We Got This Covered ran an article last week when the Cirque Du Freak movie broke into the Netflix UK Top 10. The general gist of the article was that in the age of streaming, certain movies are clicking with new audiences and finding fresh success, even a film that, in the view of the reporter, Scott Campbell, was "a relentlessly mediocre and middle-of-the-road monster mash." You can read the full review by clicking on this link:

https://wegotthiscovered.com/movies/a-franchise-killing-fantasy-failure-becomes-a-netflix-attraction/

Now, as I've said many times before, I don't share the reporter's view -- I liked the film on its own terms, and while thematically it's rather all over the place, I think it's an interesting, oddball little movie. But I know that plenty of fans of my books DO share that view (though a surprising number like it too), so I never raise any objections when someone gives it a kicking online. Everyone's entitled to their opinion, and Scott is by no means in a minority with his.

However, in all fairness to the film, I do feel obliged to point out that Scott's opening line isn't actually the case, even though I can see why Scott (like quite a few critics at the time) saw it that way. Scott said:

"The elephant graveyard of 21st Century Hollywood history is littered with the bones of YA literary adaptations, when the rights to virtually any property were being hoovered up and spat out onto the screen as fast as possible to try and cash in on what was a highly lucrative bandwagon when it worked."

And he's absolutely correct, broadly speaking -- I well remember the time when that WAS the case, and without naming any names, I sat through a fair number of swiftly-to-screen adaptations that might have benefitted from a few more years of development. But Cirque Du Freak WASN'T one of those. An adaptation had been in the works from almost before the first book was published, when Warner Brothers got hold of a proof copy and optioned it. They never managed to take it forward, and the rights reverted to me, and stayed with me for a while, before Universal came on board and took up a fresh option, and ended up taking it all the way to screen.

But it wasn't a case of executives at Universal jumping on board the band wagon -- the adaptation all began with Brian Helgeland, who wrote the original script (which was completely rewritten when Paul Weitz got involved -- although Brian's script differed massively from my books as well). Brian's son was a fan of Cirque Du Freak, and Brian read them with him and felt moved to try and turn the story into a movie, and he's the person who got the Donner Company interested, who then took it to Universal. So, while it may look from the outside like just another cynical attempt to generate a cinematic cash cow, in truth it developed organically and creatively -- it was just coincidence that it happened to come out in the middle of all those YA adaptations, and unfortunately it got tarnished with the same brush, and quite a few critics were instantly dismissive of it, purely on the incorrect assumption that it was a heartless cash-in, which -- regardless of what one might think of the finished product -- it honestly never was.

If you haven't yet seen the movie, it's currently showing on Netflix in the UK. The last I heard, it was available for free to Amazon Prime members in the USA. If you live somewhere else in the world, do a little digging online, and you might find it's showing on one of your providers too...

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