News
H'wood Preps Family-film Successors to 'Potter'
By Robert Marich
May 25, 2009 -- Studios are readying an array of family films based on established children’s properties from the publishing world including one based on Tinin (a Belgian comic popular outside the U.S.), The Hobbit from the world of J.R.R. Tolkien, Goosebumps and Percy Jackson and the Olympians.
Sony Pictures and Paramount are both behind The Adventures of Tintin: The Secret of the Unicorn, which is a $200 million production that will be a 2010 release. The director is Steven Spielberg and producer is Lord of the Rings maestro Peter Jackson.
According to a Los Angeles Times article: The studios want to be ready when a gaping hole opens in the family movie market: In 2011, Harry Potter, the second-highest-grossing movie franchise in history, will end with its eighth installment, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part II. The first five Potter films have generated $4.4 billion in global box-office receipts and billions more from DVD and merchandise sales.”
Notes the LA Times article, “As the recession forces studios to make fewer pictures, a new generation of movies based on popular children's books is emerging as a keystone of the studios' strategies. With built-in "brand awareness" -- widely known stories that have broad audience appeal -- family films represent a safer bet than many of the big-budget movies that have been made for young adult and teen audiences over the last decade.”
This is hardly a risk free strategy because “fairies and fantastical creatures don't come cheap,” notes the article by Rachel Abramowitz. Fantasy family films require movie budgets up to $200 million to pull off.
There have been disappointments in the category over the years including 2008’s $90 million production The Spiderwick Chronicles from Paramount and and the $180-million version of Philip Pullman's novel The Golden Compass from New Line/Warner Bros.
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