Adaptations and Diminishing Returns

Adaptations, they’re one of the things which provides the lifeblood of creative industries. Television series and movies are being made all the time as adaptations of preexisting properties, always have and always will. The same can be said the other way around with comic books or TV series being based on films. Hell, even video games get made based on popular movies in the right genres.

ET-Game
Even if it’s a bad idea

But there is a growing push-back to certain adaptations that is becoming stronger with time. This is to be expected, especially in an age where nostalgia properties are the biggest money makers in the world. After all, an entire generation that was raised during a small technological singularity has found itself not only as adults in a confusing time but with disposable income and not a lot of desire (or ability) to spend that income on another generation. You could practically make anything work so long as it’s based on something from the right genres or the right decade.

Jem
Not that they don’t find ways to fail

And yet, failures have happened, and critical reception is growing sharper not only from the actual professional critics (who aren’t even in the target audience, usually) but the fans themselves. Films like Batman v Superman have received mixed reviews, Age of Ultron did the same, and adaptations of YA novels have started to experience diminishing returns. Some could say that some of this is a result of adaptation decay, but there’s a more prevalent challenge ahead of adaptations…

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