It's no secret that adaptations of YA novels can be hit and miss in Hollywood. For every success like Twilight, Harry Potter, or The Hunger Games, there are at least a half-dozen novels that are meant to start franchises only to flop after one outing.
Yet some of these failures get a second chance on television to be better. The Golden Compass was a 2006 box office disappointment but was redeemed by HBO's His Dark Materials show. Likewise, The Mortal Instruments failed as a movie but turned into the beloved Shadowhunters series.
Granted, it doesn't always work (Vampire Academy flopped in both mediums), yet TV offers a shot for these properties to do much better. A season of episodes provides more time for a story than a movie and can expand on things better. While there are several candidates, these are 10 notable failed YA movie series that would be much better as TV shows, and hopefully, a streamer gives them another shot to succeed.
Divergent
This franchise is memorable among its fandom for how it never actually wrapped itself up. This post-dystopian tale follows a world where people are selected into factions, with heroine Beatrice discovering she's a Divergent, meaning she doesn't fit into any set one. Before long, she's part of a resistance against the totalitarian government.
The movies weren't bad, although fans of the books were miffed at some plot points being altered. The series fizzled with the planned fourth film never even made. A TV show can do better for the material, giving each book its own season and exploring elements the movies cut out. It can also be a much better conclusion, and long past time fans of the saga got some closure with a real finish to the tale.
Artemis Fowl
Few adaptations have completely missed the mark with the source material like the 2020 Kenneth Branagh-directed Artemis Fowl movie. The books are loved for the title character, a 12-year-old budding criminal mastermind who becomes an anti-hero, taking on villains worse than him. The movie just turned him into a generic heroic young spy, which fans didn't want.
A TV show can restore the property by having Artemis the way he should be, a cunning child crook who's often underestimated due to his age, while being smarter than others around him. The books are filled with amazing adventures that would work wonderfully on the screen. With the right actor, fans could get a real Artemis Fowl that's the conniver they love and forget that bad movie.
Mortal Engines
Peter Jackson's name automatically gave this 2018 adaptation of the Phillip Reeves novels a boost. It also boasted a fantastic concept of a future where entire cities roam on wheels, so it was Mad Max on steroids. The ingredients were there for a hit, only for it to become a major box office bomb.
The books still offer a lot of material to play with, from cities on wheels to ones that fly amid some great action, sharp social commentary, and a strong heroine. The books also span generations, offering the opportunity to shift up the cast. The special effects required for these mobile cities would be daunting, yet a TV series produced by Jackson could be the hit the movie failed to be.
City of Ember
This 2008 film barely registered for audiences despite coming from a successful series of books. 200 years after a disaster ravaged Earth, the survivors live in an underground city called Ember. As the aged infrastructure starts to collapse, a group of young people goes on a quest that uncovers the city's secrets.
The film came and went from theaters without much impact, but shows like Silo and Paradise have done great with the same concept. The following books delve deeper into the drama and expand on this world, addressing the realities of maintaining a city like this. It helps that it has likeable young heroes and would be up the alley of Disney+ to adapt another fun YA adventure that shouldn't remain buried.
Beautiful Creatures
Star-crossed romances involving magic are always fodder for some good TV shows, and thus Beautiful Creatures can work better than in the 2013 movie. It balances the tale between two teenagers, a human boy and a girl from a clan of "casters" involved in magic. The four-book series builds on this world, and the central romance is done well.
Despite an all-star cast, the movie faltered at the box office with book fans not happy with some of the changes made to the story. A more faithful adaptation for TV can be a better bet. Mix it with a gothic direction and we've got a Twilight-style success that could be beautiful to watch.
Eragon
Christopher Paolini must have felt great in 2006 when a movie of Eragon, the first in his Inheritance Cycle series, was made into a movie. Unfortunately, however, it didn't live up to expectations. The movie dumbed down the book, robbing it of its magic and sense of adventure to instead be a ripoff of other fantasy stories with bad acting and direction. It's too bad, as the novels deserve a second chance.
The story is a classic one of a young man who finds a dragon egg, bonds with the beast and embarks on a quest to save the kingdom from an evil ruler. A TV adaptation can be far more faithful to the books, letting the story breathe and grow. Not to mention, dragons are hot with audiences thanks to Game of Thrones and its prequel House of the Dragon.
While a Disney+ Eragon TV show was announced in 2022, we haven’t heard many updates about that as of late. In February of this year, Paolini wrote on X: "Btw, Disney+ #Eragon show is still on track. Can't say anything more until a major contract gets signed. (Hollywood negotiations take *forever*.)." Fingers crossed we get more news soon.
Inkheart
As an acclaimed, award-winning book trilogy, the Inkheart series had a built-in audience. That audience was disappointed by the 2008 movie adaptation, which had a cast including Brendan Fraser and Helen Mirren. The plotline is up the alley of book lovers as a man has the power to bring elements of books to life, but at the cost of someone else becoming trapped within.
A TV series has great potential to keep to the book's plotline while adding elements of fantastic literary worlds brought into our world. The show can boost the property and maybe even inspire more readers, something that fantasy and sci-fi definitely can use in the future.
Cirque du Freak
This 2009 film combined the first three books in Darren Shan's 12-book cycle of a young teenager who becomes a vampire. The film was too overstuffed with plot elements, which contributed to its failure at the box office. It's a property really meant more for TV and could work better as each season can divide it up into mini-trilogies, with Darren's evolution as a vampire highlighted.
The books get bigger and more daring as they go on, expanding into a fantastic war between vampires and humans. That would be easy fodder for a TV series that can promise major twists as characters come and go and another nice entry in the vampire TV show genre.
Ender's Game
As one of the most popular and influential sci-fi books ever, Ender's Game seemed set to be a top movie hit. Orson Scott Card himself worked on the film, adapting his landmark novel of a young boy recruited into Earth's war with an alien race. The film was well-received by both critics and book fans but ended up bombing at the box office despite hopes for a franchise.
However, a TV show might serve the property better with more time to let the story build and delve into Ender's inner struggles. It also allows viewers to enjoy more of this future setting and the potential for adapting the later books. This Game could use a replay for fans of a sci-fi classic.
A Wrinkle in Time
Twice, Disney has tried to adapt Madeleine L'Engle's award-winning classic fantasy tale. First as a TV movie in 2003, then a big-budget 2018 film starring Oprah Winfrey. Both times it failed to make the beloved novel work. The third time would be the charm if it were a TV show, as the adventures of kids searching for their missing father in a bizarre land are perfect for episodic TV.
A series allows more time to bring the extraordinary land of Uriel to life with its bevy of outlandish characters and settings. The novel and its following books remain some of the most important works in all of fantasy/sci-fi literature and deserve a real modern adaptation. Movies may have failed, yet it's time for another shot on TV to finally do it justice.
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