Bad reviews, a soft opening and a tepid $80 million worldwide haul—these are not the signposts for a successful launch of a YA franchise. And indeed, despite a small but very vocal fanbase for "The Mortal Instruments: City Of Bones," it seemed that Constantin Film had thrown in the towel when it was announced last month that the in-development sequel, "The Mortal Instruments: City Of Ashes," was being shut down indefinitely. The future of the series was in doubt, but today, it looks like fans of Cassandra Clare have reason to rejoice.
It seems your letters and petitions have paid off as Constantin has revealed that ‘City Of Ashes’ will go into production in 2014. "The fan response, from the blogosphere and the thousands of mails we have received, has encouraged us to keep going,” head of the company’s film and TV Martin Moszkowicz told THR, before adding the zinger: “It’s been overwhelmingly positive, in contrast to some other YA titles.” But that doesn’t mean that he’s completely blind to the fact that ‘Bones’ failed to find a wide audience.
“We are analyzing what we did wrong with the first film, particularly with the positioning and marketing, and what changes we have to make," he explained. "We are working with a great group of people to reposition the franchise.”
Details on who will direct and who will return aren’t quite clear, though it’s safe to say that Lily Collins, Jamie Campbell Bower and Kevin Zegers probably all have jobs. At one point Sigourney Weaver was signed up too, but again, it’s not certain if she’s still on board.
It’ll be interesting to see how Constantin approach production on the sequel. We can’t imagine they’ll spend more than the $60 million they did on ‘City Of Bones’ this time around, but clearly there is something in the numbers they’re getting to indicate this series is worth a second crack. But will you give it another shot? Is there even room for another YA series with "The Hunger Games: Catching Fire" arriving in a matter of weeks and newcomers "Divergent" and "The Maze Runner" dropping next year? We’ll see….
