The success of Harry Potter launched about a billion other ‘young hero becomes part of a magical fantasy world’ book series. And if you’ve been paying attention (and it’s safe to say that visiting this site counts as paying attention), then surely you’ve noticed as the rights to all those Potter knockoffs were snapped up and made into their own feature films. Percy Jackson & the Olympians, Eragon, Inkheart, City of Ember ‐ all sound vaguely familiar, none of them interesting enough to really hold one’s attention or stand out in an exceedingly large crowd.
Today, Harvey Weinstein and Disney have announced their own adaptation of the one Harry Potter-esque fantasy series that never made it to the big screen: Artemis Fowl. Even with its status clearly on the Potter bandwagon, the “Artemis Fowl” series has seen its share of success, having sold 21 million copies to date. More impressive still is the franchise’s ability to end the long-standing feud between Weinstein and Disney, who’ve been tussling over the Weinstein-founded Miramax for years.
But as the two entities patch things up and move forward, both seem to have forgotten that the Harry Potter fantasy craze is over and done with (as is the “Artemis Fowl” series, which saw its final book last year). Twilight took up the Young Adult mantle once Potter was dead and gone, but even that’s old news. The Hunger Games is top dog right now. It’s all well and good that two industry giants no longer hate each other (although, for all we know they still do), but maybe they should have let bygones be bygones over the latest Hunger Games ripoff, rather than something that’s already old hat.
[via Deadline]
