Yesterday the internet exploded, for all of us, The Mortal instruments fans, finally got some news we had been waiting for so long: IT WILL COME BACK… but not as we thought. The Hollywood Reporter announced this yesterday:
“Constantin Film, the production company that controls the rights to Cassandra Clare‘s best-selling YA fantasy franchise and which produced The Mortal Instruments: City of Bones film, is relaunching Mortal Instruments as a high-end drama series.
Constantin has hired Ed Decter, whose writer-producer credits include Helix, Unforgettable, In Plain Sight and The Client List, as the showrunner for the Mortal Instruments series. The project is currently in development, with Constantin planning to begin production next year. No broadcast partners are yet attached to the series. Constantin had originally planned to turn Clare’s fantasy series into a feature film franchise but shelved that idea after the first Mortal Instruments film, starring Lily Collins and Jamie Campbell Bower, tanked at the box office, earning just $31 million domestically. Constantin, however, insisted it had not abandoned the franchise and planned to return to Mortal Instruments. “It actually makes sense to do (the novels) as a TV series,” Constantin film and TV head Martin Moszkowicz told THR. “There was so much from the book that we had to leave out of the Mortal Instruments film. In the series we’ll be able to go deeper and explore this world in greater detail and depth.” The Mortal Instruments series is part of a broader strategic shift at Constantin that will see the German-based company move into English-language television series. Moszkowicz said Constantin is looking at possible television adaptations of several of its English-language movie properties, including period serial killer drama Perfume: The Story of a Murderer and the Resident Evil sci-fi horror franchise. Constantin’s German television business has been consistently profitable over the years even as its recent English-language films, with the exception of the Resident Evil titles, have misfired. In addition to Mortal Instruments, Constantin’s big-budget disaster movie Pompeii and the 3D animated Tarzan, both fizzled at the box office.”
Well, I agree that it makes a lot more sense as a tv show. The series takes place in a limited time window, although, the amount of events is huge, and that was clearly not well done on the big screen. And I’m really excited about the possibility of it becoming a TV show. I’ve been “living” in the world of Shadowhunters for several months now (if you don’t count the 2 weeks I was somewhere between “The Maze” and “the Glade”), and it’s a “never-ending” story, in the sense that between the original series and The Infernal Devices we have already 9 books, and that Cassandra Clare is not only planning a sequel to The Infernal Devices, but to The Mortal Instruments as well! So, TV is not only a great chance for them to do it right, but to also expand on all the magnificent things the has put on paper!
The big concern right now is, of course, how they will come about doing it. Will they start from the beginning (ignoring the movie altogether), or are they starting in City of Ashes?! I have to be honest, I would love a total remake, because they screwed it up so badly, changing things that should not have been changed…
The other main concern for most fans is the casting. We now had a couple of years to grow to love all those involved in this movie, a second movie would mean that they would all be back, but a TV show means that most of them most likely wont! Lily Collins and Jamie Campbell Bower are highly unlikely to be linked to the TV show, no matter how much they love the characters, I just think it isn’t feasible given the success they enjoy right now. As much as I love Jamie in the movie, he’s not “my Jace”, so I guess I would be OK with it. Same goes for Clary, Lily Collins clearly made the character her own, but she not how I envisioned her. Now comes the tricky part: having any other person other than Robert Sheehan playing Simon would be plainly wrong. Isabelle is a role I fell needed a recast if we had had a second movie… Jemima West may be great, she’s just not a great Izzy.
Now Magnus and Alec… I guess in a sense we were lucky that nothing went on between them in the first book/movie… Godfrey Gao is “my Magnus”, I can’t read a passage with him in it without seeing his face, so I’m hoping, really hoping, that given that Magnus is a continuous character throughout the whole Shadowhunter business, that they’ll be able to keep him… I kinda grew to love Kevin Zegers‘s Alec, maybe because now I absolutely love Alec in the books, but I guess I would mind if he was recasted. Though all the fanart with Godfrey and Kevin’s faces would be out of date…
Whatever they decide, I’m just happy we’ll be able to see some kind of adaptation to screen of this amazing universe (and I’m desperately hoping that somehow The Infernal Devices will make it to the big screen…).
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