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Originally Posted by dwndrgn I like Kelpie's point here - if you want a story that is geared for the lowest common denominator, with no risks or chances taken, nothing out of the ordinary or interesting, why choose Earthsea in the first place? It was chosen (IMO) because of it's previous popularity and consistent sales. That series has been out for ages and still sells without any trouble at all. So, they chose it because it is a good story with a large audience already attached to it. That throws Brian's 'marketing' idea of 'not taking risks' out the window because they chose it specifically because it was already a familiar story with a large built in audience. |
Yes, but my argument would be is that they need the prior reputation of the work even to get any funding to begin the project. However, funding usually comes with strings - not least "Give us a maximum return on our buck" - hence how such projects are always in danger of getting watered down.
Ultimately, it probably requires a personality of force in production in the first place - Jackson was probably able to maintain a lot of integrity for Lord of the Rings precisely because he was a successful individual in the industry - but even then, he ended up bowing to the marketers by highly exaggerating the importance of the Aragorn-Arwen love interest in the overall story, and still had teen-panding moments - extreme sports on shields in Two Towers comes to mind as an example.
So I guess the lesson is - if you want to maintain integrity in a novel adaptation, you need someone with real clout on your side and who believes in your story in the first place.
EDIT: As for McMurphy's points - certainly not all marketers are going to be good marketers, and they certainly shouldn't be writing a script. But the tools of the marketers are often there to fulfill the will of the funders. It's pretty infamous for large film productions to suffer pressure from studios to modify and rewrite scripts to keep the bankers happy.
As for Pixar vs Shrek franchises - they were targeted at different audiences, so it's harder to compare - Pixar were probably writing forst for the older child (under 12's) whilst Shrek were probably tapping into a more teen market, with pop songs by pop artists gracing the soundtrack.
Disney are only the distributors for Pixar, by the way, and Pixar's majority shareholder I believe is Steve Jobs - the maverick innovator behind Apple.
Bottom line - we ourselves are the people the marketers are trying to feed as consumers.
And, true, there's not enough niche marketing of mentally demanding adaptations.