Genre Entertainment fails continue and the 'why' remains unchanged. The positive of this is maybe, maybe, we'll start getting better written material in the next few years. Let's get to it.
Wakanda Forever apparently had a one-to-one marketing cost (ergo, the film has a base cost of 500 million), but despite the massive marketing has punched well below Disney's expectations. It sits at 769 at the box office and is expected to limp to 800. This tally is a pale shadow of the original and it's not clear if that's even enough for it to break even. This is yet another failure for Disney on top of the ignored Strange Worlds. I've heard it said that the MCU is all-in on Guardians of the Galaxy 3, but even if that film achieves success it can't right the ship (just as Spider-Man 3 did not). As for why the film failed, the key element remains the same: the writing.
Switching to DC, we've mercifully been saved from Patty Jenkins' Wonder Woman 3. Apparently Jenkins quit when asked to make changes to her script, although it's likely she would have been let go regardless (she's supposedly been removed from her Star Wars film Rogue Squadron as well as Gal Gadot's Cleopatra). The film is cancelled and if I were James Gunn I'd jettison Gadot and start fresh (Gadot can't act and at 37 is aging out of the role). This kind of clean sweep is desperately needed at Marvel, but there's no chance of rescue until (maybe) Phase Six, at which point the MCU itself might get a reboot.
I talked about Willow back in July where I opined "[what I've heard] leads me to believe this will be another unwatchable disaster." That prediction has been spot on thus far, as (according to Samba) it's the least watched show on Disney+ to date. I doubt it's actually qualitatively worse than Rings of Power, Wheel of Time, or The Witcher, but that its ratings reflects: 1) audience exhaustion with fantasy 'changed for modern audiences', 2) the limited reach of the IP. As I said months ago, this doesn't hurt the original film any, but it's an unfortunate ending for an IP we'll only see again if it's rebooted.
I discussed Blood Origin last time, a show that makes the same mistake as Willow and the other recent fantasy adaptations. It looks generic and boring (so much so that even Polygon (!) trashed it). What I didn't mention then, because I'd forgotten about it, is that the show was originally meant to be six episodes, but either good fortune or someone with a brain at Netflix cut it back to four. I think this show would have bombed with or without Henry Cavill's decision to leave The Witcher, but given his departure and Beau DeMayo throwing the writers room under the bus, it's going to face Willow-like oblivion. Anecdotally, the normies I know who have enjoy The Witcher were pissed to hear Cavill was leaving and expressed no desire to continue watching the show without him.
The unfolding aftermath of the disaster that was Rings of Power continues (its second season is in production in the UK as we speak). None of this can be found in the very carefully curated Wikipedia page, but here are some key developments:
- Joseph Mawle, one of the biggest 'names' in the cast, left the show (replaced by Sam Hazeldine); clearly Mawle saw which way the wind was blowing
- Seemingly neither the insufferable Ismael Cruz Cordova or Nazanin Boniadi will return, as their superfluous characters have been dropped for the season two storyline (making their inclusion utterly pointless)--if true this presumably also means losing their presumed love child (Tyroe Muhafidin)
- Lenny Henry's character died in the first season, but I suspect his homicidal Hobbit clan will continue to annoy and bore viewers despite that addition by subtraction
- The showrunners talked about the season being more in line with the Tolkien canon, but this is a by-rote approach (Lauren Hissrich said the same about The Witcher season two, which proved even less canonical than season one); the announced new cast members follow the same schizophrenic decisions as the first
The script and casting were locked prior to the reception of the first season and while some changes can be made on the fly, I don't see how Amazon can do anything other than fix some of the aesthetics. The only true 'save' is to scrap the existing elements and start fresh (complete reboot), but I don't think Amazon has the balls to make that decision.
Epic fantasy is interesting because it presents a distinctive reality that doesn't adhere to our own (unlike science fiction or urban fantasy). Modern adaptors have thrown this away by making their fantasy echo their version of 'real/modern world'. This strips away the key conceit of what makes fantasy work. Whether anyone in TV, film, or video games is going to figure this out any time soon is hard to say.
We can also add the familiar chestnut that sticking to the lore is always a win, as seen with Edgerunners: an original story that carefully follows the lore of Cyberpunk 2077.
This article was written by Peter Levi
