Posted in: Movies, Recent Updates | Tagged: fae, ridley scott

Ridley Scott Gets In On The YA Franchise Game With Book You've Never Heard Of

There's this trend in adapting young adult novels for the big screen – specifically female-centric books with a supernatural twist – where filmmakers seem to rely on an existing fanbase to turn out in droves to the theater, except this really hasn't worked, has it?

For every Hunger Games, there's a Beautiful Creatures and Percy Jackson and Mortal Instruments and The Host and Ender's Game, all advertised to be "based on the worldwide bestselling phenomenon" or some such hyperbole. And this is never reflected back in the box office.

So, I have my doubts that the book Ridley Scott has just grabbed the rights to (via Deadline) will even come close to matching the success of the few successful YA franchise out there. I've never even heard of Fae, which was released last summer, but that didn't stop the press release from touting that it's "a big bestseller in digital, and [has] become a Twitter, Facebook and Pinterest phenomenon."

I did a quick Twitter search and didn't see a lot of buzz on the book or movie news, except from the authors themselves, but the point here is I wish filmmakers would think more about finding good stories to adapt for the screen that they truly believe will connect with audiences, rather than emphasizing or relying on how big of a fanbase a property may already have. It's been proven several times over that unless you have an actual literary phenomenon on your hands, it means nothing to the film's box office prospects to pretend you do.

Enjoyed this? Please share on social media!

Stay up-to-date and support the site by following Bleeding Cool on Google News today!