Daniel makes stuff, and, in his spare time, writes about things like movies, kid culture, and geek stuff.
Turning Books into Blockbusters

What movies have you seen with kids in the past few years? There’s a growing chance that the stories were based on pre-existing material, writes Rachel Abramowitz for the Los Angeles Times:

“Audiences today are looking for family experiences,” said Elizabeth Gabler, president of production at Fox 2000 Pictures, which is producing the live-action “Percy Jackson.” One result of the recession is the rise in ticket sales, as movies remain one of the relatively cheaper forms of entertainment.

“With market and world conditions, it’s a much easier form of entertainment for a whole family to do together. It’s almost like a sporting event,” Gabler said. All the movie studios are hunting for existing properties with tested concepts — at least as books — that can be turned into films, though none exist on the scale of J.K. Rowling’s “Harry Potter,” with its more than 400 million copies in print and vast cultural footprint.

With movie adaptations of works like “Avatar: The Last Airbender,” “Yogi Bear,” “The Smurfs,” The Lone Ranger,” and more in the works, Hollywood is pillaging television for stories – and also reaching for the bookshelf to find classic children’s stories to draw upon. The advantage, as executives see it, is a built-in audience and the ability to reach out to parents as well as kids. Of course studios must strike a careful balance – a “balance of intensity,” one Hollywood executive says, where parents know exactly what thrills to expect.

If you’re interested in the state of children’s movies and what kids watch, I’d heartily recommend the article.

Also don’t miss the fantastic conversation at the end with the screenwriters responsible for the upcoming “Goosebumps” film:

To prepare to adapt the series into a movie (slated for release next year), screenwriters Larry Karaszewski and Scott Alexander watched 1980s flicks like “Gremlins,” “The Goonies” and “Poltergeist.”

“They’re more realistic than a lot of the family films today,” Alexander said. “The kids feel like real kids. They mess with each other. They swear. They’re uninhibited. There’s an appealing level of chaos.”

This just tickles me to no end, and my gut instinct is that Karaszewski and Alexander might really have nailed it with “Goosebumps” – unlike many of the other productions mentioned. “An appealing level of chaos…” How fantastic is that?

May 25, 2009 :: Tagged under: , , , , , , :: #