Since the whole Harry Potter explosion (which started in 1997 - almost 20 years ago now) there has been an almost continual chain of young adult fantasy/sci fi novels series that achieve enormous success and spawn equally successful movie franchises. So what series currently out there will be the next megahit like the Harry Potter, Twilight and The Hunger Games series all turned out to be?
Or has this fad burned out?
I’d have said the best bet was the Percy Jackson franchise, but the movies haven’t really caught on. I’d loved to see “Wearing the Cape” get a shot, and it could do well since it adds the superhero element. Kristen Bell would have been perfect for Hope a decade ago.
Divergent
I have a friend who, I just learned, is working six hours a day at writing a YA dystopia. Not totally relevant, but I literally just learned it then saw this thread, so I chime in.
Percy Jackson is a good example of a series that almost made it into the same league. Looking at the films on wikipedia they had respectable box office figures albeit nowhere near the Harry Potter films $billion+ takes.
Divergent appears to be a one-off novel, is there a sequel in the works?
Well, there are thousands of candidates… I love modern publishing.
Not.
Divergent is a trilogy, with the last book released a few months back.
Divergent
Insurgent
Allegiant
Filming has already started on the second movie.
Huh, I’d misread the article, thanks.
A friend of mine’s daughter (and a friend of her’s) has written 3 or 4 YA books based on Shakespeare. When the first one, Tempestuous, came out they were immediately approached by some folks who wanted to tie up the movie rights. I suspect this is pretty common, you get them to sign up early then if it works out you make gillions, if it doesn’t you aren’t out much.
While the first book has sold enough that they are getting some money from it, it hasn’t really taken off. So the movie deal fell through.
However, they did enjoy the writing and have made some money so the publishers are buying some more books from them.
You never know.
As mentioned above, Divergent appears to be the favorite son in this race.
Maybe the next next one should involve Tiffany Aching.
Gee If I could pick the next blockbuster, i could pay off all my bills. I bet people in publishing wish they could too. It’s such a crapshooot. Who would have thought the utterly horrid Twilight books would be so popular? or Flowers in the Attic back in the day. Like picking a horse race
The thing is Harry Potter and Twilight, whatever we may think of them, were hugely popular as books. The Divergent series isn’t even close, despite being a best seller. I don’t think it’s sold as much as “The Mortal Instruments” series, and that sucker’s first movie sank without a trace.
One thing I find telling is timeline - the first two series to years to come out as books, and the Percy Jackson series and it’s follow-up are the same. I think all three books in Divergent came out within a year or so, and I’m seeing several other series do the same (the Girl in the Box series is up to 8 in about two years) - they’re basically one long book people have broken up to emulate the narrative of other writers. Most are simply too thin to translate well.