Epic fantasy movies still caught in the dark age....

[Mwm]

6 minutes ago, Cas Stark said:

I thought Stardust was fantastic and is criminally underrated.

Not sure GOT really was that much of a 'risk' they only paid for one season initially, and there was hardly any CGI the first year, nor any grand battles.  

I don’t even know how to reply to this...whatever you say.

First season cost 60 million, it was a huge ambitious story, with nothing attempted in tv on that scale for epic fantasy beforehand. Seriously risky content(they  couldn’t tell how an audience would respond to constant death of characters. Usually that has a negative effect on a show...)

 

[Corvinus85]

26 minutes ago, Mwm said:

I don’t even know how to reply to this...whatever you say.

First season cost 60 million, it was a huge ambitious story, with nothing attempted in tv on that scale for epic fantasy beforehand. Seriously risky content(they  couldn’t tell how an audience would respond to constant death of characters. Usually that has a negative effect on a show...)

 

Right, but if the reaction had been lackluster, it wouldn't have gotten a second season. HBO didn't just dive in and agree to pay for multiple seasons. Also, they paid more for season 1 of Rome, than they did for the first season of GoT. So HBO has had the money to take some risks now and then.

[Zorral]

11 hours ago, felice said:

Yeah, that's probably the highlight of post-80s standalone fantasy films. MirrorMask is interesting, but badly let down by the ending

  Hide contents

effectively "it was all a dream"

It's certainly flawed, but I actually thought there was a lot to like about it At least it's not a generic pseudo-medieval setting!

Gods of Egypt -- 

 

Discovery of Witches is likely to be very good, as it time travels we can get all of it.  This fall on Sky.  Link to trailer in the Trailer forum.

[Zorral]

3 hours ago, Mwm said:

I don’t even know how to reply to this...whatever you say.

First season cost 60 million, it was a huge ambitious story, with nothing attempted in tv on that scale for epic fantasy beforehand. Seriously risky content(they  couldn’t tell how an audience would respond to constant death of characters. Usually that has a negative effect on a show...)

 

You all have faulty memory.  HBO renewed GOT for a second season almost the moment the first episode of season 1 went up.  It debuted April 17, 2011, and the renewal announcement was everywhere by April 9, 2011.

 

[Deadlines? What Deadlines?]

I'm going say "How about Nooo!" in my best Dr Evil voice.

The. Best. Sci-Fi and fantasy stuff happening right now is on television.  Game of Thrones, Westworld, American Gods, and a bunch of stuff that I haven't seen but I hear is really good. (Black Sails, Handmaids tale, etc.)

Highly serialized, 10 hour season arcs where you aren't gambling $200 million on whether or not some high school kid is going to spend two hours in a theater on opening weekend.  No input from test audiences or advertisers but still with near cinema-quality production values and the time to really develop a story.  Even some of the stuff on commercial TV is really good.  I enjoyed Star Trek: Discovery (what I've seen of it) and Battlestar Galactica was mostly really good, except for the finale which was mostly slightly frustrating.  I hear the Expanse is really good.

I just finished binge watching The Leftovers and I was blown away. I watched season 1 when it aired but I can't even remember why I haven't seen the rest of it until now.  It's not exactly Sci-Fi or fantasy but it definitely has elements of both.

 

[Mladen]

If we just talk about high/epic fantasy, then, yeah, it is in kinda rut. The content is there, but somehow no one is doing anything new, and when they do, when they try something original, it gets axed due to this or that reason. And the bigger issue is that the rest of Hollywood is doing anything new (even though rights to almost every known fantasy book series has been bought). Amazon, in their desire to get "new GoT", went for even older one, LOTR. WoT can go either like "Legend of the Seeker" or "Game of Thrones". It will all depend on how much money will Sony invest. Netflix can give some adult entertainment with "Witcher". But, everything is in the air. Everything seems to be relying on the same premise of GoT: "fantasy for adults" And while it is a good idea, they need something new. 

I would like someone to go and say "Fuck it, let we take Malazan Book of the Fallen and turn it into TV"

Also, I would really like some nice TV drama about Greek/Norse/Egyptian mythology (actually Age of Mythology adaptation would be so cool) and one about King Arthur. But not "Merlin"-like... I would like to see some epic drama...

On 6/26/2018 at 7:00 PM, Zorral said:

You all have faulty memory.  HBO renewed GOT for a second season almost the moment the first episode of season 1 went up.  It debuted April 17, 2011, and the renewal announcement was everywhere by April 9, 2011.

 

Yes, but it wasn't without risks. We all know how Rome ended.

 

[Theda Baratheon]

57 minutes ago, Risto said:

If we just talk about high/epic fantasy, then, yeah, it is in kinda rut. The content is there, but somehow no one is doing anything new, and when they do, when they try something original, it gets axed due to this or that reason. And the bigger issue is that the rest of Hollywood is doing anything new (even though rights to almost every known fantasy book series has been bought). Amazon, in their desire to get "new GoT", went for even older one, LOTR. WoT can go either like "Legend of the Seeker" or "Game of Thrones". It will all depend on how much money will Sony invest. Netflix can give some adult entertainment with "Witcher". But, everything is in the air. Everything seems to be relying on the same premise of GoT: "fantasy for adults" And while it is a good idea, they need something new. 

I would like someone to go and say "Fuck it, let we take Malazan Book of the Fallen and turn it into TV"

Also, I would really like some nice TV drama about Greek/Norse/Egyptian mythology (actually Age of Mythology adaptation would be so cool) and one about King Arthur. But not "Merlin"-like... I would like to see some epic drama...

Yes, but it wasn't without risks. We all know how Rome ended.

 

Vikings is great fun if you love Norse mythology. I love it. 

[Mladen]

5 minutes ago, Theda Baratheon said:

Vikings is great fun if you love Norse mythology. I love it. 

In all honesty, I haven't been watching since the end of 4th season, so I don't know how much of mythology Vikings have in the later seasons. What I would like is the real myth story, with giants, dwarves, Gods, Valkyries etc. Vikings is more history/period drama than epic fantasy.

[Zorral]

44 minutes ago, Theda Baratheon said:

Vikings is great fun if you love Norse mythology. I love it. 

It turned into unwatchable stupid shyte and I stopped watching it.

Rome and The Last Kingdom -- that's the sort of thing I want more of.  But doing good historical stuff is hard, i.e. see above, or see Britannia, or see The Executioner's Bastard,  or see that thing that really did sink like a stone that was supposed to be Beowulf.

 

[Martini Sigil]

In a perfect world, we have these LotR/GoT type series running all-year long... the problem --as I see it-- is that for networks/movie studios/production companies to make the investment, a lot of pieces have to be in place... they are a lot more expensive to make than most types of shows... CGI/Costuming/extras/etc....  I think a lot of people try to make something epic that us nerds will turn into the next big thing... and end up making Shannara, or Shadowhunters

... and yeah... Stardust was criminally under rated. 

[HexMachina]

3 hours ago, Risto said:

If we just talk about high/epic fantasy, then, yeah, it is in kinda rut. The content is there, but somehow no one is doing anything new, and when they do, when they try something original, it gets axed due to this or that reason. And the bigger issue is that the rest of Hollywood is doing anything new (even though rights to almost every known fantasy book series has been bought). Amazon, in their desire to get "new GoT", went for even older one, LOTR. WoT can go either like "Legend of the Seeker" or "Game of Thrones". It will all depend on how much money will Sony invest. Netflix can give some adult entertainment with "Witcher". But, everything is in the air. Everything seems to be relying on the same premise of GoT: "fantasy for adults" And while it is a good idea, they need something new. 

I would like someone to go and say "Fuck it, let we take Malazan Book of the Fallen and turn it into TV"

Also, I would really like some nice TV drama about Greek/Norse/Egyptian mythology (actually Age of Mythology adaptation would be so cool) and one about King Arthur. But not "Merlin"-like... I would like to see some epic drama...

Yes, but it wasn't without risks. We all know how Rome ended.

 

Warlord Chronicles was optioned I believe. Don’t know where that currently stands but that is exactly what you are asking for

[Deadlines? What Deadlines?]

3 hours ago, Risto said:

 

Yes, but it wasn't without risks. We all know how Rome ended.

 

If Rome had come along 5 years later it would have been a different story. Rome aired in an era just before streaming video and time-shifted television viewing. Today, it's no big deal to tune in to something popular because it's easy to stream it from the beginning and get caught up.  I didn't see a single episode of Breaking bad or Mad Men until the series was almost over.

For Rome, to jump in mid-way through, the only way to get into such a serialized, continuous-story-arc series was to get the DVD's.  There are about half a dozen people in the midwest who saw the first season of Rome because I recorded the episodes on VHS and lent it to them.

[Mladen]

29 minutes ago, Helenas Musikautomat said:

Warlord Chronicles was optioned I believe. Don’t know where that currently stands but that is exactly what you are asking for

Nice... I remember that we have talked about it earlier this year, but I don't remember exactly when and why...

29 minutes ago, Deadlines? What Deadlines? said:

If Rome had come along 5 years later it would have been a different story. 

Most certainly. TV landscape has changed drastically in the past 10 years. But that doesn't take away from the fact that GoT was indeed a risk. 

It is a good thing that modern TV shows don't die so easily. I think it created an atmosphere in which good TV show will eventually find its viewership. With streaming services, even after cancellations or endings, TV shows continue to have presence and that can be rather exciting for everyone in the industry. Someone's good or bad work may not be easily thrown under the rug. Although the sheer quantity of material being made these days, it can be hard to keep up with.

 

[Deadlines? What Deadlines?]

37 minutes ago, Risto said:

Nice... I remember that we have talked about it earlier this year, but I don't remember exactly when and why...

Most certainly. TV landscape has changed drastically in the past 10 years. But that doesn't take away from the fact that GoT was indeed a risk. 

It is a good thing that modern TV shows don't die so easily. I think it created an atmosphere in which good TV show will eventually find its viewership. With streaming services, even after cancellations or endings, TV shows continue to have presence and that can be rather exciting for everyone in the industry. Someone's good or bad work may not be easily thrown under the rug. Although the sheer quantity of material being made these days, it can be hard to keep up with.

 

Unquestionably, any show that has the kind of production budget of a Rome or GOT, the floor beneath which it's a commercial failure is going to be high.  It'd be interesting to see what the exact per-episode budget for GOT is.

And, as disappointed as I am that we didn't get more Rome, the two seasons depict a relatively tight, interesting story that had a logical endpoint.  It could have been worse (*cough*boardwalkempire*cough*)

It's also interesting to reflect, about a decade ago, people were predicting reality TV was going to be the death traditional television.  These shows were ridiculously cheap to produce, hugely popular and largely cut the pesky screen writers out of the game. Fast forward to today and I don't think television has ever been healthier.  You see this particularly in animation.  Clone Wars and Rebels were both great, compelling series that I would have enjoyed at just about any age.  I go back and watch some of the series I was addicted to as a youngster and they're just embarrassingly bad.

[Zorral]

1 hour ago, Risto said:

Nice... I remember that we have talked about it earlier this year, but I don't remember exactly when and why...

Most certainly. TV landscape has changed drastically in the past 10 years. But that doesn't take away from the fact that GoT was indeed a risk. 

It is a good thing that modern TV shows don't die so easily. I think it created an atmosphere in which good TV show will eventually find its viewership. With streaming services, even after cancellations or endings, TV shows continue to have presence and that can be rather exciting for everyone in the industry. Someone's good or bad work may not be easily thrown under the rug. Although the sheer quantity of material being made these days, it can be hard to keep up with.

 

GOT was hardly a risk with millions of fans across the globe already in place -- just like LOTR wasn't that much of a risk either.  There was an audience just panting for it.

If they'd done a horrible job -- and generally, I think they did do a horrible job, but that's an unpopular opiniion! -- it still wouldn't matter, so avid is the fan base.

[Zorral]

51 minutes ago, Deadlines? What Deadlines? said:

Unquestionably, any show that has the kind of production budget of a Rome or GOT, the floor beneath which it's a commercial failure is going to be high.  It'd be interesting to see what the exact per-episode budget for GOT is.

And, as disappointed as I am that we didn't get more Rome, the two seasons depict a relatively tight, interesting story that had a logical endpoint.  It could have been worse (*cough*boardwalkempire*cough*)

It's also interesting to reflect, about a decade ago, people were predicting reality TV was going to be the death traditional television.  These shows were ridiculously cheap to produce, hugely popular and largely cut the pesky screen writers out of the game. Fast forward to today and I don't think television has ever been healthier.  You see this particularly in animation.  Clone Wars and Rebels were both great, compelling series that I would have enjoyed at just about any age.  I go back and watch some of the series I was addicted to as a youngster and they're just embarrassingly bad.

And look what reality tv put in the White House1

[Deadlines? What Deadlines?]

31 minutes ago, Zorral said:

And look what reality tv put in the White House1

Fuck.

[Darth Richard II]

There's a great breakdown of all the budgetary GoT stuff in the Amazon LotR thread somewhere.

Regarding the Warlord Chronicles, that's neat, but what HASN'T been optioned these days?

[Mwm]

6 minutes ago, Darth Richard II said:

 that's neat, but what HASN'T been optioned these days?

Pfft;

Malazan book of the fallen

Realm of the elderlings

Memory, sorrow, and thorn

[Darth Richard II]

Malazan was optioned a while back.