Why did Artemis Fowl and A Wrinkle In Time fail?

Alright! Today I am examining to of the most perplexing movies to have come out in the past two years - A Wrinkle In Time and Artemis Fowl. Both are film adaptations of beloved childhood classics, both are produced by the Mouse House, and both are massive disappointments.



But how do you take these critically acclaimed books that have sold millions of copies worldwide and turn them into generic, boring, stupid failures of movies? Well, the first problem is that they are trying to half-adapt the book, throwing out the timeless qualities and replacing them with generic motivations to try and appease a modern audience.

But to get to that, we must first understand the modern Disney; They don't have, in a very blunt, crass sense, any balls. For example, take the new Star Wars movies. While the Last Jedi wasn't that good, they undid all of their completely ballsy revelations and plot twists with the Rise of Skywalker due to a vocal minority complaining on Reddit.

Or their streaming service, Disney+. Do you know how much content they have moved to Hulu because it was too "Edgy?" Well, they took off Love, Victor, which was taken because it was about a gay dude, basically. They also suspended production on a Lizzie McGuire sequel series for being "Too edgy." But anyways, moving on to the real question...

Where did these movies go wrong? Well, it basically boils down to one thing:

Disrespecting the Books

For these books to be even considered to be made into huge movies, they must have a pretty big fan following already, or were critically acclaimed and would earn the studio lots of good will.

Who exactly do they think is going to see the film other than fans of the book? Most would assume that the main target audience for an adaptation of Artemis Fowl would be those who read Artemis Fowl. But let's look at what they changed.

Artemis Fowl

But, they're taking off all the edges; In the book, Artemis Fowl is a 12 year old evil genius who kidnaps a fairy. A comparable comparison would be Azula from Avatar: the Last Airbender. In the movie, he's a wide-eyed child who kidnaps a fairy, but it doesn't matter. They become "Forever Friends."

This is just a case of not really even reading the book. While A Wrinkle In Time completely missed the themes of the book, it more or less got the plot. They had obviously read the book. But Artemis Fowl? It's just textbook bad. Too much exposition, bad acting, bad special effects, plot holes, pointless characters, a convoluted plot, underdeveloped characters, bad pacing, a short runtime... the list goes on. Like, seriously. My review had about 80 bullet points as to exactly what it did wrong. But that's as a movie. But what about as an adaptation of the book?

Well, the movie completely takes the pages of the book, the tone, the cool characters, and throws them away. I mean, he's a child who kidnaps someone. That's not exactly Disney material; in fact, the one time he does anything remotely criminal in the movie was a deleted scene where he blackmails a fairy by almost killing her. But they cut that out. So what you have is a generic fantasy film.

And it's always disappointing when you get these books, known for being distinct and different, and get turned into generic films. But why is it generic?

Well, let's see. Artemis isn't mean, which takes a lot away from the story. Artemis wears regular clothes. If the Artemis from the book met the Artemis from the movie... well, let's just say one would walk away crying, asking for his dad. The movie also takes the cool setup of the characters - Artemis is trying to reclaim his family's wealth after his father went missing two years ago, Holly Short is the first female officer in the fairy police force, LEPrecon, Butler is a martial arts expert who takes down a troll, etc. etc, and throws it in the trash.

But in the movie, they're all thin stereotypes with generic motivations. Artemis is a child prodigy whose dad has gone missing for a day, Holly is a "Rule breaking" police officer, and Butler is just a butler, who does not take down a troll. In fact, the troll kills him. And not in a cool way. The troll lands on him after falling off a chandelier. Very anticlimactic.

It's honestly just one of the worst films ever made and one of the worst of the decade. It's not even trying.

A Wrinkle In Time

Okay, I have a lot of issues with A Wrinkle In Time. I first read the book when I was in the fourth grade, so 9-ish. So I had been looking forward to this for a very long time.

The first thing I should mention is that the cast. They cast black actors for white characters. And that's okay, in this case. There aren't a lot of black female role models in the media - I think the most recent one was Shuri in 2018. So that's fine. We need more black role models, especially black female role models. So that's good.


But where they really went wrong was the complex Christian theologies that the book was about. It was a kid's book, and like most children's books from back in the 60s, it contained heavy metaphors for Jesus and the Bible. Think Narnia. But the movie - The movie threw this out the window. You can't make a movie based on a book that was heavily influenced by Christian themes and throw out the Christian stuff! The result would be bland dime a dozen film!


And that's what we got. Maybe having explicit religious allegories would turn away some audience members. But the movie would most likely be better, and not a huge box office bomb. The adaptation of Narnia wasn't, and it didn't try and replace it's Christian themes - it made $745 million and had two okay sequels. Meanwhile, A Wrinkle In Time lost $130 million.

In fact, they replaced the Christian themes with a much more short term gain. Let's look at these two scenes from the book and movie, respectively:


”Who have our fighters been?” Calvin asked.

”Oh, you must know them, dear,” Mrs. Whatsit said.

Mrs. Who’s spectacles shone out at them triumphantly, “And the light shineth in darkness; and the darkness comprehended it not.”

”Jesus!” Charles Wallace said. “Why of course, Jesus!”

”Of course!” Mrs. Whatsit said. “Go on, Charles, love. There were others. All your great artists. They’ve been lights for us to see by.”

They go on to mention Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo, Shakespeare, Back, Pasteur, Madame Curie, Einstein, Gandhi, Buddha, Beethoven, Rembrandt and St. Francis. Mostly artists. But in the movie, you know who they replaced Jesus with?

Mrs. Who: You've weakened The It and you've given Earth and everyone on it a second chance.

Mrs. Which: You should be proud. Some of our best warriors come from Earth. Einstein, Curie, Gandhi. 

Mrs. Whatsit: Austin, Kahlo. Schindler. 

Mrs. Who: Nelson Mandela, Maya Angelou. And now, Meg Murry. 

Yeah. They replaced Jesus - JESUS - with Maya Angelou. I mean, what? I can get Nelson Mandela, Jane Austin, Schindler, and even Kahlo, but Maya Angelou? They couldn't have thought of anyone better? Rosa Parks? MLK? Or even some new dead artists like Chuck Berry, Dr. Seuss, Robin Williams, or Elvis Presley? They replaced Jesus with Maya Angelou? Who approved this change?

But also, let's look at what they added in - Meg has a typical bully, who was just there for... some reason. Charles Wallace is adopted now for.... some reason. Mrs. Beast is completely obliterated from the movie, which is awful. The Happy Medium is a dude now so he can have awkward conversations with Mrs. Whatsit. Meg has trouble Tessering because she needs to "Become one with the universe." And this gives her a very generic obstacle to overcome which for some reason ends up saving the day.

And Mrs. Whatsit turns into a giant leaf instead of a unicorn. For some reason.

In the book, the finale is two parts; In the first one, they lose and Charles Wallace is taken. Meg recovers with Mrs. Beast, returns to Camazotz, and then defeats IT. In the movie, they completely take out the defeat. Meg just suddenly gets better at everything because reasons.

So that's what they got wrong with A Wrinkle In Time. But now, we have to ask... why?

Why would they do this? 

I have no clue the real reason behind this. The best I can do is speculate.

Speculation #1: They're trying to adapt the book for mainstream audiences

One of the best things about the Harry Potter and LOTR film franchises is that they were able to take non fans of the book and make them fans. They were able to market them in such a way that regular audience members - not just fans - went to see the movie. Genuine hype. And you know how to get hype?

Make a good movie. If you show things in the trailer that contradict the beloved formula of the book, people will notice and take to social media. That's never helpful. But if you show something that looks totally dope, then you get good will. Take the pictures of Dune that came out recently. People are fangirling over them based on how cool they look, how they can already tell exactly what scenes they're from. That's good.

You can tell this image from Dune is on Caladan. Also, that cinematography looks dope.

Now take the Artemis Fowl trailer. It has 40k dislikes as compared to 21k likes. By trying to strip away the unique and interesting things about the book to make it "Mainstream" they create a generic movie. No one wants to see a generic movie, so they don't. A Wrinkle In Time was a huge box office bomb, losing $130 million.

The mainstream audience is only showing up to "Big event" films, adaptations of beloved properties, and remakes. So when you have a potential franchise (Artemis Fowl has an additional 7 books), and turning them into Eragon and Divergent, it doesn't go well.


Audiences will show up to films that look good, have good reviews, and good word of mouth. The Greatest Showman somehow made a lot of money, mostly because people saw it and really liked it, causing others to see it. No one liked A Wrinkle In Time, so no one saw it. You have to get in on the social conversation to be successful, part of what made the MCU so big. Iron Man fans were probably really rare in the early 2000s, but now everyone likes him.

Speculation #2: They're trying to adapt the book for mainstream China

This is a more for A Wrinkle In Time, but China's not exactly the most open to new things. They banned Ben-Hur for "Containing 'propaganda of superstitious beliefs, namely Christianity.'" Noah was banned for depicting prophets. Dead Man's Chest was banned for spirits. Christopher Robin was banned because people made internet memes about Xi Jinping looking like Winnie the Pooh. Seriously.

This post was now banned in China

And films suck up to China, understandably. It's a huge market, second largest behind America. Ever wonder why most films now have added Chinese elements for no real reason? Movies like the Meg, Iron Man 3, and Transformers all suck up and make tons of money. 

This scene in the Meg takes place in China. Why? No clue. 

So when you have something that heavily sensors Christianity, you can't exactly have something like A Wrinkle In Time make a lot of money there. So they removed that stuff. And it still failed. Oh well. 

Speculation #3: They put the minimal amount of work into it

It could be that they're just lazy; afraid to take a stand. Remember earlier when I said that Disney isn't that ballsy? Yeah. They could just be lazy. If they have the rights to a successful property, why put in effort? Why not just try to make a cash grab? It's ultimately a very short term gain.


Take Percy Jackson. They could have put in the work. Cast young actors. Taken a risk. But no, we got a semi-okay film followed by a more accurate but somehow worse sequel. But now we get a Disney+ show, with Rick Riordan's involvement! It's good because on a streaming service, there's not as much pressure to be the next big billion dollar smash - it just exists. Like The Mandalorian, this Percy Jackson series could hide from the pressure of being successful and just be itself.

Do the numbers correlate? 

Yes, yes they do.

So, the data does correlate. Good to know. There are, obviously, outliers, such as Hunger Games not being nominated for any Academy Awards, but Hunger Games wasn't exactly critically acclaimed to be both mainstream and an Academy Award winner. And it is disappointing that Harry Potter never won any Academy Awards, but que sera sera. 

But notice that the one movie that completely ripped the pages out of the book is Jurassic Park. That was directed by Steven Spielberg. It had huge practical effects. It was one of the first "Event" movies. So between those things, and the book not being all that popular, the franchise became huge. 

Also, Ready Player One (Also directed by Spielberg) is a special case. The book isn't exactly cinematic, so while it doesn't completely follow the book, it's a lot more fun to see a giant race as opposed to someone playing Joust. 

So, the data does correlate. There are quantifiable reasons for these things. For heaven's sakes, Twilight got five movies out of four books! Just because it was accurate! If Twilight can make $3.3 billion, then so can Artemis Fowl. So can we just get this to stop happening already?