Yesterday, we learned that Amazon Prime Video canceled the series The Wheel of Time after its third season. While the series certainly boasts ambition, it failed to win over audiences. Unfortunately, this isn't an isolated case; the series Willow was not only canceled by Disney+, but was also removed from the catalog. As for the series The Witcher, while Netflix hasn't given up on it, its three seasons were heavily criticized by fans as well as by actor Henry Cavill, who left the show due to disagreements over the series' direction. Why is Hollywood struggling so much to replicate the colossal success of Game of Thrones? Here are some ideas for reflection.
Fantasy is a difficult genre to adapt
While the literary trilogy The Lord of the Rings became an iconic object of counterculture in the 1960s thanks to its adoption by American universities, fantasy took a long time to become popular in Hollywood. A few attempts were made in the 1980s, but the gains were not commensurate with the efforts made. In 1982, John Milius's Conan the Barbarian was a moderate success, approaching $80 million, while The Dark Crystal barely managed to reach $40 million. Although both films subsequently achieved cult status, they were far from the colossal successes of E.T. Steven Spielberg's The Extra-Terrestrial ($797 million) and Sylvester Stalone's Rocky III ($297 million).
Other films - which also later became cult classics - were real failures upon their release in American cinemas. We are thinking in particular of Dragon of the Lake of Fire by Matthew Robbins (1981), a commercial failure despite its innovative special effects for the time, but also of Legend by Ridley Scott (1985), Labyrinth by Jim Henson (1986) or even The Witcher and theMagic Cauldron (1985) from the Disney studio. None of these feature films managed to recoup their budget, and the case of The Witcher is today a textbook case of a film that almost plunged its studio into financial bankruptcy. Also, the triumph of The Lord of the Rings trilogy by Peter Jackson in the early 2000s is nothing short of miraculous.
As a reminder, New Zealand director Peter Jackson encountered great difficulties in financing his project; Miramax had agreed to a two-feature adaptation, and only New Line Cinema was bold enough to approve the project. The prospect of three films being shot and edited simultaneously in New Zealand was one of the factors that convinced the American studio to give the green light and allocate a budget of $283 million for the entire trilogy—figures that seem absolutely ridiculous today for films of this scale and ambition. As a result, the trilogy earned $2.9 billion at the box office and won seventeen Oscars. A winning bet!
Without a doubt, The Lord of the Rings trilogy has had a monumental cultural impact; Not only was it praised for its artistic qualities, to the point of still being considered the greatest trilogy of all time by many film buffs, but it also managed to democratize a genre that had previously been supported by a niche. It cannot be overstated how much Peter Jackson's trilogy popularized the fantasy genre during the 2000s. The success of the Harry Potter saga and the Pirates of the Caribbean trilogy have undoubtedly given the impression that fantasy has finally become a bankable genre. However, this is to quickly forget the numerous cinematic failures that have punctuated the first decade of the 21st century.
While Disney's The Chronicles of Narnia trilogy enjoyed some theatrical success, its box office revenues have steadily declined over the course of the films, the main cause being, of course, the studio's lack of clarity regarding its relationship with C.S. Lewis's work (Disney having adapted three of the seven books). Other projects have either been moderate successes (such as Matthew Vaughn's adaptation of Neil Gaiman's Stardust, Christopher Paolini's disastrous adaptation of Eragon) or monumental failures (the Dungeons & Dragons trilogy). The very relative success of the film His Dark Materials: The Golden Compass (2007), based on the first novel in the trilogy by Philip Pullman, seems entirely representative of the many attempts of the 2000s. Disappointed with the box office ($372 million for an estimated budget of $180 million), New Line Cinema abandoned its plan to adapt the entire trilogy.
What the triumph of Game of Thrones teaches us
Therefore, the triumph of the series Game of Thrones by the HBO channel, which became the phenomenon series of the decade 2010-2019, appears as a second miracle. As with The Lord of the Rings, audiences and critics acclaimed both the artistic ambition of the project; The series stood out for its particularly meticulous direction, a powerful cast, exceptional special effects that raised the standards expected of television, and a gripping choral narrative that didn't skimp on the most brutal violence or the most explicit nudity. Choices that fit well with the original work of George R.R. Martin!
Of course, there would be a lot to say about Game of Thrones; like Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings, the series has a taste of something "never before seen on television." The sets and battles continue to impress us. Furthermore, David Benioff and D.B. Weiss' adaptation work on the first four seasons is almost flawless in the eyes of fans. Following the conclusion of Game of Thrones, Hollywood embarked on a frantic search to find a new series capable of replicating the phenomenal success of the HBO hit. The least we can say is that this endeavor seems rather unsuccessful... Why? Of course, there are many criticisms that could be made of the various post-Game of Thrones projects.
Of course, we could dwell for a long time on the fact that Netflix's The Witcher series sometimes has a Xena Warrior Princess feel and suffers from obvious pacing and storytelling problems; that despite its sublime artistic direction, the Rings of Power series condenses the chronology of J.R.R. Tolkien's works far too tightly for its own good, to the point of alienating a large part of its fans; that The Wheel of Time had an unfortunate cheap side in its first season. However, all these criticisms seem insufficient to fully explain their failures.
After all, the film Dungeons & Dragons: Thieves' Honor was not only faithful to the source material, but also risked having some real thought in its staging; the BBC and HBO series His Dark Materials managed to adapt Philip Pullman's trilogy as faithfully as possible (even if it can be criticized for laying certain cards on the table too quickly). However, these two works were far from having the expected success.
Therefore, we allow ourselves to formulate a small hypothesis... If Game of Thrones has undeniably contributed to further popularizing the fantasy genre - as did The Lord of the Rings before it - the public seems to have become aware of the limits of the genre in cinema and television. For a long time, The Lord of the Rings and A Song of Ice and Fire had this reputation of being unadaptable works; although Peter Jackson and HBO have managed to disprove these premonitions, this does not mean that all fantasy works can be adapted.
The success of the Lord of the Rings trilogy and the Game of Thrones series can perhaps be explained by the fact that these two works appeal to collective cultural unconsciousnesses that allow us to forget that we are in works of fantasy. Indeed, J.R.R. Tolkien's trilogy (and even more so its film adaptation) illustrates a Middle Ages idealized by several centuries of medieval, classical, and romantic literature. A marvelous Middle Ages designed to soothe hearts, thus reclaiming the very purpose of the genre at its creation in the midst of the Industrial Revolution. J.R.R. Tolkien's fantasy, sublimated by Peter Jackson's camera, fully embodies this virtue of the marvelous that the Oxford professor formulated in his essay On the Fairy Tale: fantasy has an immense comforting power. Despite its violence and its mass deaths, the Game of Thrones series undoubtedly benefits from the comforting power of fantasy. But its charm lies in another important dimension of the work; by immersing us in an extremely harsh, dark, harsh, violent, and bloody Middle Ages, Game of Thrones confronts us with a collective image of the medieval period (although it is increasingly contradicted by medievalists). Many details in the series tend to make this incarnation of the Middle Ages credible. In this respect, the historical inspirations of George R.R. Martin's work contribute greatly to this feeling. We remember that the American writer was inspired in particular by the Wars of the Roses, which bloodied England in the 15th century and influenced the War of the Five Kings, while the Black Dinner of 1440 - an important event in Scottish history - inspired The Red Wedding. As for the Dance of the Dragons, at the center of the excellent series House of the Dragon, Martin was inspired by the English civil and dynastic war known as The Anarchy (1138-1153), which pitted Matilda the Empress against her cousin Stephen of Blois.
It is because they adapt fantasy works that fail to fully propose an idealized Middle Ages embodying the consoling virtue of fantasy developed by Professor J.R.R. Tolkien, nor a violent and harsh Middle Ages consistent with our collective representations, that Hollywood studios accumulate failures in this area. Of course, many fantasy works fit these different criteria; Jean-Philippe Jaworski's Tales of the Old Kingdom (Winning the War and The Knight of Thorns) and Steven Erikson's The Book of Martyrs are perfect examples. What do you think of these ideas? Feel free to share your thoughts in the comments section. And to discover this French fantasy saga, which has finally received the recognition it deserves, click here.
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