Beautiful Creatures tells the story of Ethan, a mortal boy who feels attracted to Lena, who just recently discovered that she has superpowers that are out of her control. This book evolved from a Civil War fanfic into the first book of a young adult series (weird, I know).
Alcon Entertainment snapped up the rights to Kami Garcia and Margaret Stohl’s Beautiful Creatures, the first book of four in their Caster Chronicles saga, immediately after the book’s release in late 2009. In a marketplace dominated by Young Adult (YA) adaptations, the producer’s sudden move makes sense. This book has all the necessary ingredients for a YA hit: a fated, forbidden love affair between an average boy and a witchy woman; magical powers; and goofy, unpopular terminology.
The main reason why the movie adaptation wasn’t at all popular is that Beautiful Creatures didn’t become a popular book, and when the film was released in 2013, a large part of its target audience was completely clueless about it.
Richard LaGravenese directed Beautiful Creatures from his own adapted screenplay and attracted a talented cast, including Oscar-winner Viola Davis. Despite its handsome look, strong performances, and general faithfulness to the source material, Beautiful Creatures just barely was able to recuperate its $60 million budget.
This movie, unlike all the others I have reviewed on this blog, didn’t fail because it was bad, but rather because Beautiful Creatures isn’t a popular enough book for the movie to become an overnight success, and yet its marketing team acted as if it were.
Are there any books you have read that suffered the same fate?
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