Slated for an October release in the UK, Seventh Son becomes the latest book series to be adapted into a film. However, you will probably not recognise the name of Joseph Delaney or his series The Wardstone Chronicles. This series of books is not as famous as the Harry Potter series, Twilight or even Anthony Horowitz’s Alex Rider saga, so it may be a bit of a risk choosing to adapt these books (for more than just this one reason which I will go into later). Even with a best seller you’re not guaranteed success, the failure of Stormbreaker put to bed any ideas that Point Blanc or the other Alex Rider stories may get the big film treatment no matter how much I hope and pray for it to happen… anyway, tangent ended, back to Seventh Son. Here’s the trailer:
Set in the 18th Century, the story revolves around young Thomas (Ben Barnes of Prince Caspian fame), the seventh son of a seventh son which in this world grants Tom with the ability to see things that others can not: boggarts, ghosts and other fantasy beings. Tom finds himself apprenticed to the local Spook (Jeff Bridges) to learn to fight against the evil spirits. His first great challenge comes when the powerful Mother Malkin (Julianne Moore) escapes her confinement while the Spook is away.
As you can see, in the trailer you get the carefully worded “inspired by the acclaimed series” rather than “based on…” which suggests Seventh Son is not going to be a straight adaptation. Although this decision has already angered some fans (but you always get the few who can’t stand to see any change to source material), I believe this is actually a smart choice: The Wardstone Chronicles does not carry the same fan base other book series’ do so this is an attempt to appeal to a wider audience. The story of a boy being trained in his craft has been done (Harry Potter, The Sorcerer’s Apprentice, Percy Jackson) and to attempt to place another origin story into a saturated market would make no sense at all, therefore, taking elements from other books in the series as well will help speed along the story. Hopefully it won’t be a case of too many ingredients just thrown in with no time given to story or character development.
The Wardstone Chronicles
The other promising factor for Seventh Son is the acting talent attached to the project. Of course, Ben Barnes is relatively new but making steady progress in his career, however he is supported by Oscar winner Jeff Bridges, four time Oscar nominee Julianne Moore and two time Oscar nominee Djimon Hounsou just for good measure. The director is Sergei Bodrov who is a Russian filmmaker who has twice had his features nominated for Best Foreign Language Film (Prisoner of the Mountains, Mongol: The Rise to Power of Genghis Khan). At one time Jennifer Lawrence was also attached to star, meaning that the script must have some merit to it. Now this is not to say that I think Seventh Son is going to clean up at the Oscars, far from it, but I do believe that with this talent on board there is definitely potential and it has more chance of being a good film than a bad one.
So it’s based on an acclaimed book series, has huge talent starring and directing, the trailer is action packed and exciting. So why would it be a surprise hit? Well first of all: it’s fantasy. And unless you happen to be bringing out a new Harry Potter film or The Hobbit then fantasy is a no go genre, that’s been proven time and time again. The trailer brings back memories to me of Black Death and Solomon Kane, two films I actually very much enjoyed but both fared poorly at the box office and with critics; when making fantasy you have to KNOW you have a hit, otherwise it’s all been a waste of time.
Other problems involve the dreaded moving of the release date. While it doesn’t sound like much the moving of a release date can be a sure fire signifier of a flop. In this case Seventh Son has been pushed back all the way from February this year to January next in the USA, I’m still skeptic that we’ll even get it in October in the UK. This move has been due to post production needing finishing, the same reason that The Lone Ranger is currently flopping on it’s stomach in the States (one of MANY reasons if early reviews are to be believed). This is not always the case, The Great Gatsby became a hit despite the moving of that release date but that has Leonardo DiCaprio in the lead role, Seventh Son does not.
Problems continue when you look further below the surface and see that the script has gone through a couple of rewrites. Again, never a good thing as when a script gets re-written you can see that the film has been dragged in several different directions by people who come on board with a separate view for the story and no respect for the work done by their predecessor (the most recent example of this being World War Z where the ending was rehashed). Even worse, Rhythm and Hues Studios who provide the visual effects for Seventh Son actually went bankrupt while working on the film; Legendary Pictures agreed to give $5million to the company to help them finish their work so this may or may not have hindered the project.
As you can see, Seventh Son is not without it’s problems. But upon it’s release people won’t be looking behind the screen at the difficulties the film has had getting there; they will be looking at the quality that is being presented to them. Ever since I first heard about this film I have been silently excited; the story, the genre and the theme is right up my street and something of a geeky pleasure for myself. I have been excited by the trailer and think that there is clearly plenty of potential here. To release on a quieter week in summer may have been a risk but it is one that could have paid off. Now, however, I can only see this being a flop and it pains me so much to say that.
Archer; their romantic subplot does not seem forced and thankfully there isn’t a ridiculously placed kiss before Archer leaves just to keep Hollywood happy. The development that Archer goes through over the course of Blood Diamond is a really brilliant arc: in the beginning he is a man out for himself just wanting to make money, but as the film goes on he eventually turns into the guy willing to sacrifice himself so that his new friend (Vandy) can escape with his son and change his life as well as many others too. The relationship between Archer and Vandy is really interesting to watch and grabs your attention right form their first meeting.
Ant-Man: I’m talking the Henry Pym Ant-Man, not any of the reincarnations. An Ant-Man movie seems to have been in the works for as long as Marvel Studios have been making films but things are finally moving forward and you would expect this film to tie Ant-Man in to the already existing Marvel Universe seeing as though he is one of the original Avengers in the comic books. I know that Nathan Fillion’s name has been banded around for the part and with Joss Whedon now having a little input in casting maybe Fillion has a chance of getting the role; I would be in support of this.
Wasp: You can’t really have Ant-Man without having Wasp, the two are married in the comics and go hand in hand. She was one of the founding members of the comic book world Avengers and is likely to be introduced in the Ant-Man film. Combine this with the fact that the Avengers is lacking some serious female representatives then I think it is highly likely that Wasp will feature sooner rather than later. When Wasp was first being rumoured Eva Longoria was linked with the part and I would definitely back this casting choice. She is a wonderful actress and although her success in acting has been on television I think that she could hold her own in an ensemble cast.
Black Panther: Black Panther is one of my favourite comic book characters from Marvel and he was the first black superhero in mainstream American comics; he is African royalty and ruler of his own country with a long running association with the Avengers. I don’t know if Marvel would be able to afford this actor because he is absolute true quality but if he was to star in the role the movie would no doubt be a huge hit! My pick for this role would be Djimon Hounsou of Blood Diamond fame, I think he is the stand out candidate for this role out of the already known actors.
Vision: So the likelihood of Vision being included in the next Avengers film seemed less and less likely with the likelihood of Ultron appearing diminishing (you won’t understand that if you do not follow the comics but don’t worry). Anyway, as you will know if you have seen The Avengers Agent Phil Coulson of SHIELD died at the hands of Loki, yet he is still contracted to several more Marvel films and is remaining coy about his involvement with Iron Man 3. What’s more, people thought this was the work of Joss Whedon (a man known for killing off popular characters) but this was actually planned by Marvel’s man in charge Kevin Feige. Clearly Marvel have plans for Agent Coulson and in one interview they even said “I believe the letters L, M and D were mentioned somewhere’. L.M.D = Life Model Decoy. So will Agent Coulson come back as The Vision? There is no doubt that Clark Gregg has become a favourite of fans of the Marvel Universe as it is his appearance that helped to tie all the films together and make The Avengers possible. If Agent Coulson was reborn as The Vision I would think this was an absolute stroke of genius on Marvel’s part.
The Movie Universe 