to pay less and less for it. Why would anyone watch a Disney movie in theaters if they can just wait for Disney plus?
They NEED to convince huge swaths of people to pay the top value of anything they make in order to justify how much they spent on it.
That's why nothing original gets green lit or if it does, it gets a low budget: they can't afford to gamble.
They're just forgetting that MOST of those successful franchises were a gamble to begin with. Lord of the Rings wasn't seen as a guaranteed success when the movies came out and neither was Harry Potter.
Hell, STAR WARS of all things was expected to flop spectacularly.
I don't know who you are, I've never heard of your channel, but I agree with everything you just said.
Commenting before I watch***
I was curious so I looked up a classic in Mutiny on the Bounty. Movies in 1935, 62, and 84. That’s 27 and 22 years apart. That would mean HP and LOTR coming out either in 2028 or 2023 to be equivalent.
I think time seems shorter in modern times. Things stick around longer and can have a longer shelf life due to being able to own copies of media, the rise of the internet, etc.
I think that's a really interesting addition to the conversation; how does the internet and things having more availability change how we perceive things? when there weren't televisions or streaming in our very own homes, seeing movies or shows was much more of a production and less likely to carry over the years.
When the film or tv show imagery and casting reach icon status, then I think we need to lay that franchise to rest. The only way I would be interested in new Lord of the Rings movies is if they were animated. If you're changing up the medium, then it's a little more tenable to me. I've seen the Rankin/Bass adaptations, but I don't think they're as widely known to a larger audience. There are a lot of interesting things you can do in animation that could show off some really cool stuff. But what I want most of all is just to adapt new IP because there is so much good content out there instead of rehashing the old stuff.
Yeah I do think changing format can be interesting (arguably Hp is sort of doing that with movie to tv show) but ultimately you’re right in that when something becomes iconic, it needs to be decades before we retry.
The Harry Potter books make so much more sense as shows, we missed out on like 70% of the book material in those movies.
Oh it absolutely does - I’m actually not a fan of the films because I’m too close to the books - I just literally have zero trust anymore lol
@@Bookborn HBO has been doing a good job with adaptations, House of the Dragon and Last of Us had the creators very closed involved, JK will be very much involved in this show as well so we´re surely getting an adaptation much more faithful to the books than the movies with 2 hours could ever had.
Not in the Twilight fandom, but I was the one to break the news about the show to my sister who I think enjoyed the books and films back in the day. Her answer was "isn't there already a million vampire shows, why do they need to make more?"
Huge contrast to when I told her about the HP news: "Yay, they get to make good adaptation, the movies sucked since they couldn't include everything." Yeah, she doesn't have context to what an actually bad adaptation looks like, since HP and twilight are the only books she read as a teenager. Probably precisely because they got good adaptations that helped them become mainstream.
The movies sucked because they were really bad movies.
A lot of movies don't ram the whole book into a script and are extraordinary good.
She doesn't understand what makes an adaptation grwat, but there are plenty of video analyse about this topic.
Plus Twilight is just a stack of awfully written books with a totally toxic "love" story.
What's really concerning for me these days is how so many "creatives" get to helm and create shows when it seems apparent upon release that they didn't really respect the material or the fans. For instance:
Game of Thrones: D+D dropped the ball when they ran out of George's material.
The Witcher: Apparently, the writers actively mocked and showed disdain for the books.
The Wheel of Time: Brandon had positive things to say but the show is rushed and makes so many unliked creative changes and really underdid the worldbuilding.
Rings of Power: Created a show without all the rights to the source material and is clear that they probably would've followed their own path anyway.
I was initially excited for the Kingkiller adaptation with Lin Manuel Miranda, but I think that's probably left shelved for now.
I actually agree with you about not being sure why they would remake Harry Potter already, though.
Buut I'm kinda on the fence about LotR, but maybe that's because I'm aware of the animated versions, so I know that the Peter Jackson movies and the books already aren't the only versions out there(and that's not even mentioning video games)-and there is also the fact that there are multiple versions of certain stories from Tolkien himself, too(The Hobbit before and after being edited to be in the same world as the later trilogy, just for one example).
How did you achieve the new look? Lighting? Camera? Curious!
We did have multiple adaptations/reboots of Planet of the Apes. The original SF book was published in 1963 (it was great by the way) with the first movie in 1968 (and follow up movies until 1973). there was a remake in 2001 and then 'reboot' of the series in 2011-2017. Interestingly there were animated series (1975), comic books (mid 1970s) and rebooted comics in 1990 and even video games.
I think most would say the movies are pretty decent...
The difference (to me) when it comes to something like Planet of the Apes, or something like Sherlock Holmes or even Star Trek, is that all those movies/shows were not telling the same story over and over. And BTW the Tim Burton one is considered a bomb by most. The original 70s movies and tv show were more like continuing tales from the same world. Then you have major changes to technology and screenwriting between then and the most recent series, which exactly fits the point of when remakes seem appropriate. It seems you are just quibbling about when the book was written to quibble. Now if the new LOTR movies were just set in that universe, that’s one thing. But there is little need to tell the same story over again when nothing much has changed, they were so well received, and little time has passed. It’s nothing but a money grab. With Harry Potter, cynical me thinks the studio built a massive theme park and perhaps admission is down, they latest movies bombed, and now they’re getting nervous. It’s all about money.
I always say no with some choice words at the end of it and that'll be that. And then several days, weeks, months and/or years after the fact i remember they did it and try it because I'm too bored to look for another show and/or film to kill time. And then ended up either loving it or hating it (but mostly loving it because I'm easy to please but-) for one unecessary reason or another. When it comes out, it'll probably be the same thing i do with every other property (minus LotR, that i was resolute in not watching it nor ever watching it even if my boredom ultimately ends me. I did somehow enjoy WoT adaptation despite the fact i didn't read the books and that i noticed some flaws. My bad on the not reading part). I'm sure there are others who do the same and won't say it aloud. Y'all aren't alone here people. Much love and respect.
P.S.: i'll just watch it day one so that i won't have to down the line. And yes, i'm excited about WoT season 2. @ me.
lmao this comment is wayy too real. "I won't do it until I'm super bored a few years later" hard relate.
I'm excited for Season 2 as well, actually. I didn't like decisions they made in season 1, especially episode 8, but it's hardly dead to me.
It’s always fun listening to your long winded rants with stats and history and bookish opinions. I’m excited for new Harry Potter books over any other medium for sure, except maybe Hogwarts Legacy 2. We NEED Quidditch!Also don’t stop making these videos!
Totally agree 100% I'm very apprehensive of the remakes. On the 3rd Fantastic Beasts movie it may be noteworthy that there was probably a bit of a boycott as a result of the Johnny Depp situation. I imagine that had a significant impact.
Amen to all this. The bottom line for me with LOTR and The Hobbit is that it's just too soon.
Unlike remakes of the past, you can more often than not tell what the quality of the film/show is going to be like just by who's involved in it and how much they care about the source material.
No one involved in Amazon's Waste of Time or Rings of Prime know anything about the books and even worse don't care or actively hate the material they are adapting and you can see that when they talk about it.
The SHEER hubris and audacity of the writers of ROP to claim they were making the 'story Tolkien never wrote' shows you that they believe themselves better than Tolkien and that they were not only changing but improving the world he created.
Or the Witcher, where Cavil had to fight tooth and nail with the creators to try and keep them true to the world before he decided he'd had enough and walked.
All of these shows have a pattern to them. People with little to no skills are being given massive projects for worlds they don't understand, don't care about, or hate so they twist it to fit their worldview and 'improve' it according to how they think it should look like.
Compare to the behind the scenes of the OG LOTR, where McKellen would be reading the books while on set so he better understood the character he was playing and the world of Tolkien. Where Jackson wanted to stay true to the messages and ideals of Tolkien without interjecting his own views into the work. Where you had guys literally spending every waking moment making plastic chainmail shirts for the cast to the point where they wore off their fingerprints.
THAT level of love for a piece of work and the self-sacrifice that was put into making it is why it is one of if not THE best trilogy of all times and why all of these soulless remakes filled with modern-day political crap can't hope to measure up or even come close to because they've already dated themselves and butchered the original work so it could be used as a known IP while having absolutely nothing to do with what people know and more importantly care about.
20 years from now, people will still remember Jackson's trilogy. The same cannot be said for Rings of Power, Wheel of Time, the Witcher, Willow, Halo, or whatever other 'adaptation' they've made that I've already forgotten.
I ultimately don't care about LotR remakes. I have what I have, and I will always have the books. Also, I REALLY don't think we're getting LotR remakes any time soon. Like War of the Rohirrim, I believe that we'll be getting LOTR adjacent content. I don't think PJ & Co are interested in going back to that. But there are so many stories to be told that tie in to the trilogy.
What books would you like to see be made into a movie? To be a bit fair though, the HP remakes could go deeper into the books and get the characters better. I'd have called The Next Generation more of a sequel to the original series. Honestly though, i liked the "Fantastic Beast" movies; though i was a bit annoyed at the second due to the mystery of who Creedence was being left unresolved and Queenie going to the bad guys.
The reason we have so many adaptations of classics is that they are in the public domain and therefore require no licencing agreement.
I'm excited for the upcoming Sanderson adaptation that he has hinted at, but do you guys think it has any chance of actually living up to expectations?
Andor’s failure gives credibility to the argument that bad instalments tarnish the brand. It came out shortly after Obi Wan.
I know plenty of people who dislike the peter Jackson interpretations of J.R.R. Tolkien's works, as well as many who dislike the harry potter films. Just because it was widely successful and well liked and a part of the cultural zeitgeist does not mean that we cannot have multiple interpretations and adaptations. Peter Jackson didn't invent Lord of the Rings and he sure as hell isn't the only person who read them and wanted to make a movie about them. My main argument being the hobbit, which was meant to be a Del Toro film, but went to Jackson and we all know ho that went. I don't think this comes down to things being successfully done already or not, it comes down to interpretation and adaption. I mean, Spider-Man is one of the most popular character of all time and we are constantly remaking his movies' and re-connecting them.. There is power in alternate perspectives. Usually we don't want these remakes because it feels like its for the sake of money, or it's because we cherish our childhood first interaction with the media and don't want to lose that feeling or view of that medium. An adaptation doesn't need to be "better" but it needs to be unique and offer it's own interpretation. The batman, Batman 1989, and Batman begins is an amazing example.
Personally, I think the Lord of the Rings Aesthetic Jackson and crew came up with has completely altered Fantasy for the worst in a lot of ways and would be excited for a new interpretation to breathe life into the fantasy genre.
For me, I think the main problem with remakes is how exhausting it is. My enthusiasm for the property X was high when it first came out, and now I have to manufacture the same level of enthusiasm for property X . . . again? Maybe we feel an unnecessary obligation to our fandoms? i.e., Since I'm a Marvel fan, I guess I need to see this Marvel movie even though I'm not really feeling it-because if I miss it, then I'm not a true fan, and I can't be part of the never-ending conversation.
Absolutely nailed it. I'm a giant HP fan, so I feel like I should be super excited about the TV show. In theory I am (since I'm not a fan of the movies, really, they left too much out, despite spot-on casting) - but I've felt a similar exhaustion recently with everything that's coming out that I "should" watch. Star Wars, Marvel, Rings of Power, etc etc... it's almost like all the fandoms doing it at one time is causing the burn out.
We're overdue for a Spider-Man remake!
😭
That squaw man situation sounds like an artist not being satisfied with his work and trying to improve it.
Another comment had me thinking: it could also be that movies were not as widely produced as they are now: we have streaming, ability to buy movies for in-home watching, etc. We are more exposed/inundated with content now then back then, especially the early 1900s when the Squaw Man films were being made.
I usually assume the people who love HP movies never read the books, because the movies were straight trash. I can't wait for a HP adaptation worthy of the books
Yeah I mean I don’t think the movies are trash (I’ll stand behind most of the casting as incredible) but as a giant HP fan I’ve only seen each movie once lol like they didn’t do it for me, I was too connected to the details. That being said, I don’t really trust them making another lol
@Bookborn uff, if you thought the movies were too close to the books (in my opinion they were loose imitations), I'm betting you will hate the new adaptation. Look forward to seeing your thoughts anyway 😊 (if you will watch it)
Nice video! I do think some of your conclusions mainly apply to Western fantasy and Hollywood though. If you check out the works of Jin Yong in Asia, many of his novels get adapted every few years into yet another TV show.
I am actually pretty hyped about the Harry Potter series. While the films were fun, the constraints of the film per book format meant that they left a lot of material from the books out, and a lot of the joy of the books, imo, lay in all the small, whimsical details of the wizarding that made it fell so wondrous and exotic. A TV series would have more breathing room to showcase these elements, and if they added more material to fill in the episodes I would fine with it as long as the new stuff mixed well with the original.
Fantasy literature leaves so much to the imagination that I think it would be shame for the great works of the genre to only get one adaptation, I want to see how different directors and artists visualize the fantastical elements of this story.
Dune for example, is such a strange and deep novel that I don't think any one movie could do it justice, but the David Lynch, Sci-fi channel and Denis Villeneuve adaptations all bring different things to the table in terms of telling its story.
While its true that many remakes are cash grabs with little artistic value, I don't think we should write off the practice entirely when it has so much potential to expand on existing stories.
One way to measure success is if you can adapt the remake as a stageplay and perform it with talented but unknown actors and limited special effects. If this distilled version recreates the magic of the original story then it can be enhanced with a big budget. If not, there is no foundation, it is simply bad writing relying on brand recognition and CGI.
Then all you have to do is capture lightning in a bottle! Peter Jackson did it three times but no more.
I feel there is a collective mandela effect going on, in the sense that, the big studios are just either not capable or, unwilling to faithfully adapt any ideals of the previous generations. So we are left to be wary of news about adaptations of our beloved materials.
My opinion on the Harry Potter show is that I'm very excited! I'm so excited to get a different, less rushed take, with hopefully better actors for a lot of the kids. My teen children are offended, however, because they are so synonymous with the books. I started reading them right before the first movie came out when I was a junior in high school and never attached any of the movie actors to book characters. For me, seeing each movie was part "oh this is fun!" and part major disappointment. The only movie that I just loved without much disappointment was #7.
Now...I saw the LOTR movies before reading each book, and I would be very annoyed if they tried to remake Peter Jackson's movies! I bet likely might refuse to watch them.
Interesting take on when you read the books vs saw the movies. As a giant, giant HP fan, I'll admit that the idea of a TV show has always interested me because the movies left too much out. I just...don't trust anything anymore LOL. But I hope it's good!
I totally agree: if it does well, everyone will be so happy that no one will complain that the remake happened so soon.
Including me LOL. I just don't trust anyone anymore after so many disasters recently
The presence of these remakes for me personally is that it reinforces this idea that they supposedly replace the originals, just merely by existing. It's like rewriting history almost and I honestly hate that, because my belief is that remakes shouldn't be made for the sake of replacing something, in fact some shouldn't even be done at all. Mind you that this is coming from my background in gaming and not so much as movies and tv shows. The truth is, it's to make easy money, because it's guaranteed.
As for the show. It's going to look good, but it's never going to be able to encapsulate the magic and chemistry that the originals films had. The wonder and discovery of Hogwarts, the adventure from exploring a magical world full of characters that felt like friends growing up etc.
I was excited to hear about a series in the Potter-universe, but I feel like they have missed the mark on doing a remake. The movies aren't dated enough to warrant it imho.
I'd much rather see some auror-spinof set either before or after the movies. Give me an noir-esque auror-detective show!
In regards to Harry Potter, I'm surprised a TV adaptation wasn't announced sooner. As to whether or not it should be adapted again so soon after such a popular and beloved adaptation, to be honest, I'm oddly indifferent. I haven't read the books, I watched films and enjoyed them (still have 0 desire to watch the Fantastic Beast films) but I think I've just accepted that some form of remake is inevitable for potentially any property, whether its warranted or not.
What irks me about all the remakes is that I can see the corporate mentality behind it. "There's a brand with an established IP like Lord of the Rings, so let's keep milking it". That mentality just doesn't mesh with creativity and entertainment.
Personally, I did not like Rings of Power. I especially didn't like the Harfoots in it because they spent a lot of screen time playing a small role in the story. Why were Harfoots in it? Brand recognition. When you think of Lord of the Rings, you think of hobbits like Sam and Frodo. So the brand must continue with Harfoots. That is a corporate mentality that has NO BUSINESS being in writing.
Personally, I'm perfectly fine with remakes of popular IP. I'm going to go a different route to explain why. I love many of the Disney classics. IE: Beauty & the Beast, The Little Mermaid, Lion King, Aladdin, etc. Even more bafflingly, these aren't really a different take on "the Aladdin story", the only major differences are the live action element and then bloating their runtimes with added content. Frankly, I haven't liked any of them. But they've been grossing upwards of a billion dollars regularly because people go see them.
In regard to them existing, I don't care. To me, it can only be a good thing. Something that has already been adapted well isn't nearly as risky, and a single failed adaptation won't destroy its legacy. As you pointed out, the Fantastic Beasts movies have been on a steady decline to the point that a fourth movie is questionable at best. And yet, here comes a new Harry Potter tv show. Warner Bros was clearly not deterred by the lack luster results and are willing to try again. As for my personal reception: If it's done well, I get a second really good adaptation. (I adore both versions of Planet of the Apes, Battlestar Galactica, multiple versions of our comic book superheroes, Invasion of the Body Snatchers, 12 Monkeys, etc). If it's bad, I still have a really good version of the work already. Personally, the argument that the new one taints the original doesn't hold a lot of weight with me.
But finally, I think these remakes are good and necessary in modern Hollywood. Currently, fans complain about the lack of original content when there are more original movies being made than ever before. The public doesn't support them though. There are thousands of movies coming out each year. The public movie-going audience supports franchise installments and big remakes above all else. As someone who goes to the movies 2-3 times per week, it's always disheartening to see an empty theater during a great movie. So studios are making this content because it is what will make them money. And having a sure thing in the bank is what allows them to roll the dice. Take a look at Sony's entire movie slate or Warner Bros entire movie slate or Disney or Universal etc. Yes, Sony makes a billion Spider-man movies, but they also has a huge budget Napoleon movie that is not a guaranteed hit coming out later this year. I'm not exactly excited for A Little Mermaid (but I'm going to see it because: fuck the racists), but every dollar Little Mermaid makes allows them to increase the budget of upcoming original movies like Elemental, Wish, Haunting in Venice (based on a book), The Creator, Next Goal Wins, etc.
Don't get me wrong, I understand the initial aversion, but to me, the original stuff doesn't get nearly as supported by the public, so the only way the original stuff is going to get made is if the public does start supporting original content or if the studios pocket enough money on recognizable stuff to make up for it.
I'd love to get your thoughts!
"More content is more content" is a really shallow way to look at things imo. I personally don't want 10 seasons of mediocrity or trash when watching a show. I'd rather have 1 or 2 seasons of quality with a good ending. It gives me more to enjoy and tall about than 10 seasons of trash. I was listening to a gentleman on YT called Little Platoon who said, in reference to Mario, " if you had a choice between fun and entertaining or fun, entertaining, and well written, which would you choose?" And I think that's a no brianer. As to the Harry Potter I don't want a remake TV show, but if it's good I'll watch it. Just like House of the Dragon, if it's good I'll watch it. It's a win win. I get something good to watch, and they get told that this thing they made is good so they will hopefully make more (well if they actually see why it was good).
Ultimately, however, I don't want any remakes. And I don't want them to adapt anything new. I don't trust hollyweird. But if their response was "we have to make something, so what should we make" I'd respond that they should adapt something that was already made and flopped. And I love you brought up Eragon, cause that's the example I'd use when pitching. That show flopped, but people still love the books so let's try again and stay as faithful as we can.
Great video, it's always a joy to see!
I’ve never wanted a remake more than “The Dark Tower”.
They told the shell of the story, and none of the heart.
“Go then, there are other worlds than these.”
So, I will say, I am probably not going to watch them. Voting with our dollar is probably not going to matter, but I will say I think it has a much better chance than some. Usually when these things happen, the book fans are mad and try and vote with their dollar, and fail....because their are dozens of us.
But this time, it is the movie fans who also likely think this is dumb.
Obviously commercially the new LotR and HP stuff is probably going to succeed at least for a while. Which is what they care about, but it is annoying because LotR especially will almost certainly be considered a failure in the public eye. Because to be a success it will have to be at least comparably good to the current Lord of the Rings movies.
I feel like making adaptations of books is sooooo easy compared to writing the books. Imagine the time and effort invested in The Lord of The Rings and then some dude makes a cheap adaptation but everybody watches it, because the former work was so successful. It is easy money, every movie is the same (filled with cheap jokes) and it is easier to watch a movie or a show than read the damn book.
Hilariously, fans actually successfully voted with their dollars to CONTINUE the Twilight movies-even after thinking the first one didn't actually do the best job that it could have. They collectively decided to rewatch it in cinemas repeatedly anyhow, to give the movies a chance to improve. And because this also happened at the advent of social media as we know it today, fans were online commenting the creators or production company or such directly, making it clear that they wanted movie #2 to do it better or they would vote with their dollars again so it bombed if it didn't. Lol
Most people seem to agree that the movies did "get better" as the series went along-except for those occasional exceptions who actually think they got worse because they personally just prefer the more arthouse-y and stylized or whatever filmmaking from the first movie best. Lol
I think remakes of already existing adaptations should only happen if the original adaptation was bad. For example, I adore the recent film adaptation of Dune. The original was pretty bad while the new version adds a lot. It the original is beloved I think the property shouldn't be touched because good films last for so long. For example, the movie Aliens which came out the year I was born is timeless. From the story to the casting to the effects, to the script etc, it is an immaculate movie. I would be incredibly sceptical if they remade it because it really doesn't need to be touched. Harry Potter and LOTR are similar, let the art stand alone in its excellence.
I'm completely uninterested in a Harry Potter remake. I used to be a huge fan. I started reading the books in high school in 1997, before the movies and before anyone knew about them. I've just had enough of it. And the same with GoT. I still have 2 episodes left of HotD that I haven't watched because I can't make myself get into it.
I would love to see some new SFF adaptations. Maybe I'm just getting old and out of touch, though. Lol
Yeah, I started reading HP before the movies came out too! I'm like...a giant, giant fan. The idea doesn't bother me, I just don't trust them at all to get it right lol.
I wasn't surprised to hear they were remaking Twilight at all!
Even though the movies were incredibly successful, there's still quite a lot that was left out from the movies that plenty of fans wish had been incorporated into them somehow. (The backstories of all of the vampires, just for one small example; and a lot of the '[monster ]mythos' or 'lore' and whatever of the Twilight world, or such, in general.) There is also quite a lot that many people feel could have been improved or done differently / "better" or such even from what was done in the books. So there is plenty of room for them to take another crack at adapting the story, and more than just one way that they could go about approaching doing so too.
However, I literally just suspected that someone was going to for some reason JUST because Netflix suddenly started streaming the entire series, and something about the way Netflix went about that just vibed to me very similarly to how Netflix went about streaming the animated Avatar: The Last Airbender series and such before announcing there was a new live-action version in the works.
There's also the fact that the 'Midnight Sun' book (Twilight but from Edward's POV) finally came out, and the fact that there was a whole wave of people reading or watching Twilight for the first time and challenging themselves to question whether or not they believed it truly deserve the level of hate it had gotten(because the Twilight franchise has always gotten just as much hate as it has gotten adoration). So.. you could say, if you will, there has been a fair bit of renewed interest in the series in the last year or two or so-probably making it rather ripe to revisit for a new generation.
But maybe that's just me and my own way of looking at it; idk!
For a remake to be successful, the remake needs to be better than the original. This is why I think the Harry Potter tv show has a long shot at being successful. The Potter movies are generally considered good, not great. There aren’t many claiming Harry Potter are the best movies ever. Lord of the Rings was already adapted perfectly and is universally considered one of the best movie trilogies ever. There is almost no chance a remake would be successful. Even attempting a remake is borderline insulting because it could tarnish the overall LoTR brand.
I think it's just simple corporate greed. The fandom and the story are already there and the high earnings almost guaranteed. Right there for the taking.
Issue with Harry Potter is the company own the rights to 'The Wizarding World' and they want to do stuff with that. However, they've deemed taking a risk and expanding the world as dead because Fantastic Beasts sucked and didn't have good numbers at the box office. The other profitable option would be doing a sequel tapping into nostalgia with the original trio but the actors won't come back and they can't just do it without them as that wouldn't tap into the nostalgia money. The only other option they have if they want to keep Harry Potter and generating movies/tv out of it is to redo it.
The only Harry Potter show I'm waiting for? ER St Mungo's. That would be the best show ever!
Thanks for another great video. I agree with your economic analysis (who couldn't). And that is the problem. The non-artistic is dominating. And everybody will go watch, even if it is just to be able to bash it. And if they're smart they will mess it up with some really controversial choices, because that will give even more traction than just a moderate review.
So my somewhat cynical thoughts based on your statement "the only way to make a better remake is to go closer to the source material" are:
'Yes given the current self-glorifying its-the-fanbase-fault attitude in hollywood, that is what they probably will do' 😜
But let's see if I'm right.
I could go for Vorkosigan Saga, Hyperion, Earthsea, Thursday Next or literally anything new
I.....I just think they should ask me for what series they should adapt.
I mean this is it. It’s just I want everyone to have my opinion I think
@@Bookborn You would also be an acceptable arbiter. Not ideal.....but acceptable
One thing about classics: Noone owns the movie rights to Public Domain material
I actually disagree that the only way to make a "better" adaptation is to make a more faithful one. I'm a strong believer in creative freedom, and as much as I want there to be faithful adaptations, I also want there to be more loose adaptations that feel free to make creative differences and/or reimagine existing stories in new ways or through new lenses and such too!.
I'm that weird person who actually loves remakes. And "updated versions"-and such.
I love seeing new creators' takes on the same stories. Even when a previous version was already quite successful or well-done and wasn't a flop! ^--^
(But, then again, I'm also the kind of person who can derive just as much enjoyment from reading or watching stories that some people call boring or too alike for basically just being each other but with one tiny difference[ such as angels instead of vampires or so on] as I can get from reading or watching super unique and different or fresh and original stories or such as well. Loll)
It is too soon for LOTR and Harry Potter.
It is already time for a new Wheel of Time adaptation.
The quality of the adaptation makes a difference. I do get nervous now about remakes or a relaunch of show if Amazon or Disney or WB are involved...
“Evil cannot create anything new, they can only corrupt and ruin what good forces have invented or made.”
The Lord of the Rings remake is going to have to be something special indeed to get one dollar out of me, but I can already tell you I won't be watching the Harry Potter series. I feel like J.K. has already made enough money off those seven books. I feel certain I can find something else to watch. Or a good book to read.