If ever there was a genre that failed to learn its lesson, it was the nonstop desire for Hollywood to perpetually adapt any YA literary series. To say the bombs drastically outweighed the blockbusters would be the understatement of the century, with City of Ember just one of the many to go down in a ball of box office flames.
The live-action directorial debut of Monster House steward Gil Kenan came bearing a meaty $55 million budget and a solid ensemble of top talent that numbered Saoirse Ronan, Bill Murray, Tim Robbins, Toby Jones, Harry Treadaway, Marianne Jean-Baptiste, and countless others among its ensemble, but nobody cared.
Reviews were mixed rather than scathing – based on a 54 percent Rotten Tomatoes approval rating and 46 percent Rotten Tomatoes score, at least – but its theatrical run was diabolical. City of Ember fell short of even reaching $18 million at the box office, losing a fortune and instantly being swept under the rug as one of the most forgettable entries in a cinematic craze that was almost entirely defined by them.
Like almost all of its contemporaries, the story unfolded in a dystopian universe where a pair of young and photogenic leads wrestle with their burgeoning feelings for each other as destiny looms forebodingly on the horizon, with the twist in this instance being the titular city running into the danger of a cataclysmic shutdown.
Per FlixPatrol, City of Ember has at least returned to notoriety on the Starz worldwide watch-list, but you know things are grim when there are many YA stories out there that were told better, and they’re not even good.
Published: Jul 21, 2023 02:29 am