Werewolves: The New Vampires?

[Silverclaw]

http://movies.yahoo.com/feature/movie-t ... olves.html

Do you agree?

(Wish Freeborn/CL/Hour of Darkness was on the list too Maybe next year...)

[silver1]

I agree,and i don't get why they did not put freeborn on the list.

I am hoping that the AWIL remake is better than the original.

[MattSullivan]

They didn't put Freeborn in that list because no one outside this message board knows about it...oh and one more important thing. IT HASNT BEEN MADE! Same for HOD or CL. None of our films have garnered the slightest bit of Hollywood interest.

[PariahPoet]

I might check out the wolf man, but have no interest in Twilight or Underworld. I'd rather see a hairy guy who can actually act than a bald, greasy cg monstrosity.

[Silverclaw]

They didn't put Freeborn in that list because no one outside this message board knows about it...oh and one more important thing. IT HASNT BEEN MADE! Same for HOD or CL. None of our films have garnered the slightest bit of Hollywood interest.

I'm aware of that. Its just me wishing these movies have been made so the world would know how awesome werewolf movies can be.

[MoonKit]

I agree that werewolves are very quickly going to become the new vampires.

[alphanubilus]

I just hope that all of this sudden interest will create quality products, as opposed to quick cash movies, with little to no plot.

[RedEye]

I just hope that all of this sudden interest will create quality products, as opposed to quick cash movies, with little to no plot.

You mean like Underworld: The Rise of the Lycans? At least the series is consistent.

Like tofu...

[alphanubilus]

Underworld: Rise of the Lycans actually was a much better story than the first or second one. The movie was just way too short. You didn't have enough time with Sonya or Lucian to truly feel for either character. Yeah you felt bad for Lucian because Viktor was such a jerk. It would have been nice to actually see their romance bud than just to come into it at the eve of the climax. It was the simplest story to tell, but yet not enough time was spent developing it out.

[Terastas]

The article lost me as soon as it said "It all began with Twilight."

Twilight did not bring vampires back into the spotlight. All it did was inject all of the CW-brand bull**** into vampires so they could be enjoyed by millions of stupid little girls who still think the world revolves around themselves. It inspired a lot of copycats, but it did not do anything to vampires that has not already been done before. . . Well, except make them sparkle.

New Moon pretty much did the same thing to werewolves: it didn't offer anything new, and Meyer's only motivation in including them in the Twilight universe at all was apparently just to give her vampires something to do besides stare at each other and muse about how beautiful they are, but that is what the aforementioned stupid little girls want to read.

The other half of it, I think, is that that some people are beginning to think maybe they could reinvent werewolves the same way Meyer "reinvented" vampires. That, and Meyer's overexposure pretty much drove vampires right back down into the ground for a lot of people, so almost everyone that picked up the Twilight books after the fact will have found the werewolves to be more appealing (not because Meyer's werewolves are good, but just because her vampires suck so much more by comparison).

This has already been tried before, however, with only minimal amounts of success. After Blade came out, a lot of filmmakers tried to inject that same leather-clad action into the werewolf ethos, the results of which were laughable at best.

So I still think it will be Freeborn, Camp Lycanthrope, Heart of Darkness or another project of a Pack affiliate that will ultimately be credited with resurrecting werewolves. As I recall, we had similar discussions about the possibilities that Cursed or Blood & Chocolate might take credit for this instead. . . And I believe we all know how that turned out.

[MattSullivan]

i'm glad some of you still respect Camp Lycanthrope. It could have very easily been mistaken for "Twilight with Werewolves" because my werewolves are good guys, and it's not exactly the most "hardcore" or straight horror kind of werewolf story. It's more fantasy adventure. And I DO have a scene where werewolves play baseball ( well it's more like wrestling and maiming each other ), but I wrote that long before I heard anything about Twilight. Apparently 99% of the people who saw Twilight list the "vampire baseball" scene as the thing they hated most.

Maybe I'll ditch my "werewolf baseball" scene just to be safe LOL.

[Wingman]

Apparently 99% of the people who saw Twilight list the "vampire baseball" scene as the thing they hated most.

Haha, that's actually the only scene I really wanted to see out of the entire movie.

Now, in my mind werewolves are not becoming the new vampires, since I'm pretty sure I can safely guess that "New Vampires" is copyrighted by someone already. In fact, I have a story I started years ago titled 'New Vampires'. I had about six different variants of vampire bouncing around at that time, and needed a clever naming system to keep them distinct.
However, I do agree that the spotlight is shifting from vampires. Fun as they are, the film genre has grown a little stale, even if only because the industry has settled into a rut of what they think vampires are and should be.
Given a few years, the same thing will happen to werewolves, and then the spotlight will shift to something else. Pun totally intended. However, such might very well not be as fast, or as low-budget, as it was with vampires. Five dollar plastic fangs and possibly some contact lenses and poof instant vampire, werewolves are more expensive and high maintenance. As such, you're probably not going to be able to make a cheap werewolf movie on the same budget as a vampire one, unless you're recycling fur suits from old shows or something.

[Morkulv]

I must say that the trailer for that new Wolfman-remake actually looks kinda promising because of the atmosphere.

[Terastas]

Wingman's got a good point: Hollywood can't make a fad out of werewolves. . . And I mean that literally. They've been trying for years to make a fad out of werewolves, but nothing they've tried has ever worked.

The ones that 21C Hollywood tends to bounce around to and from are vampires, zombies, ghosts, and if they count, aliens. A lot of people have tried to make werewolves a part of that modern-day Hollywood set, but only a few of them were able to just barely scrape by with it while the rest absolutely failed miserably.

We came off of zombies from 28 Days Later, and right now we've got lovestruck vampires from the Twilight fad. I'm going to venture a guess that the next copycat horde will be aliens following the critical success of District 9 after the next slew of werewolf movies fail miserably as they are wont to do.

And I'm willing to bet that Twilight: New Moon will be one of those movies that can only just barely scrape by with their werewolves too. Seriously, I saw the werewolf; it looks like it belongs in a Zoo Tycoon 2 expansion pack instead of a movie.

[alphanubilus]

Wingman's got a good point: Hollywood can't make a fad out of werewolves. . . And I mean that literally. They've been trying for years to make a fad out of werewolves, but nothing they've tried has ever worked.

The ones that 21C Hollywood tends to bounce around to and from are vampires, zombies, ghosts, and if they count, aliens. A lot of people have tried to make werewolves a part of that modern-day Hollywood set, but only a few of them were able to just barely scrape by with it while the rest absolutely failed miserably.

We came off of zombies from 28 Days Later, and right now we've got lovestruck vampires from the Twilight fad. I'm going to venture a guess that the next copycat horde will be aliens following the critical success of District 9 after the next slew of werewolf movies fail miserably as they are wont to do.

And I'm willing to bet that Twilight: New Moon will be one of those movies that can only just barely scrape by with their werewolves too. Seriously, I saw the werewolf; it looks like it belongs in a Zoo Tycoon 2 expansion pack instead of a movie.

I have to disagree... For one thing, Twilight: New Moon is going to be huge, if not bigger than Twilight itself, due to its more impressive budget, big name director, and production values. Will it boost werewolf script sales... It already has in many respects. We are already approaching a werewolf-related movie fad. How long it will last or if it will be repeated any time soon, will largely depend on the successes of the big name productions. I don't see any reason for New Moon not to be huge. The movie could be utter crap, but the onslaught of teenage girls who will see it 10 to 15 times will keep it a float, just as they did for the first movie. The Wolf Man will plausibly garner some big sales, at least the first few weeks. As I poke around Hollywood there are a number of werewolf related projects being passed around. To be honest, I'm not impressed by 80% of them, but then again, I'm not impressed with 80% of what Hollywood dishes out.

Werewolf films have been hard to do, as a lot of folks don't really know how to deal with them. Let's face it, not everybody, is as myself, and devoted nearly 10 years of their life studying obscure werewolf legends and lore... well 10 years developing HOD mythology, but as my dad was a werewolf "fan" himself, I did literally grow up with dusty old books on wolves, werewolves, and I certainly loved to hear his stories when I was a small child. I guess that has never changed... However, a lot of Hollywood folk like to stay in the "safe" areas, and this is why you get a lot of clones or remakes of clones.
With HOD (story not withstanding) it wasn't enough to create a story, but I wanted to give werewolves a unique mythology of their own based upon my exhaustive research into their world.

In the end though... only time will tell.

[silver1]

I agree with alphanubilus on this one.

[Terastas]

Cursed had Wes Craven directing it. Didn't help that movie none.

New Moon may rake in the big bucks on account of the many lovestruck emo-tweens going to see it over and over again, but I think most people are going to be smart enough to recognize that's what made it successful. The first one was a total dud with critics and non-Twilight fans too; I would have figured they would intentionally make a "cheap as free" New Moon because they know the only people who will watch it once will watch it again and again no matter how much it sucks.

So trust me, New Moon will suck. I'm betting it will ultimately rank right up there with Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, both in how much they make at the box office, and in how much they completely suck.

[sugarpoultry]

^Don't judge New Moon based on its fans. It's pretty arrogant to think that.

New Moon is breaking grounds in a way no werewolf movie has done before. New Moon is a whole different ball park than Twilight was, so I think people will take the Twilight series much more series (it worked with the books).

As for the original post, meh, they are getting more attention thanks to the rise in vampire and werewolf movies. I think its a good thing. I've been waiting around for more werewolf/vampire love.

[silver1]

I have to agree with Sugarpoultry,i like where the Twilight series is going and admit that i am a huge fan of the series.

[MattSullivan]

VAMPIRES...SHOULDN'T...SPARKLE! They shouldnt be nice, they should KILL people!

[Aki]

VAMPIRES...SHOULDN'T...SPARKLE! They shouldnt be nice, they should KILL people!

While I agree with not sparkling (that's more Fey territory), I don't think vampires should have to be mean and have to kill people. That's silly. It's like saying werewolves should all be mindless killing machines that shift only on the night of a full moon.

It makes for a far more interesting story if the monsters have humanity. Of course, that doesn't mean being a vampire or werewolf shouldn't affect them or some level, but I don't think it should turn all of them into killers who stomp on kittens for fun.

[Berserker]

Well, this has been covered before, but I think it has to do with the underlying nature of the beast.

A Vampire, in the traditional sense, is an undead creature that drinks blood. By that definition, it's very easy to attach a morality to the creature, and very difficult to remove the "horror" from said creature.

A Werewolf is a person that can transform into a wolf or wolf-like creature. Unlike the vampire, from a modern viewpoint, there's nothing about that definition that suggests horror, or immorality.

[sugarpoultry]

VAMPIRES...SHOULDN'T...SPARKLE! They shouldnt be nice, they should KILL people!

Vampires can be anything anyone wants them to be. Seeing the history of vampires and how different they all are, all you have is an opinion, nothing more. The vampire franchise isn't copyright to one specific style, so sparkling, kind vampires--whether you like them or not--are 100% valid.

[alphanubilus]

VAMPIRES...SHOULDN'T...SPARKLE! They shouldnt be nice, they should KILL people!

Vampires can be anything anyone wants them to be. Seeing the history of vampires and how different they all are, all you have is an opinion, nothing more. The vampire franchise isn't copyright to one specific style, so sparkling, kind vampires--whether you like them or not--are 100% valid.

Actually, I am still waiting for Stephenie to come up with a valid reason as to why a vampire would sparkle. Evolutionly speaking... that is...

You are right though, there aren't any rules per say, that force you to follow genre conventions. I applaude Stephenie for doing this, but some of her ideas still make me wonder though. In reality her vampire mythos was rather bleak unfortunately, especially in comparison to the story she created for her werewolves. You go into great detail about their legends, especially Tel Aki, and such. It would have been nice had she given a legit reason as to why vampires really do sparkle. What is it about their skin that causes this reaction. The reality is if the vampire, as she states, is designed to lure their victim to their death, how does the sparkling come into play, especially if the vampires are "dead set" to hide it.

[sugarpoultry]

VAMPIRES...SHOULDN'T...SPARKLE! They shouldnt be nice, they should KILL people!

Vampires can be anything anyone wants them to be. Seeing the history of vampires and how different they all are, all you have is an opinion, nothing more. The vampire franchise isn't copyright to one specific style, so sparkling, kind vampires--whether you like them or not--are 100% valid.

Actually, I am still waiting for Stephenie to come up with a valid reason as to why a vampire would sparkle. Evolutionly speaking... that is...

You are right though, there aren't any rules per say, that force you to follow genre conventions. I applaude Stephenie for doing this, but some of her ideas still make me wonder though. In reality her vampire mythos was rather bleak unfortunately, especially in comparison to the story she created for her werewolves. You go into great detail about their legends, especially Tel Aki, and such. It would have been nice had she given a legit reason as to why vampires really do sparkle. What is it about their skin that causes this reaction. The reality is if the vampire, as she states, is designed to lure their victim to their death, how does the sparkling come into play, especially if the vampires are "dead set" to hide it.

Yeah its true, she had more info and ideas for the werewolves than she did the vampires, that was slightly upsetting. Oh well. But she based the first ideas off a dream she had. And in the dream the vampire was sparkling, so I guess she rolled with it. And, she had no idea it would be a huge success when she published it, so, people rolled with it too.