What Could Follow Epic Fantasy?
Winter Is Leaving.
Epic fantasy rules the entertainment world these days. Kicked off by the Lord of the Rings films, epic fantasy has spread from the pages of novels to the big and small screens. George R. R. Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire is HBO’s powerhouse show. The Hobbit expanded into a film trilogy, incorporating even obscure details from Tolkien’s lesser-read works.* Two different networks have resurrected the King Arthur legend for television. Terry Goodkind’s Sword of Truth series had a television run as Legend of the Seeker. There are probably more examples, but I think those make the point.
Epic fantasy is everywhere these days, reaching even the non-readers in the general public. But like all such trends, it cannot last. Harry Potter and Twilight gave the spotlight to YA, but The Hunger Games may be its last great hurrah. Oh, there will be more YA films and shows, but given the response to Beautiful Creatures I’d say the genre’s on its way out as far as new properties go**. I don’t think epic fantasy has quite reached that point yet. There are still many great epic fantasy series that have yet to see development for film or television.
For example, I’d love to see Michael Moorcock’s Elric of Melniboné get the Game of Thrones treatment on a network like HBO. They could do one book a season and run for six seasons.*** Or Roger Zelazny’s Chronicles of Amber. And goodness knows that Robert Jordan’s Wheel of Time series has a broad enough fan base to support it in film or television. (I still need to try reading that one, now that it’s finished.)
But the general public is fickle, and the prevalence of epic fantasy will likely vanish within another couple of years. So, the question is: what will be next?
Side note: For those of you who think I’ve forgotten superheroes, I’m not counting them. Their popularity may be reaching its zenith right now, but they’re almost like action films and romantic comedies – they never really go away. They’ve had peaks and valleys over the years, but they’ve done well as far back as I can remember. That makes it hard for me to call them a trend, and trends are what I’m talking about here.
Anyway, I suspect that the next big thing will be space opera. What with plans for another Star Wars series in the making, and the rekindling of Star Trek films, the general public will soon remember its love of dramatic adventures in space. This will create an opening for other space titles, with the character and plot emphases of space operas giving them a leg up over military SF, hard SF and other branches.
True, the last Star Wars movies failed to kick-start such a trend, but that had more to do with the quality of those films than their subject matter. After all, trends tend to launch off of strong examples, rather than weak ones.
What do you think? What will be the next big entertainment trend? And before epic fantasy leaves the spotlight, what epic fantasy would you like to see produced?
* If you object to this characterization of books such as The Silmarillion, I can say only, “Search your feelings, Tolkien expert. You know it to be true.”
** Existing properties such as The Vampire Diaries (never read or seen, heard it’s good) and recent deals like Richelle Mead’s Vampire Academy (never read, but I’ve heard that it’s in development for film or television) notwithstanding. As I said, there will still be more, they just won’t dominate like they did. Though perhaps Mead’s property will change that…
*** Yes, I know he later added books, but I never read them. To me that series will always end with Stormbringer. It had such a fantastic final scene – but I won’t spoil that here in case you haven’t read the books.
