‘The Mortal Instruments: City of Bones‘ is set to hit theaters worldwide in less than a month, but as seems to be the case with Hollywood recently, the sequel has already been greenlit and has begun casting. Sci-fi powerhouse Sigourney Weaver is in talks to portray one of the few new characters introduced in the sequel, likely (but as of yet unofficially confirmed) Inquisitor Imogen Herondale, the ruthless leader of the Shadowhunters.
‘City of Bones’ is book one in the series of six, and it centers around a young girl named Clary Fray (Lily Collins, ‘Mirror Mirror’) who discovers that she alone can see a group of spunky young Shadowhunters roving around her town. After getting a frantic phone call from her mother urging her not to come home, Clary begins to realize that nothing in the world is as she previously thought, including her own heritage. Along with her friend Simon (Robert Sheehan, ‘Misfits’), whose crush on her might as well have been announced on the cover, and sexy love-triangle-completer Jace, (Jamie Campbell Bower, ‘The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn Part 1 & 2‘) the Shadowhunter who takes her under his wing, plus a few orphans from the underworld, the group seeks to find some answers and hunt some shadows.
I’m going to be completely honest here, if it isn’t already clear. I tried to read this book earlier this year, and I couldn’t get past the fifth or so chapter, when the end was so glaringly obvious, I didn’t think it was worth it to wade through the prose. And I got through ‘Micro’!
I am frankly shocked at the reception of this book, which struck me as so painfully wishing it were the love-child of a ‘Twilight,’ ‘Buffy,’ ‘Teen Wolf,’ and ‘Supernatural’ orgy, that it didn’t know what else to do but slather it all together in one strange sandwich. That’s not a rude comment about any of those properties, many of which I happen to love. But we all learned when we were about 10 that you can enjoy Coke, Dr Pepper, and Mountain Dew, but when you mix them in the same cup, you get sent to Time Out after racing through Taco Bell with your shirt over your head.
What this casting news says to me is Hollywood thinks the words “Young Adult” are synonymous with “Cash Cow” and they’re just greenlighting things without actually reading them or stopping to think if they should. Didn’t Dr. Ian Malcolm warn us of this in ‘Jurassic Park’? Something like that.
I could be totally wrong. The movie could break box office records, and then I’ll have to see if AmazonFresh delivers crow. But do a bit of googling on the plot of the first book and the author and ask yourself if these are the types of stories we fans want to be supporting.
‘The Mortal Instruments: City of Bones’ releases on August 21, 2013.
