You might blame Percy Jackson for this one, but there are some people (such as former Renegade writer Meagan Brooks) who will be very happy with this news. The Mortal Instruments sequel is officially back on.
This is interesting since the movie cost $60 million to make, which is a modest amount for a film based on a popular young adult franchise, but it only made $9 million in its opening weekend. It’s total domestic take was a horrible $31 million and its worldwide gross hit about $80 million. Take out promotional money and this movie was a money loser.
However, DVD and Blu-ray sales can help and there might be the cast that Sony hopes the people who caught it on home video will be willing to pony up the money to see the Mortal Instruments sequel in theaters. Plus, there is finger pointing from Sony at the marketing teams.
“We are analyzing what we did wrong with the first film — particularly with the positioning and marketing — and what changes we have to make,” said Martin Moszkowicz, Constantin Film’s head of film and TV. “We are working with a great group of people to re-position the franchise [for second film]…The readers of Mortal Instruments are older than you might think. That may have been one issue in our marketing, that we focused too much on a very young audience segment.”
The production also plans to add Sigourney Weaver to the cast for the Mortal Instruments sequel, City of Ashes.
This probably comes from the fact that Percy Jackson & The Olympians: The Lightning Thief was seen as a failure when it came out, making $88 million domestically on a $95 million budget. It got a sequel three years later. However, the first movie actually did well overseas and made $227 million total. The second movie, Percy Jackson: Sea of Monsters was more critically received, but made less money – $66 million domestically and $183 million worldwide.
The Mortal Instruments sequel better hope its fans are more loyal to the movies.
Source: Cinema Blend