Fandom

I like the question at the heart of this Washington Post piece by Hank Stuever - do overinvested fans interfere with the production of quality films? - but I would have liked him to interrogate the idea a little more. He never quite lays out his rationale for what makes a film successful or not - it seems to be connected to box office numbers, but he never makes that explicit; to take it further, what about a film like The Golden Compass, dismissed as a flop in the U.S. but vastly more popular overseas? What about the involvement of creators? The two franchises where he cites manic fandoms are Harry Potter and Twilight, both of which have their creators actively involved in the book-to-film process - J.K. Rowling's outing of Dumbledore came due to her correcting some script reference on Order of the Phoenix, and Stephenie Meyer has stated that her sale of the Twilight rights to Summit contained a guarantee of some measure of story fidelity. (Not to mention that after Chris Columbus left the franchise the Harry Potter movies became much less beholden to their source material.) Is the fact that Gene Roddenberry is no longer around a factor in Star Trek's ability to play with his characters and mythology? What about the fact that even though J.J. Abrams has admitted that he wasn't a Trek fan, the screenwriters are? Or that Abrams has his own fanbase? Admittedly, it's not quite as crazy as, say, Joss Whedon's, but I was a huge, huge Alias fan (and Felicity, Lost, and Fringe in varying degrees) and that absolutely played a role in my wanting to see Star Trek - it is always thrilling to me to see the Bad Robot logo, and I totally laughed a crazy little laugh of recognition when Amanda Foreman showed up on the bridge.

Ultimately, it's a tough line for studios to walk. Aim for the biggest audience possible, and you risk not even bringing in the one group who should be automatic. Make it too niche, and that built-in audience is all you get. Personally, I'm a big fan of faithful adaptations, but there should always be room for some improvisation.