The Mortal Instruments: City of Ashes (unproduced film)

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The Mortal Instruments: City of Ashes
Based on City of Ashes
by Cassandra Clare
Starring
Production
companies
Distributed by
CountryUnited States
LanguageEnglish

The Mortal Instruments: City of Ashes was set to be a 2014 action film based on the second book of The Mortal Instruments series by Cassandra Clare.

Contents

Premise

Following the events of the prior film, City of Ashes would have followed Jace Wayland believing he is the son of Valentine Morgenstern. Valentine has stolen the Mortal Sword from the Silent Brothers as part of his plan to destroy the Clave who he believes to be corrupt. Meanwhile, the Inquisitor, played by Sigourney Weaver, wants to prove that Jace has been working for Valentine all along.

Cast

Production

The film was announced on May 8, 2013, by Constantin Films, three months prior to the first installment of The Mortal Instruments films to even hit theaters. [4] It was reported that Lily Collins would be returning as Clary Fray, in addition to Jamie Campbell Bower, and Kevin Zegers in their respective roles. In this initial announcement it was also reported that director Harald Zwart would be returning as well. In July 2013, The Hollywood Reporter announced that actress Sigourney Weaver would be joining the cast for The Mortal Instruments: City of Ashes. [5] In an August 2013 interview, Bower revealed that the City of Ashes film was set to film in "Europe, and then Mexico, Hong Kong, back to London for two days, out here for five days, Toronto, back to England for Christmas..." [6] In August 2013, after the film opened below expectations, Robert Kulzer, Constantin's co-president, explained that a sequel was still warranted given increasing book sales and soundtrack revenues. [7]

Filming was set to start September 23, 2013, in Toronto Canada, but was announced to be halted September 10. [1] The Hollywood Reporter was the first to announce on October 23, 2013, that production on The Mortal Instruments: City of Ashes would resume. Constantin Films was said to have reviewed what went wrong with the first film searching for an answer as to why it performed lower than projections estimated. Martin Moszkowicz, Constantin Film’s head of film and TV said “That [the under-performance] may have been one issue in our marketing, that we focused too much on a very young audience segment." [8] [9]

Scott Mendelson of Forbes magazine expressed surprise that a sequel was in production: "The Mortal Instruments: City of Bones received neither positive reviews nor box office large enough to justify its production and marketing expenses. Yet, against all odds and arguably against all logic, ... it's getting a sequel!" [10]

In December 2013, author Cassandra Clare took to the internet to voice her thoughts on the City of Ashes delay, “I really think fans wouldn’t have been happy with the screenplay as it was,” Clare said. [11]

On March 20, 2014, Yahoo! reported that actor and model Godfrey Gao would be reprising his role as Magnus Bane, when production started on City of Ashes. [12]

On May 20, 2014, Harald Zwart revealed that the studio still had intentions to make the sequel, but explained that he would not direct it, so that he could focus on other projects, although he complimented the first film as "a good window [for him] to show off". [13]

Cassandra Clare, in September 2014 at a fan meet and greet in Brazil was asked about the film and about the rewriting of the script. Clare said, "They’re re-writing, well, after the first Mortal Instruments movie came out, they got a lot of people complaining it wasn’t like the books. And so, they had a second screenplay for City of Ashes and it was even less like the books, like it was NOTHING, NOTHING like the books… Valentine had a submarine? And Magnus ran for Mayor of New York. It was very weird. So, they kinda looked at the screenplay and they looked at the fan response and they were like “We can’t do this, we have to throw the screenplay away and do a completely new screenplay that’s more like the books”. So that’s what they’ve been working on, it’s complicated cause usually if you’re doing a series of movies, you have the screenplay ready by the time the first movie has come out, you have the screenplay for the second movie so you can go right into filming it, and they didn’t have one. Takes a year to do a screenplay so I was hoping the next couple of weeks I would get to see the new screenplay for City of Ashes." [14]

But rather than having a new screenplay ready like Clare hoped, in October 2014, it was announced that The Mortal Instruments: City of Ashes would be shelved in favor of making Shadowhunters a television series for Freeform based on The Mortal Instruments novels. [15]

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<i>The Mortal Instruments: City of Bones</i> 2013 urban fantasy film

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The Mortal Instruments: City of Bones is a 2013 urban fantasy film based on the first book of The Mortal Instruments series by Cassandra Clare, directed by Harald Zwart, with a script written by Jessica Postigo. The film stars Lily Collins, Jamie Campbell Bower, Robert Sheehan, Kevin Zegers, Lena Headey, Kevin Durand, Aidan Turner, Jemima West, Godfrey Gao, C. C. H. Pounder, Jared Harris, and Jonathan Rhys Meyers. The musical score was composed by Icelandic composer Atli Örvarsson. The film featured two soundtracks: an original soundtrack and an original score. Both the albums were released on August 20, 2013, a day before the film's release. The original soundtrack, released by Republic Records, featured songs performed by Ariana Grande, Zedd, Demi Lovato, Colbie Caillat, AFI, Nathan Sykes amongst several others. Two original songs were also recorded for the film. The score album, published by Milan Records, featured the musical cues from Örvarsson's score.

<i>Clockwork Princess</i> 2013 novel by Cassandra Clare

Clockwork Princess is a 2013 fantasy novel written by young adult author, Cassandra Clare. It is the third and final installment of The Infernal Devices trilogy, following the first book, Clockwork Angel, and the second book, Clockwork Prince. It is written in the third person through the perspective of the main protagonist, Tessa Gray, who resides in the Shadowhunter's London Institute. This final installment follows Tessa and her friends as they face off against the series main antagonist, The Magister, who plans to completely obliterate the Shadowhunter race.

The Shadowhunter Chronicles is a media franchise based on the writings of American young adult fiction writer Cassandra Clare, which currently encompasses six series of novels, three short-story collections, five graphic novels, one film, a television series, and other media.

<i>Shadowhunters</i> 2016 American supernatural drama television series

Shadowhunters, also known as Shadowhunters: The Mortal Instruments, is an American supernatural drama television series developed by Ed Decter, based on the novel series The Mortal Instruments written by Cassandra Clare. It premiered in North America on Freeform on January 12, 2016. Primarily filmed in Toronto, Canada, the series follows Clary Fray, who finds out on her eighteenth birthday that she comes from a long line of Shadowhunters, human-angel hybrids who hunt down demons, and has to deal with the struggle of forbidden love.

<i>Tales from the Shadowhunter Academy</i>

Tales from the Shadowhunter Academy or simply called Shadowhunter Academy is a series of connected novellas featuring the character of Simon Lewis from Cassandra Clare's best-selling The Mortal Instruments series. It consists of ten novellas written by Cassandra Clare in collaboration with other authors that were published online on a monthly basis. Tales from the Shadowhunter Academy was released in print on November 15, 2016.

<i>Queen of Air and Darkness</i> (Clare novel) 2018 novel by Cassandra Clare

Queen of Air and Darkness is the third and final book in The Dark Artifices trilogy by Cassandra Clare, which is the fourth chronological series in The Shadowhunter Chronicles. This series follows the characters of the LA Institute in 2012 and features characters from all of the previous series. The chapter titles all come from the poem The City in the Sea by Edgar Allan Poe.

References

  1. 1 2 3 "Future of 'Mortal Instruments' Sequel in Jeopardy (Exclusive)". TheWrap. September 10, 2013. Archived from the original on June 26, 2019. Retrieved June 26, 2019.
  2. 1 2 "Chroniken der Unterwelt - City of Bones". Filmportal.de (in German and English). Archived from the original on September 19, 2013. Retrieved May 7, 2014.
  3. ↑ "The Mortal Instruments: City of Bones". American Film Institute . Retrieved April 10, 2017.
  4. ↑ Rosenfield, Kat (May 8, 2013). "'City Of Bones' Sequel: 'Mortal Instruments: City Of Ashes' Sequel In The Works!". MTV . Viacom. Archived from the original on October 29, 2013. Retrieved August 16, 2013.
  5. ↑ "Sigourney Weaver in Talks to Join 'Mortal Instruments: City of Ashes' (Exclusive)". The Hollywood Reporter. July 29, 2013. Archived from the original on June 26, 2019.
  6. ↑ "Jamie Campbell Bower Talks THE MORTAL INSTRUMENTS: CITY OF BONES and Sequel, Staying in Touch with TWILIGHT Friends, and OVERDRIVE". Collider. August 22, 2013. Archived from the original on June 26, 2019.
  7. ↑ Nicole Sperling (August 21, 2013). "Building a foundation on 'City of Bones'". Los Angeles Times . Archived from the original on August 26, 2013.
  8. ↑ "Constantin to Restart Production on 'Mortal Instruments' Sequel in 2014 (Exclusive)". The Hollywood Reporter. October 23, 2013. Archived from the original on June 26, 2019.
  9. ↑ "'Mortal Instruments' sequel moving forward". Entertainment Weekly. October 23, 2013. Archived from the original on June 26, 2019.
  10. ↑ Scott Mendelson (October 23, 2013). "'The Mortal Instruments' Is Getting A Sequel Despite Critical, Box Office Failure". Forbes . Archived from the original on October 25, 2013.
  11. ↑ "Cassandra Clare on initial 'City of Ashes' script: It was 'totally unrecognizable' from the book (Exclusive)". TMI Source. December 1, 2013. Archived from the original on June 26, 2019.
  12. ↑ "Godfrey Gao reprises role as Magnus Bane". Yahoo!. March 20, 2014. Archived from the original on June 26, 2019.
  13. ↑ Stuart Conover (May 20, 2014). "Director Of 'The Mortal Instruments: City Of Bones' Is No Longer Attached To The Sequel". ScienceFiction. Archived from the original on June 2, 2014. Retrieved June 1, 2014.
  14. ↑ "Cassandra Clare talks 'City Of Ashes' movie script". September 5, 2014. Archived from the original on June 26, 2019.
  15. ↑ "'The Mortal Instruments' to Return as TV Series". The Hollywood Reporter . October 12, 2014. Archived from the original on June 26, 2019.
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