The number of YA adaptations that actually succeed is shockingly few, which is why it was kind of a big deal when The Maze Runner hit $200M last week. Many of these films bomb hard, and one that audiences simply stayed away from last year was The Mortal Instruments: City of Bones. The $60M film based on Cassandra Clare's gothic supernatural books banked about $30M domestic (another $59M internationally) and was gone faster than you could say Shadowhunter. Producers moved ahead anyway on sequel, City of Ashes, which was to have arrived this year, but obviously that didn't happen and now they're headed in a different direction entirely.
According to THR, The Mortal Instruments will live on as a TV series, developed by Constantin Film and led by showrunner Ed Decter (Helix, The Client List). The drama series will go into production next year but no word on if the original cast will be involved. Many of the film's stars have extensive TV backgrounds, like Lena Headey (Game of Thrones), Kevin Durand (The Strain), Jonathan Rhys Meyers (The Tudors), and Jamie Campbell Bower (Camelot) but are also extremely busy or occupied with other shows.
So expect to see an entirely new The Mortal Instruments and probably a new approach to the material, one that Constantin Film's Martin Moszkowicz says will be able to go deeper than the movie could ever hope to.
Moskowicz: “It actually makes sense to do (the novels) as a TV series. 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.”
They're also reportedly working on a Resident Evil TV series, along with one based on the serial killer film, Perfume: The Story of a Murderer. Resident Evil isn't expected to go into development until after the final movie in 2016.
