[trask5]

I'm pretty new to this site, so excuse me if this conversation has come up in the past but...Why don't they make more (any) fantasy movies. The tecnology is definetly there, and from the amount of books that are sold I would say the audience is there. Any ideas?

[Pluvious]

Very good question.

The only thing I can think of is that just about any decent fantasy movie would require more of a budget than a corresponding other movie. For example, it would probably cost more to film a movie with a dragon than any of your average run of the mill cop shows or thrillers. Also, there isn't that much room for big budget movies each year. Really they tend to only make the big budget movies during the Christmas and Thanksgiving holidays and during the summer. That's maybe 10-15 movies total.

Also, most of the recent fantasy movies havn't been very good, and havn't done that well. That has something to do with it I'm sure. Movies like Dragonheart, First Knight (fantasy?), and the Star Trek movies havn't done all that well at the box office. Then again movies such as X-Men, Star Wars, and Mortal Combat did do well. But these have elements of science fiction too...which seems to have a larger core audience (I guess).

Or it could simply be that Hollywood is lazy, stupid, and unimaginative. Who Know's?

[Loki]

Personally im glad they're making no fantasy movies or any movie based on a book because it will wreck what i believe all those characters look like. People would complain, saying "dont see the movie" what if you watching T.V. then they have an add for a movie, you dont know what for, and then it tells you "The lord of the rings. Coming to a thearte near you" then you realise ooohhhh thats frogo and bilbo and so on. i cant get it out of my head i have to have this digitalised character in my head whenever i read these books.

[FitzChivalry]

Well, there is a dungeons and dragons movie in the making and the lord of the rings movies i assume that if those will make enough money it will cause a wave of fantasy movies... if not, it means it has no audience so we can't blame the movie makers for that. the public has spoken.

[Cellandros]

First, FitzChivlary brought up the first point...is there truely an audience? I don't think there is. Considering that every weekend at the boxoffice movie-goers have a choice of a 'blow'em up action', a goofy comedy 'date movie', or a 'made specifically to get an oscar' drama. Few people will even give a fantasy movie a chance.

Secondly, its got to be incredibly difficult to write a good script for a fantasy movie. Think about it. In your typical movie you have around an hour and a half to tell your story. Close to two hours if a studio thinks your project is really good. How does one write a good script to set the story, introduce characters and the land, etc with only an hour and a half of screen time? Imagine trying to make a movie out of Jordan's, Goodkind's or Martin's work!

There's simply not enough time to do it in. Therefore, things must be cut. Character development is sacrificed, or the plot becomes over-simplified. Then we, the supporters of the fantasy genre get mad because the resulting product is crap. The rest of the movie-going crowd hates the movie because they 'don't get it'. End result: studio looses money on the project and fantasy movies get an even worse reputation.

Now, ever so ofter comes along a project with potential to help take away some of the negative reputation of the fantasy genre. This time we have come to the ultimate make-or-break. A studio actually signed in advance to film three fantasy movies. If LoTR is successful then it might spawn more fantasy movies; if it is a failure, then it will probably be 50 years before a studio will even think about making another fantasy movie.

[Rob B]

Actually, the Dungeons and Dragons movie comes out next month. If that does well, maybe we will see som more fantasy movies.

I also think that LOTR will be good, since each book in the trilogy will be a movie.

[Macros]

I think that we should take a cue from the Japanese and turn this towards animation. Japanese Anime has produced some of the best fantasy stories I've ever seen. Record of Lodoss War, Princess Monnonoke, and Vision of Escaflowne, just to name a few. Of course, first you have to overcome the wests mental barriers about animation being strictly for kids.

P.S. Two of the names mentioned above are not movies but television series in Japan.

[FitzChivalry]

Just wanted to save the honor of the fantasy movies here, some good fantasy movies were made: The Princess Bride, Willo, The Neverending Story (part1), great movies that i watched numerous times.

Not to mention some old classics like The Wizard of Oz or even the Conan movies that were fun.

[trask5]

When are the LOTR movies supposed to be made? Does anyone have any idea who is going to be in them?

[Sojourn]

While I agree with Cellandros' point about scriptwriters not having a sufficient time-frame to 'tell a good, complete story', couldn't the same time-story restrictions be applied to science-fiction? Yet there have been many more sci-fi films (both successful and otherwise) produced compared to fantasy films. In this advanced digital age, the computer technology used to produce the impressive eye-candy for sci-fi films could easily be used to create similar fantasy special effects.

As for the script or storyline, you'd think that with so many talented fantasy authors out there, one of them should be able to come up with a decent screenplay to woo film-makers. After all, it's not like they don't already have an established fan-base to target.

But, like so many posters here have mentioned, the potential popularity of fantasy films hinges on the success of D&D and LoTR. It's sink or swim from here on... ^_^

IMHO... ^_^