A new international trailer has just been released for Sony’s upcoming The Mortal Instruments: City of Bones and as I watched it all I could think of was how much it looked like just another promo for some fantasy-driven television show such as “Buffy the Vampire Slayer”, “Grim”, “Once Upon a Time” or what have you.
I’m not saying those are bad television shows, what I’m saying is this is a bad way to make movies because those shows rely not only on attracting an audience for one show, but keeping them around for multiple seasons. With movies they have to make something that’s so good the audience can get over the fact they won’t have another episode the following week or even the following month, it’s going to be about one-to-two years before another installment arrives and when it does, it’s just going to be another two hours or so.
With television shows of this sort audiences get about 24 episodes, totaling over 19 hours of entertainment in a season. Even if we’re talking about something on par with “True Blood”, you’re still getting 12 hours of material a season, not only two. Therefore, by comparison, in order for a movie of this sort to match what one season has to offer, you’re looking at a minimum of six films and probably about eight years total. That is, unless a movie such as Mortal Instruments can actually deliver on a season’s worth of material in one-sixth to one-twelfth of the time.
Now this is a conversation that’s been going on a lot lately with shows such as “Mad Men”, “Breaking Bad”, “Game of Thrones”, etc. dominating the conversation, but we still head to the movies for those singular experiences that truly manage to wow us. Those movies that can pack what a great 12-24 episode television series can pack into two hours or less and then some. For me this is why movies are still my “go to” source of entertainment. I like a lot of these television shows as much as anyone else, but when a filmmaker can deliver something just as exhilarating, if not more so, over the course of 105 minutes as a television series can over the course of 720, that to me is something special.
Obviously, most of the time, films hover around average or substandard, which is why television is such a hot topic right now. It’s easier to be average or substandard on the idiot box because you’re only wasting about 45 minutes to an hour of your time and you didn’t have to wear special glasses to make sure the picture was in focus or buy tickets for every member of your family.
Why is Marvel’s The Avengers working? Because they’ve treated it like a television show with two massive episodes a year and now even a television show, “Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.”, coming this Fall. And each theatrical episode has a little teaser for the next one built right into its credits and I’m sure the television series will do the same for not only the show, but for the movies coming out that year.
Watch this latest trailer for Mortal Instruments and let me know if you see such promise in what is being offered here.
A feature film adaptation of Cassandra Clare’s best-selling novel “The Mortal Instruments: City of Bones,” which is set in contemporary New York City and centers on Clary Fray (Lily Collins), a seemingly ordinary teenager, who discovers she is the descendant of a line of Shadowhunters, a secret cadre of young half-angel warriors locked in an ancient battle to protect our world from demons. After the disappearance of her mother, Clary must join forces with a group of Shadowhunters, who introduce her to a dangerous alternate New York called Downworld, filled with demons, warlocks, vampires, werewolves and other deadly creatures.
