Entry tags:

fandom: mortal instruments, person: cassie clare, reviews

Cassandra Clare and the Panned Picture
When we last left out heroine she was leafing some thorny mahogany pickle to her partner-in-crime to go to her big movie premiere.

Well the first of the Mortal Instrument movies is out, ladies and gents!

While not doing terribly bad (Sony had nothing to lose apparently), it didn't exactly shine either taking in only $9 million through the weekend and $14 million at the moment.

So Cassie Claire, er, Clare, has had to do a wee bit of backpedaling.
Covered here but the important tweets are at the bottom.

You see, she didn't really have any control over the film and so if it bombs, it's the movie producer's fault. Nope, zero input on the whole dealio.

Will there be a sequel, given the budget versus the income? Will it matter? Who knows. Expect to see the Mortal Instruments t-shirts next month at your local Hot Topic and see Cassie Clare in her next adventure, Dancing With Wool!

(It could be wood again. Or Woof? Woozie? Dancing With Who?)

(Read comments) - (Post a new comment)

	kita0610 2013-08-30 01:56 am UTC (link)
	Thanks for the clarification. Like I said above, I don't feel like it's a sin to write great fic, file the numbers off and get published in the first place, but obvs. not all of fandom agrees. (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

ekaterinv
2013-08-30 08:49 pm UTC (link)

I don't have any problems with someone changing fanfic to original fic. With, for example, 50 Shades, the "fanfic" was so different from the source material that filing serial numbers off was all that was needed. (It's still shit, but not because it's fanfic.) Lois McMaster Bujold is one of my favorite authors and she started with Star Trek fanfic that she changed to something else. But that's the important part: she changed it. She was inspired by another source, and if you know that you can see where it came from, but she used that inspiration to make her own characters, plot, and setting.

Cassandra Claire's a different matter. She pulled all these plot elements and characters from different places and threw them together in a weird mishmash. All she did was file the serial numbers off, but she didn't make anything of her own. Her fanfic was like this too, from what I can gather. And I don't think the excerpts I've seen from her fic that are not plagiarized from Pamela Dean are well-written anyway.

(Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

kita0610
2013-08-30 09:39 pm UTC (link)

I knew her fanfic was stolen from a million sources. I just .... kind of assumed at least her "original" stuff was, uh, more original? It boggles me how someone could get away with that in the first place, let alone get a movie made from it. Then again, the entire phenomenon of lousy writing being rewarded with millions of sales (not to mention dollars) also boggles me so clearly I am missing something.

(Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

	agent_hyatt 2013-08-31 12:33 am UTC (link)
	Her original stuff wouldn't be different, because CC got her reputation of being a witty writer mostly because of references to funnier canons. Her original works probably do the same, just more stealthily. Her fans wanted her "aesthetic", which is Harry Potter crossed with Buffy, and that's what TMI is. (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

	kita0610 2013-08-31 12:37 am UTC (link)
	Someone once did a side by side comparison of her fanfic vs canons she lifted from. I wonder if anyone has done similar with her published books. I would LOVE to see that. (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

	nevadafighter 2013-08-31 02:23 am UTC (link)
	If someone offered me a small honorarium I'd do it. (Reply to this)(Parent)

	cinnamonical 2013-08-31 03:48 am UTC (link)
	It boggles me how someone could get away with that in the first place, let alone get a movie made from it. I was boggled too, but at least one article/post has pointed out that she's long had Hollywood connections, so I'm thinking that combined with a clearly enthusiastic fanbase must have convinced people that moviefying TMI would be a surefire win. (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

	kita0610 2013-08-31 06:58 am UTC (link)
	Ah, connections. Too bad I suck at shmoozing. And tact. And usually dislike people. OTOH, she doesn't seem all that fucking charming either and she managed somehow. (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

	cinnamonical 2013-08-31 07:28 am UTC (link)
	It's in the family, too! This article says her maternal grandfather was a veteran film producer, while she apparently got her professional start in writing in the 1990s working for The Hollywood Reporter as an editorial assistant. (Reply to this)(Parent)

	ekaterinv 2013-08-31 06:28 pm UTC (link)
	Ah, I see my problem. I've been trying to write original stuff that's not shitty. I should have been ripping other authors off and schmoozing. (Reply to this)(Parent)

(Read comments) -