Living in a fantasy

This post is inspired by an assignment posted on this blog. It felt just right talking about a supposed trend within the movie industry. Give my two cent so to speak.

As a kid I remember watching movies like Conan and Willow with big wondrous eyes. Even with the stop motion and simple animatronics used in those days they spellbound me. Stories of lands far away where big Austrians with even bigger swords and furry briefs fought evil men. But was I alone in liking what I saw? Were the fantasy genre really a fringe genre only including the Dungeon and dragon geeks?

It’s easy to think that fantasy was a genre on the fringe of Hollywood but with names like Max von Sydow, James Earl Jones, Val Kilmer and Kevin Pollack the genre competed with other contemporary films in gross sales. If you read the gross estimate on imdb.com you see that Conan did well cashing in around 39 million dollars while movies like Blade runner did far less ending on around 26 million dollars and the always prestigious Woody Allen’s film A midsummer night’s sex comedy only grossed 9 Million at the box office. In 1988 Willow grossed around 57 million while Dangerous Liaisons only grossed 34 millions even with names such as Glenn Close, John Malkovich, Michelle Pfeifer, Uma Thurman and a young Keanu reeves.

So while the genre is incredibly popular today I dare to say that it has never been on the fringe. The stories are accessible to people of all ages disregarding previous knowledge and experience. Since no one has been to the fantastic worlds depicted on screen the suspension of disbelief is closer at hand that say Armageddon when everyone knows (or think they know) that it’s harder to fly in space that drilling for oil.

It might not have answered the question ‘why fantasy is so popular today’ but I think it countered the 'on the fringe' statement with satisfaction.