The movie is based off a dystopian YA novel series from 2001. This story takes place in a post apocalyptic Earth where whole cities roam the wasteland scavenging for resources and devouring each other. It's kinda like Howl's Moving Castle meets Mad Max meets Nausicaa of the valley of the wind. The concept is pretty cool, even if it is a little fantastical.The people financing this should have known it was not going to do well.The source material is completely unknown. You adapt something because you assume that their is already an audience that you can get to show up, but this had none.YA movies had peaked already. this movie was started production in 2016. This is the same year the the 3rd Divergent movie came out and bombed. There was supposed to be a 4th movie, but wisely no one wanted to pay for it. And there are many examples of YA bombs to serve as warnings. Scorch Trials, the giver, beautiful creatures, the 5th wave, mortal instruments, I am number four, etc.There is NO ONE in this movie. The biggest name is Hugo Weaving and, no shade to him, but he's not really putting butts in seats especially YA butts. Even if your leads are unknowns you gotta have some marque supporting talent. The girl had her face covered on the promotional material and the guy wasn't even on the poster. I guess the draw is PETER JACKSON, but he doesn't really have any draw outside the LOTR and even then the Hobbit movies were quite disappointing.It was a first time director. He is the VFX director from PJ's King Kong and won an Oscar for his work. PJ liked him so much that he gave him the job here. This movie had a lot of flaws, so you can't blame the director soley, but, good lord, the pacing was awful. They were constantly cutting between scenes, with no attention given to flow or environment. The movie felt rushed and hyperactive.If I was a executive at Universal and Peter Jackson comes to me with a movie idea, I'm gonna give him a meeting. I see that it's a dystopian YA novel and I see the success of the hunger games and I get kinda excited. I give him some money to develop this movie, get a cast, a script, hire a director, etc. But when i see the returns of the other YA movies, i get kinda nervous. Then when I see what PJ has assembled I get even more nervous. I would not have given him the money.Also a huge part of the movie is about China. this a minor spoiler, but the post-apocalyptic China has basically built a utopia and Hugo Weaving's character is trying to destroy them. If you get some Chinese money and some Chinese talent. This movie could have pretty well there.Thank for coming to my TED Talk. via /r/movies https://ift.tt/33cqL9J
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