Cassandra Clare is the creator of The Shadowhunter Chronicles, which by this point in time, should be considered a full-fledged media franchise. For proof, look no further than the fact that the franchise now includes three novel series out of a planned total of five, which are on top of a movie, a TV show, short stories, graphic novels, and other forms of media. Based on this, it should come as no surprise to learn that The Shadowhunters Chronicles have proven to be very popular, thus enabling it to stand out from the countless novel series that are churned out for young adults on a regular basis.
How Have the Adaptations of The Shadowhunters Chronicles Been Received?
The movie was the one that came out first. In short, what happened was that Screen Gems decided to go ahead with a live-action adaptation of City of Bones, which was the very first book in the very first series of The Shadowhunters Chronicles. Given the timing, it should come as no surprise to learn that the effort was an attempt on Screen Gems’s part to launch a successful fantasy franchise, which possessed the potential to be very lucrative indeed. As a result, The Mortal Instruments: City of Bones came out in August of 2013, with the result that it proceeded to fall flat on its face at the box office. In fact, the movie’s reception was so bad that it failed to recover even its production costs, which is why production never started up on the proposed follow-up called City of Ashes.
However, while it can be said that was a stumble for The Shadowhunters Chronicles as a whole, it was clear that interest remained in the franchise. This can be seen in how Constantin Film AG announced in October of 2014 that The Mortal Instruments would be making a return as a TV show rather than a movie, thus making it clear that the failure of the movie slowed but would not stop the transition of the novel series to the screen. In fact, it should be mentioned that the people behind The Shadowhunters Chronicles expressed a fair amount of optimism on the matter, as shown by their statement that a TV show would be able to adapt much more of the source material for the screen than a movie series because of the increased screen-time.
By January of 2016, what was now called Shadowhunters started up on ABC Family, which has since become Freeform. This time around, the reception was much more positive, not least because the TV show managed to make significant improvements from Season 1 to Season 2, which spoke well of the cast and crew who were involved with its making. At one point in time, the executives at Freeform thought that Shadowhunters had the potential to become their version of Supernatural, which speaks volumes about the enthusiasm that was being shown. Unfortunately, while that enthusiasm continued, the economic realities changed. As a result, Freeform cancelled Shadowhunters but nonetheless provided it with two more episodes to provide the TV show with a proper send-off.
Why Do We Think that There Should Be a Shadowhunters Movie?
Based on this, it is clear that Shadowhunters has managed to secure an impressive fan base, which has benefited from the TV show’s connection to the broader franchise but wouldn’t have been capable of showing the enthusiasm that it has if that was the sole factor fueling it. As such, it would be a real shame for the relevant parties to let said fan base scatter into the winds.
Instead, what would be interesting would be another attempt at a movie set in The Shadowhunter Chronicles. After all, there is a great deal of source material to draw from, meaning that there are a lot of possibilities for what it might look like. For that matter, if the TV show is the last attempt that will be made at a live-action adaptation of the franchise, a movie would be an even better way to send it off as a whole than the two episodes that were ordered for the TV show. Certainly, there would be a risk, but in these things, there is always a risk.
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