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By Ryan Fleming Inevitably, it was also made into a Musical. Bodyguards don't normally burst into song. Trust me on that. Picture courtesy Wikimedia Commons. There are many measures by which the success of a film can be graded. Probably the most important to those that control the production of films is getting a return on the budget they put up. It is why they are more willing to bet money on something that is likely to be a success than take a risk on something completely n

By Ryan Fleming Four out of five; a series long in the production. Picture courtesy Wikimedia Commons. 2023 will see the release of a film sequel. Not an unsurprising development, since almost all major releases for most of the 21st Century have been sequels. Or prequels. Or remakes. Or reboots. Or seqoots. Or spin-offs. Or midquels. Or any number of ways Hollywood has connived to trade on past nostalgia to make up for a dearth of ideas. This one stands out for two reasons: f

By Ryan Fleming Who else? Picture courtesy Wikimedia Commons. The success or failure of a film often comes down to its script. There are myriad other factors that can make or break a film, but the script is the component that a production is sold on. Most cases of development hell involve the script being constantly rewritten. Even in a successful film, however, the script is largely provisional right up to filming. So, whilst a script can often take the blame, or praise, for

By Ryan Fleming. Katsuhiro Otomo riding Kaneda's motorcycle. That must be fun. Picture courtesy Wikimedia Commons. Remakes are everywhere in film. In every form, so much so that we even have a whole new vocabulary to describe essentially the same idea of a new version of an older film. There are remakes, reimaginings, and reboots. It’s reached a stage where there is actual disagreement over which term to use in the case of the emergence of seboots or requels. A lot of these a

By Ryan Fleming. A potential saviour. Picture Courtesy Wikimedia Commons. Can the existence of an entire film studio depend on the existence of a single film? There are numerous examples of studios whose success can be traced to a single film. New Line Cinema acquired their nickname “The House That Freddy Built” after their long-term survival was confirmed by the success of A Nightmare on Elm Street in 1984, and innumerable sequels featuring its villain Freddy Kruger. If the

By Ryan Fleming Can a work of fiction be cursed? If people, places or things can be cursed then why not a work of fiction too? Such legends have been attached to horror films like The Exorcist , The Omen or Poltergeist . These conflate various difficulties and/or tragedies that happened during or after production into a through line of bad luck. In those instances, one might conclude that these acted as an insidious form of marketing like that pioneered by William Castle and

By Ryan Fleming In popular culture there are some works that have managed to become famous despite never happening at all. Projects can be delayed, radically changed, or just straight abandoned for many reasons and at all stages of development. Due to the nature of filmmaking, projects necessarily involve many people from development to release. In that regard, we are perhaps more likely to hear of failed projects in that and similar mediums given the sheer number of people,