Mark Harris and the Sci Fi problem

I begin this blog entry with a little bit of personal conflict, because while looking at Entertainment Weekly online for the column that I am responding to, I discovered a newer work by the same author makes me want to reconsider taking issue with him in the first place. The person in question is Mark Harris, and despite what I’m about to say, I highly recommend reading his recent piece on the WGA strike, here.

So I concede that Mark Harris is not an idiot, and is a guy who in general knows what he is talking about. However, I have to take him to task on what I frankly consider to be an irresponsible column published recently in the magazine, regarding the state of Sci-Fi today. The original piece can be read here.

Here’s the thing, it’s not so much the subject of Harris’ column that I take issue with. I totally agree with him that science fiction is in a bad way and has been for a few years. What bothers me is that the group he chooses to target with the blame for where it is: namely the people who create it. Really, Mark? You think J.J. Abrams and his Star Trek reboot is the problem with science fiction? Remember, as powerful as Abrams is, he still had to have his project greenlit.

See there’s the rub. Your argument is flawed the second you say in your column that sci fi’s problems cannot be measured at the box office. It absolutely can. I am Legend not withstanding, it has not been a great few years for science fiction. You want innovation and new ideas? Look no further than the groundbreaking TV series Firefly, and its movie adaptation, Serenity.

Despite a fiercely loyal cult following, the show was axed by Fox not even halfway through its first season, and even though the movie had a by comparison low budget of $40 million, it didn’t turn a profit in theaters, earning an estimated $38 million worldwide. Or how about Alfonso Cuaron’s Children of Men, made on a more expensive budget of $76 million, and being hailed specifically as a new artistic vision of the future (ok, admittedly loosely based on a novel) it only earned a worldwide gross of $68 Million. It would seem there are new ideas, just a little bit of trouble selling them.

And that’s why when you look at the most successful science fiction at the box office in recent years you run into things like I am Legend. Let’s face it, it didn’t do well because people said “ooh, Sci Fi.” People said “ooh, Will Smith fighting monsters.” So say you’re the head of a studio. Someone comes to you and says, hey I have this new idea that will challenge and reinvent the genre, or I have the Casino Royale of Star Trek. Which one will you go with? Ok, but which one do you think MOST studio heads would go with?

What is killing science fiction most right now is a cowardice of movie studios to gamble on what isn’t a safe bet. When I bring up Serenity in conversation most people have never heard of it, and the same goes with Children of Men, but everyone has heard of say, Fantastic Four 2. I have no doubt in my mind that had the public been more aware of these movies, had they been blitzed with promotion the way a certain Will Smith movie was, they would have been bigger hits. Or at least someone writing a column about Science Fiction may have been aware of them.