Artemis Fowl was a movie that didn’t just suffer because of the COVID-19 pandemic, though it certainly did that when lockdowns persuaded Disney to debut it on streaming instead of theatrical in 2020. It suffered because it was an ill-conceived movie — a sort of Die Hard meets Harry Potter — that was a poor adaptation of the source material, and wasted Kenneth Branagh’s directorial talents. On top of all that, it was promoted with confusing trailers that featured Judi Dench as a pointy-eared fairy cop talking in an Irish accent. Artemis Fowl II, the main character, is meant to be a 12 year-old criminal mastermind, but nothing about the movie’s script or lead performance by Ferdia Shaw (grandson of Robert Shaw, who knew a thing or two about villains) indicated it.
Savaged by critics, Artemis Fowl set a record as the lowest Rotten Tomatoes-rated movie to debut in Disney+, at just 14% (it has since gone even lower, to 6%). Our own review at the time called it “an incoherent and boring affair,” which was a commonly held sentiment. Yet all may not be lost for the original IP.
Disney+ Is Rebooting Artemis Fowl as an Animated Series
There’s precedent for Disney to try again on streaming when a YA fantasy adaptation has been botched. Just ask fans of Percy Jackson and the Olympians, which got two less-than-faithful movies by Fox, and has since become a Disney+ series fans and critics enjoy. (Harry Potter, which was decidedly not botched the first time, is trying again anyway, in hopes the same formula will work there.) And now Disney has revealed the first poster for its new Artemis Fowl animated series, coming to both the Disney Channel and Disney+. There are eight books, and three spinoffs, so there’s plenty of material — and in a series, there’s more room to turn Artemis from villain to quasi-hero, which the film didn’t dare attempt.
Author Eoin Colfer will executive produce the new series, so for good or ill, it should better represent his work than the feature film. No voice actors have yet been announced for the cast. Social media reactions vary from “Stick. To the story. Of. The. Books.” to “PLEASE DON’T HAVE THE PEOPLE FROM THE MOVIE SCRIPT WORK ON IT, I’M BEGGING YOU”; some also point out that the movie has been memory holed by the mouse and is no longer on Disney+. This seems like a smart strategy if the idea is to persuade kids who don’t remember the film to watch the re-adaptation.
Artemis Fowl‘s initial journey to the screen was a long one, with Miramax buying the rights in 2000. Disney had to negotiate with the Weinstein brothers for the rights, and announced a movie in 2013. Four years later, with no film in sight, fans began a petition hoping to force Disney to make it. Shortly thereafter, Disney announced a release date and kicked the now-disgraced Harvey Weinstein off the project as executive producer. In 2020, fans finally got what they thought they had wanted, and it turned out to be a monkey’s paw of a wish. Or maybe it just took a lot longer to grant than it seemed — we’ll see when the animated series arrives.
Do you have hopes that this Fowl will be fair? Flutter into comments and peck out some thoughts.