American President and noted stovepipe hat enthusiast Abraham Lincoln.
Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter made $16.6 million over the weekend, placing third in the American box office behind Pixar’s latest offering, Brave, which made little over four times that amount. While some are decrying this as the death of the “vampire trend”, I see instead the death of another subgenre – the historical/horror mash-up.
If Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter had been released two years ago it would have been much more successful. Indeed, it was two years ago that the book this film is based upon
But the problem with this genre is it’s distinctly one-note, and the failure of Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter to make any headway in the box office is, to me, a sign that attempting to glue the historical and the supernatural in a tongue-in-cheek manner is no longer an immediate recipe for success.
In many ways, Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter is the subgenre’s Snakes on a Plane moment. You may recall the buzz surrounding Snakes on a Plane during production, a buzz that actually caused the filmmakers to go back and reshoot scenes to cater to the online “fanbase” the film had amassed before even so much as a trailer had been released. Once the film itself was released, however, nobody went to see it. Like ALVH, Snakes on a Plane made significantly less money in its opening weekend than analysts predicted, and suffered a more than 50% drop-off in profits the following week.
Like Snakes on a Plane, ALVH is a simple idea – Abe Lincoln, hunting vampires. Once you tell someone the core premise (something the title of the film does rather well), they don’t need to see it. They know what snakes on a plane look like, they can imagine how Samuel L. Jackson would react, they laugh, then they get back to whatever it was they were doing before. Similarly they can imagine what Abe Lincoln taking down vampires would look like. Why, then, would they need to go see the movie? Knowing that the concept exists is more than enough.
So where does that leave writers eager to ride the historical/supernatural mash-up wave? Well, for a start, I would suggest taking off the wetsuit and staying at home – I’m more or less convinced that the genre is DOA in film. I think if there’s one lesson to be learned from Abe Lincoln: Vampire Hunter‘s opening weekend, it’s that making another film that fits in this mold is probably not going to be the success you expect it to be.
There is, of course, still life in this concept in print. Sense & Sensibility & Seamonsters was well-reviewed, and other such books such as Night of the Living Trekkies and Pride & Prejudice & Zombies: Dreadfully Ever After (which is exactly what you think it is) have all sold incredibly well and continue to do so. Quirk Books are continuing their “Quirk Classics” range with new titles including The Meowmorphosis, a fresh take on Kafka’s “The Metamorphosis” with the principal character transforming not into an insect but instead into, ahahaha, a kitten.
Quirk can, and probably will, continue to knock out these mash-ups, but I think it’ll be a long time before we see another one make the jump to the silver screen.