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2/22/2021 2:05:08 PM
21
Why is the Fantasy Genre so Rare in Cinema?
Obviously I'm speaking *comparatively* in this post, but it's something that's been on my mind lately. To prove my point here, just think of the main three pillars of speculative fiction:
Horror. Science fiction. Fantasy.
Now think of all the mediums of storytelling:
In books - plenty of horror, plenty of sci fi, plenty of fantasy.
Ditto for television, video games (perhaps gaming is a little scarce in regards to horror but horror games are definitely out there), comics and manga, animation.
But film? Plenty of horror. Plenty of sci fi. Basically no fantasy.
This is odd to me, because looking at the success (critical and commercial) of the [i]Lord of the Rings[/i] and [i]Harry Potter[/i] movies you'd think there would be more motivation from producers to finance fantasy movies, both adaptations and originals. But with both of those series finished, and upcoming TV show adaptations of each... there hasn't really been much else fantasy in cinema.
Of course, there is superhero cinema, which has seemingly taken over the world, but I feel like most superhero movies fit more neatly into genres other than fantasy, most often sci fi or in Batman's case crime thriller. Plus, the very few fantasy movies within superhero cinema, such as [i]Aquaman[/i], can't be expected to hold the genre up on their own. If you look at literature, there is a lot of variety in terms of the fantasy subgenres. Supernatural fiction. Dark fantasy. Grimdark. High/epic fantasy. Urban fantasy. Historical fantasy. Weird fiction. Science fantasy.
The only thing I can think of is that the main drive of fantasy fiction is of course the in depth worldbuilding. That's something books, television and games can deliver, but movies aren't particularly well equipped to deal with.
That would explain fantasy's absence, as well as explaining the quantity of fantasy TV series there are... except we still have sci fi movies.
I suppose it's also possible that producing the visually stunning fantasy worlds that are possible is seen as simply too much of a financial investment, or perhaps I touched on the real reason earlier - and fantasy has simply been relegated to television in the instances it does get represented in visual media.
Ultimately this is one of the rare times I write an essay I don't have a conclusion for - becuse this time I don't have an answer. But it struck me this week just how rare one of the main pillars of speculative fiction is in cinema, so I figured I'd ask the question, get people's thoughts on this.
[b][u]Some Thoughts to End On:[/u][/b]
Would you like there to be more fantasy in cinema? Or are you happy with its absence?
Do you think a fantasy movie can deal without worldbuilding? Or maybe there's a solution to cinematic worldbuilding I havent thought of.
Perhaps you can think of a lot of fantasy cinema - and I've just missed it?
Let me know your thoughts on the topic.
And lastly, if there were to be more fantasy films - what would you like to see from them?
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LOTR is basically the pedestal and the item residing on the pedestal that will cast a shadow upon any film in it's genre. Basically you can write books or you can have alot of people compare it to what is basically considered a masterpiece.
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Speakerにより編集済み: 2/23/2021 3:26:25 PMFantasy is too risky, too much money to produce with a chance of a poor return on investment. Not all fantasy is good, and not everyone with a screenwriting passion can make good fantasy, it is a genre that translates poorly imo between literature and film. So much of fantasy's draw is in the details and literal imagery conveyed through the text, in film all of this is glossed over and it becomes just a set piece for the action to be observed next to the main characters... paragraphs of text to describe the majesty of Shadowfax in the books; reduced to a 15 second scene and a few lines of monologue in one of the films
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4 通の返信
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2 通の返信Live action fantasy is a very expensive and difficult genre to get right; if I had to pick a reason more isn’t made that’d be why. And unlike sci-fi where a bad plot can be overridden by lots of cool effects, fantasy asks a lot of the audience all at once because there’s very little reality for them to cling on to, and to be a hit all of it has to be right at once. Just look at all the fantasy book adaptations they’ve tried since Harry Potter and LOTR that just haven’t taken off for one reason or another. Eragon, Maze Runner, Percy Jackson, Where the Wild Things Are, Artemis Fowl etc. These days the only big studios making fantasy movies are Disney and PIXAR, and they only really make animated fantasy for kids since Pirates of the Caribbean is in its death throes as a franchise.
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1 返信The likes of Netflix and Amazon seem to have it covered these days.. You'd need serious dough to take that kind of a risk. A lot of the audience today prefer series to film too.. Game Of Thrones springs to mind.
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2 通の返信i would love more fantasy films! honestly, i don’t trust people who don’t like lord of the rings and the hobbit. how could you not?
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1 返信Have you ever seen Daywatch and Nightwatch on Netflix or the movis John Dies at The End, both great weird movies. The OG Dune movie was great, but I think the remake will be woke hollywood shlock. Alejandro Jadorwoski had intent to remake it himself at one point, and if he had it would have been the greatest film ever made. If you like weird surrealism watch The Holy Mountain some time.
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3 通の返信Fear of being compared to LotR or GoT? Theres a few out there, but until people finally get bored of superhero movies, we aren't going to see much of anything else as far as I can tell. Fantasy has never really been my genre, though, so I don't mind that much. I've already seen all the fantasy I need to in Pan's Labyrinth.
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6 通の返信I think fantasy just doesn't sell as well as it used to, similar to how they don't make many westerns anymore. Just look at how many flops there have been: [i]Percy Jackson[/i], [i]Narnia[/i], [i]Eragon[/i] ([i]The Inheritance Cycle[/i]), [i]Hansel and Gretel[/i], [i]Jack and the Beanstalk[/i], [i]Stardust[/i], [i]Seventh Son[/i], [i]The Last Witch Hunter[/i], [i]Bright[/i] etc. Same thing with sword and sandal films like [i]Immortals[/i] or [i]Clash of the Titans[/i]. Unless you've got Disney pumping money into a nostalgic cash grab or it's Tolkien, they're just not profitable. [b] [/b] That said, fantasy DOES seem to do well in animation. Just look at [i]Frozen[/i], [i]Moana[/i], [i]Demon Slayer[/i], [i]Kung Fu Panda[/i], [i]How to Train Your Dragon[/i], and [i]Kubo and the Two Strings[/i]. I'd put good money on [i]Raya and the Last Dragon[/i] doing well. [b] [/b] It just might be that with the shifting of tastes towards "grittier" and "more realistic" stories and characters, fantasy simply requires too much suspension of disbelief for modern audiences. Sci-fi doesn't have that issue because while things aren't realistic, theoretically they [i]could[/i] be, so there is less demand for suspension of disbelief.
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12 通の返信Mostly because of how expensive fantasy films are to make, they usually have to have huge budgets for set pieces/effects, this is why there are so many horror movies
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2 通の返信It's harder to write since even the fantastical jibber jabber needs to have rules, context and history since the bar has been raised so high by now that the demand is harder. And the audience who watches Sci-Fi are two fold. There are the group that want good hard sci-fi like Start Trek and then there's the audience that just wants the bare-bones fantasy of living away no matter how trash the show.
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10 通の返信I was originally thinking “But I feel like I’ve seen a lot of fantasy movies”, but after reading LahDsai’s comment I realized they’re all Disney, Studio Ghibli & Pokémon. Outside of those, I couldn’t really think of very many fantasy movies at all. I think the explanation you had that made the most sense to me was the bit about worldbuilding. I personally hold movies as the worst storytelling medium, primarily because they can’t worldbuild as well as other mediums. With fantasy relying the most on worldbuilding, it makes sense it wouldn’t have as much in there.
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1 返信I think it's mostly because Hollywood doesn't see profit in it. There have been a few other fantasy films put out like that short list in LahDsais comment, but they suffered from the same cynical cash grabby Action Movie influence. I think much like EA with story campaigns and single player, when they don't put the effort into it and it doesn't sell well they don't see their own mistakes, they just see it as people not taking interest.
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1 返信Very good analysis, and I think I tend to agree, it's underrepresented in movies. Also I noticed you listed of Science Fantasy in your list of sub genres. A worthy addition, as that sub genre doesn't get enough recognition these days
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7 通の返信Altmithにより編集済み: 2/22/2021 3:44:20 PMFantasy fan here. And writer. Thinking about a lot of this in real time. Fantasy is hard to adapt to cinema. While there’s good material out there, there is a lot of really bad material too. Regardless, a lot of fantasy is looked at as cheap writing (by public perception) as opposed to science fiction which is more famous for asking tougher philosophical questions. Fantasy is expensive. CGI doesn’t age well and effects are often prohibitively expensive and cumbersome to the actors to put on and wear. Sci-fi has more recognizable elements and may have aliens, but mostly it’s humans. Which are cheaper to portray. And we tend to forgive movies for screwing up and fudging things like gravity and movement in space. These problems point to fantasy lending itself better to movies than television show runs because a movie is a more condensed project. But that leads to another issue. Fantasy lends itself to epics. And epics do not translate well to movies. LotR was three movies. Director’s cut versions clock in at close to 12 hours. And that’s altering the story to leave out a boatload of content. And it doesn’t help that a lot of fantasy movies are cash grabs or trying to ride the coattails of success stories like LotR. Fantasy just tends to be big. And big is expensive, hard to maintain, and risky. Combine that with the public perception of fantasy being a cheap art that isn’t as valuable as other forms of expression and it makes since we don’t see as much.
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1 返信[i]Technically, [b]The Star Wars[/b] movies are officially Fantasy films ( not Sci-Fi, contrary to popular belief ), so I don’t think the genre is as rare as you think it is. If I had to guess, I’d say it’s because the classification is a bit broad. A lot of Fantasy films seem to also fall under different categories ( sci-fi, horror, comedy, kids, etc ).[/i]
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2 通の返信Have you seen the few that tried, like [i]Ladyhawk[/i] [i]Sword of the Valiant[/i]? The only good one are the Hobbit and LotR movies.
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1 返信I imagine it’s probably a few things... high production values due to CGI and building the sets means there’s going to be a high risk that you don’t recoup your costs. R-rated movies (last time I checked) don’t do as well as PG-13 and lower, so do you make it kid friendly and sacrifice alienating your intended audience? LOTR did tremendously well, but I doubt an adaptation like GoT would work out as PG-13. Getting the rights to adapt the book to a movie (I remember this was an issue with other producers trying to do LOTR). Finally, it’s interesting that you mention superhero movies. There’s been an over saturation of them in the past decade or two; maybe fantasy/sci-fi would been seen as more competition in an already over saturated market.
