There have been no shortage of schadenfreude-triggering box office flops this summer, but The Mortal Instruments: City of Bones weekend stumble to an approximately $9.3 million haul initially seems like a mystery. Weren’t Cassandra Clare’s Mortal Instruments books really popular? Doesn’t the story of an angst-ridden teenage girl being sucked into the intrigues of a supernatural world known only to a select few people seem like it would resonate with a certain fanbase? Aren’t movie theaters pretty short on YA entertainment this week?
Film adaptations of popular YA novels seem like a hit-or-miss prospect. Sure, you might end up with a Hunger Games, but you could just as easily be stuck holding a steaming pile of The Host. You can’t really fault studios for wanting to launch the next Twilight-esque franchise, but, as Buzzfeed’s Jordan Zakarin points out, audiences that flocked to the sparkly vampire flicks might be tired of the same themes rehashed over, and over, and over, and over… We get it: vampires, angels, demons, werewolves, and all manner of other supernatural obstacles are, like, metaphors for the many pitfalls of adolescence. Based on the poor showing of The Mortal Instruments, movie audiences seem to be ready for some new metaphors.