Artemis Fowl

Sarxos

Walt Disney Pictures and The Weinstein Company are teaming up to bring Artemis Fowl, the series of eight science fiction fantasy novels written by author Eoin Colfer, to the big screen. This is fantastic news for the Irish author and for fans of the series.

Story

Macumazan

Sarxos wrote: »

Walt Disney Pictures and The Weinstein Company are teaming up to bring Artemis Fowl, the series of eight science fiction fantasy novels written by author Eoin Colfer, to the big screen. This is fantastic news for the Irish author and for fans of the series.

Story

This is really exciting! I read all of these last year and they're brilliant, hopefully will also put Ireland (or at least Tara) on the map too!

I wonder who they'll get to play Butler? Some appreciably huge Actor?

McLoughlin

They have been going on about this for 10 years or so.

Banjaxed82

Should this not be something where they should have struck while the iron was hot??....Harry Potter, Twilight, Hunger Games...

McLoughlin

Banjaxed82 wrote: »

Should this not be something where they should have struck while the iron was hot??....Harry Potter, Twilight, Hunger Games...

It was the rights were bought when Harry Potter was big in the cienma about 10 years ago but it has been in development hell for years.

Macumazan

Banjaxed82 wrote: »

Should this not be something where they should have struck while the iron was hot??....Harry Potter, Twilight, Hunger Games...

Yes, if you look in the article you'll see Eoin Colfer did help to draft a script for the first book but then it was consigned to Limbo. I think it's unlikely they'll use this- I do hope it's a live action film though, my reputation as a mature adult would suffer if it's an animated flick! :-)

krudler

Banjaxed82 wrote: »

Should this not be something where they should have struck while the iron was hot??....Harry Potter, Twilight, Hunger Games...

Well Harry Potter and Twilight are done and The Hunger Games is only 3 books (sequel will be 2 movies each probably) so a big fantasy set kid/teen friendly franchise is pretty much guaranteed box office for a studio. It would have been lost in the wake of the HP movies if they'd released it years ago.

Banjaxed82

Sorry. To rephrase... Should they not have released the films when the core fanbase was still reading the books?....akin to Harry Potter, Twilight, etc, etc

miralize

Loved these books as a young one

Overheal

Somewhere out there I hear someone telling a disney exec, "Stay back, human. You don't know what you're dealing with."

Better not be another Eragon or some such BS.

Macumazan

Overheal wrote: »

Somewhere out there I hear someone telling a disney exec, "Stay back, human. You don't know what you're dealing with."

Better not be another Eragon or some such BS.

(Fairies a warning - the age of man is dawning).

bnt

So here we are nearly five years later, and I happened to remember this and check for any news. According to this and other reports, filming was due to start in the UK early this year, with Kenneth Branagh directing. Cast includes Judi Dench as Commander Root, Josh Gad as Mulch Diggums, Lara McDonnell as Captain Holly Short, and Kilkenny native Ferdia Shaw débuts in the title role. Release is scheduled for 9 August 2019. The Weinstein Company is no longer involved for some reason ...

Agent Coulson

TheIrishGrover

I read a couple of those books. Pretty average for kids books. Not exactly His Dark Materials I mean fair play to Colfer. (Anything to keep him away from further destruction of Hitchhiker's Guide) but I wasn't engaged really. It's going to be a tough sell though. They'll obviously market it as the next Harry Potter but the book anyway certainly didn't have the depth or interesting characters that HP did. Decent script and give room to adapt and it could turn into a nice franchise but it'll take work. Especially the main character's story arc. their development happens over a couple of books but would need to happen within the first film really to appease to a wider audience and this would gut a good portion of the motivations.

Good luck to all involved but tough sell

JP Liz V1

Agent Coulson wrote: »

Conor McPherson involved in the writing

Slydice

I know nothing of this... but that trailer looks pretty cool

pixelburp

Well it sure looks YA!

Likewise though, I know nothing of the books; who is the slightly creepy looking kid in the suit supposed to be?

TheIrishGrover

pixelburp wrote: »

Well it sure looks YA!

Likewise though, I know nothing of the books; who is the slightly creepy looking kid in the suit supposed to be?

Without giving anything away that's the title character. He's an Irish genius child criminal mastermind who plots to steal fairy treasure. Fairy/fantasy world is real but is very high tech (Which ]is actually a pretty good spin on the idea)

I wouldn't classify the books as YA. They'd be aimed a bit younger (IMHO).

pixelburp

Certainly sounds like it's aimed at a younger demographic; and looking at the trailer again I can see it now.

With that in mind, I wonder what expectations Disney have for this. Supposedly it has been in limbo for years now.

McLoughlin

pixelburp wrote: »

Certainly sounds like it's aimed at a younger demographic; and looking at the trailer again I can see it now.

With that in mind, I wonder what expectations Disney have for this. Supposedly it has been in limbo for years now.

Well Eoin Colfer first spoke to me about a film in the works about 16 years ago so yeah limbo for awhile. Some of the issues were creative control, film in Ireland Irish cast especially Artemis

Arcsurvivor

I read most of the books and I hope the casting works for Artemis and the rest of the supporting cast.

Eirpod99

Looking forward to it. The books are aimed at kids but adults can also enjoy them. My older daughter read them when she was around 9-10, my son who is 9 has read 7 out of 8. I have read all and although they are a bit simplistic, I enjoyed them and enjoyed my kids appreciating the modernisating of some traditionally "Oirish" elements of our culture such as LEPRecon being the Lower Elements Police RECONnaissance unit.
The trailer looks good and I hope this is a hit. Harry Potter got millions of kids world wide reading and I hope this does the same.

Interesting fact: Ferdia Shaw is a grandson of Robert Shaw.

silverharp

Eirpod99 wrote: »

Looking forward to it. The books are aimed at kids but adults can also enjoy them. My older daughter read them when she was around 9-10, my son who is 9 has read 7 out of 8. I have read all and although they are a bit simplistic, I enjoyed them and enjoyed my kids appreciating the modernisating of some traditionally "Oirish" elements of our culture such as LEPRecon being the Lower Elements Police RECONnaissance unit.
The trailer looks good and I hope this is a hit. Harry Potter got millions of kids world wide reading and I hope this does the same.

Interesting fact: Ferdia Shaw is a grandson of Robert Shaw.

my son liked the books too, will they keep the Irish angle to this? there were references to landmarks around the city centre etc.

Agent Coulson

Nearly a year and half after the first trailer comes he second one.

May release date.

pixelburp

Appreciate there are fans of the books excited for this, but man it looks so ... I dunno, 2007. Like Disney found some Harry Potter coattails-riding book adaptation they forgot to release. A cautious pass from me, but the May release date suggests Disney possess some confidence this will do well.

Neither trailer does anything for me.

One of the lads in school absolutely loved the books.

McLoughlin

I don't think fans of the book are looking forward to this as the film has changed so much of the book and changed the lead character so much that it is unrecognizable.

Rockbeast2

Getting a Jupiter Ascending/Valarian vibe from this unfortunately.

Would be great to have a huge Irish-created franchise but my money's on this flopping.

The News Reporter line "...some of the BIGGEST ROBBERIES..." had me cringing.

FunLover18

A massive fan of the books but this is going to be the the Golden Compass of its time. Which is such a shame.

JP Liz V1

Men in Black kids

Slydice

This new trailer feels like it's aiming the film to be for a fairly young audience.

Varik

Read the first 3/4 books as a kid, and this sound so wrong. Artemis was a driving force in those books, but here he's lost much of his agency and none of his original motivations. He was an childrens anti hero, but this is magic spy kids.

people mentioning a lot of other adaptions in this thread but this looks worse.

He should be stealing, kidnappings, and permanently cripples a fairy swat team.

OU812

Seven years in production hell.

Coming to Disney + next month

https://whatsondisneyplus.com/artemis-fowl-coming-straight-to-disney/

Will most likely be US only initially (which will mean it’s available from the usual places four hours later).

You’d imagine they’d be sensible & give it a worldwide release swing as it’s digital only now.

McLoughlin

Disney more or less admits the film is a "dead duck" and have no faith in it being a success as it plans to release it straight to streaming

pixelburp

Yeah, that's hardly a stirring endorsement. I suppose given everything at the moment they could have at least claimed it was totally going to get a cinematic release lol

OU812

Was originally supposed to release May 29th in cinemas.

Trailers looked decent.

They could have saved it to Xmas, but they’ve probably hot other stuff they can hold off and are sacrificing it to streaming to build subscribers.

There WILL be people who’ll fork over €70 for the additional content which will be a win for them

johnny_ultimate

Has anyone had a stranger career trajectory than Kenneth Branagh? From director of Shakespeare adaptations to director of b-tier Disney blockbusters. I mean if he’s happy doing it more power to him, and he always mixed up his acting roles between thespian fare and blockbuster roles. But always am a little surprised to see his name on this film or Cinderella

CastorTroy

Remember he directed Thor as well.
Speaking of strange choices for Disney directors, Tim Burton stands out.

As for this film, I've never read the books but hear they're good. Will probably check out the film at some point

JP Liz V1

June 12th Disney+

pixelburp

Getting a bit of a thumping from critics, might hint as to why Disney were happy from this to be relegated to Disney+ Apparently Josh Gads Irish accent is ripe.

flazio

Watched it, nothing special. It opened the Disney book of Irish twee and went to town on it in the first 10 minutes.

Mark Hamill

pixelburp wrote: »

Getting a bit of a thumping from critics, might hint as to why Disney were happy from this to be relegated to Disney+ Apparently Josh Gads Irish accent is ripe.

Watched it with my daughter yesterday and it is tripe. The plot was pretty incomprehensible and Artemis Fowl Snr and Jnr both seemed to be in a fight for most wooden performance (the kid was seriously one of the worst child actors I've seen in recent years, I'm guessing he got the part because he is a descendant of GB Shaw).

Josh Gad doesn't really do an Irish accent though, just a gruff version of his own voice. Dame Judi Dench has the terrible Irish accent ("top o' the mornin' " and all).

facehugger99

Terrible movie without an original idea.

Despite being just over an hour and a half long, it still managed to feel padded.

The lead is an annoying little know-it-all prick. Dame Judy decided to do a growly Falls Road accent for no apparent reason. Every mythical character has been robbed from another franchise. The plot McGuffin is beyond ridiculous.

Usual Disney ****e of

killing a character for the emotional punch only to resurrect them a couple of minutes later.

Avoid.

Rockbeast2

Abomination! Foul!

I only watched this out of morbid curiosity. It was much worse than I expected.

I hope we can someday read the full story of what went on behind the scenes with this film as something clearly went badly wrong.

Ah, Colin Farrell... His name is basically a guarantee that any "Hollywood" movie he is in will be a piece of crap. It's unreal the way he can pick out the flops.

"But he got a ball of money for two days work!"

Okay, but his career has been very underwhelming. IMO.

beauf

Watched about 30 mins only the youngest was vaguely enjoying it. The others wanted to turn it off.

I always thought the books were like a child mission Impossible with Santa elves kind mashup.

This jumps all over the place and is a bit all over the place. Just poor writing, or there were too many cooks.

Tazzimus

facehugger99 wrote: »

The lead is an annoying little know-it-all prick.

He's more or less like that in the books as well

facehugger99 wrote: »

Every mythical character has been robbed from another franchise.

Again, all from the books, although why they had Mulch as a

giant dwarf

puzzles me. As well as having Root be female instead of male.

facehugger99 wrote: »

Usual Disney ****e of

killing a character for the emotional punch only to resurrect them a couple of minutes later.

Butler also dies in the books, just in a different way, and is brought back a while later by Holly.
I actually hoped it'd have the Troll v Butler bit from the first book, that was much better than what we actually got.

Not a great film, really. Percy Jackson levels of bad.

FunLover18

facehugger99 & tazzimus please use spoiler tags.

gmisk

Rockbeast2 wrote: »

Abomination! Foul!

I only watched this out of morbid curiosity. It was much worse than I expected.

I hope we can someday read the full story of what went on behind the scenes with this film as something clearly went badly wrong.

Ah, Colin Farrell... His name is basically a guarantee that any "Hollywood" movie he is in will be a piece of crap. It's unreal the way he can pick out the flops.

"But he got a ball of money for two days work!"

Okay, but his career has been very underwhelming. IMO.

Totally agree he picks some utter rubbish but his films outside of the Hollywood system can brilliant, in Bruge, the lobster, surprised to see he is in the new Batman film!

B.A._Baracus

gmisk wrote: »

Totally agree he picks some utter rubbish but his films outside of the Hollywood system can brilliant, in Bruge, the lobster, surprised to see he is in the new Batman film!

Doesnt look good for the new batman movie so :pac:

OU812

Gonna go totally against the grain here. Watched it tonight with a teenager & two juniors, none of which had any prior exposure to the characters. Everyone totally enjoyed it. Kept them totally entertained for the 90 or so minutes. Fantastic entertainment. & very much hoping there's a sequel.

Sleepy

As Saturday afternoon fare to amuse the kids it just about worked for our youngest (11) but it's utterly forgettable stuff.