The 2018Mortal Enginesmovie was seemingly destined to pave the way for a full-fledged franchise, but many factors prevented the film from succeeding critically and commercially. Almost a decade before it hit the big screens, Peter Jackson had already set his eyes on Philip Reeve’s novelMortal Enginesand began its production. The flywheels of the movie’s development really started moving in 2016 when Christian Rivers hopped on board to make his directorial feature film debut while Peter Jackson, Fran Walsh, and Philippa Boyens worked on the film’s script.
Although the film went through some ordinary production hiccups, its filming was finished within four months. With a fairly hefty production budget of $100–150 million, the movie was all set to leave its mark at the global box office and set the stage for many more installments. However, many issues surroundingMortal Engines' development eventually became evident when it finally premiered on the big screens across the world. What was destined to become a major hit turned out to be one of the biggest commercial and critical disappointments in 2018.
Mortal Engines Looked Destined To Become A Major Hit
Philip Reeve’sMortal Enginesboasts an impressive score of 3.76 stars on Goodreads and even won a Nestlé Smarties Book Prize and the 2003 Blue Peter Book Award. The book’s popularity and acclaim proved that the movie was adapted from solid source material and had the opportunity to bring a rich and compelling fantasy drama to the big screen. Peter Jackson, who is best known for directing, writing, and producing theLord of the Ringsmovies, was also among the leading forces behind the project.
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The 2018 post-apocalyptic steampunk movie Mortal Engines features a world where cities are on wheels, and 10 other films have similar vibes.
Since Jackson had previously succeeded at adapting J. R. R. Tolkien’s rich lore from theLord of the Ringsnovels, his involvement withMortal Enginesalmost confirmed that the movie would honor its source materialand satisfy book readers across the world.The movie also had a hefty production budget of $100–150 millionand renowned producers like Zane Weiner and Amanda Walker were also among the frontrunners in its production. A lot of work also went into the movie’s CGI.
Mortal Engines' soundtrack was also done by Tom Holkenborg, who previously composed music for many renowned movies, likeZack Snyder’s Justice League,Divergent,Mad Max: Fury Road,Deadpool, andTomb Raider.
The New Zealand–based digital visual effects and animation company, Weta Digital, built the moving cities from the movie to actual scale in CG and built full-fledged layout “puppets” for each tier in the city. Mortal Engines' soundtrack was also done by Tom Holkenborg, who previously composed music for many renowned movies, likeZack Snyder’s Justice League,Divergent,Mad Max: Fury Road,Deadpool, andTomb Raider. However, despite having everything going in its favor, Mortal Engines eventually turned out to be a box office disaster.
Mortal Engines Faced Stiff Competition At The Box Office
It Was Released Alongside Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse And The Mule
Mortal Enginesgrossed $83.7 million andlost an estimated amount of $175 million. This made the movie one of the biggest box office bombs of all time. One of the biggest reasons behind its failure was its release timing. The film landed in theaters alongsideSpider-Man: Into the Spider-VerseandThe Mule. While the animated superhero movie dominated the box office and became Sony Pictures Animation’s highest-grossing film domestically,Clint Eastwood’sThe Muleeasily broke even by earning $173.6 million against a production budget of $50 million.
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$83.7 million
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Owing toSpider-Man: Into the Spider-VerseandThe Mule’s strong box office performances,Mortal Enginesfound itself overshadowed during its release window. The film’s box office projects became even more underwhelming during its second week when it faced stiff competition from other big-budget franchise projects likeAquaman,Mary Poppins Returns, andBumblebee. IfMortal Engineshad premiered on a different release date, its performance at the box office might have been significantly better.
Mortal Engines' Limited Runtime Is Bloated With Story Developments
The Movie Exposes Audiences To A Little Too Much Information
Viewers and critics were dissatisfied with many aspects ofMortal Engines' story. However, a common criticism was that the movie tried to cover too much ground in its limited runtime of a little over two hours. From its opening moments itself, the movie struggles to stick to the golden storytelling rule of showing and not telling by presenting way too much exposition to audiences surrounding the origins of its world and the “Municipal Darwinism” philosophy it is built on.Mortal Enginesis visually stunning because of the amount of work that went into its CGI.
Mortal Engineswas the first film Peter Jackson wrote but did not direct.
However, its visuals seem to overshadow the narrative, preventing the movie from being as memorable as other hit fantasy book adaptations, likeHarry Potter,Lord of the Rings,Hunger Games, andDune,that deliver on almost all fronts.Mortal Enginescould have easily avoided this mistake by only focusing on an arc from the original book and leaving the remaining story developments for sequels. LikeDenis Villeneuve’sDunemovies,it could have gradually unfolded the tapestry surrounding the factions and power dynamicsin its rich world-building.
In its opening moments,Mortal Enginesfeatures an epic chase scene, which perfectly gives a glimpse of how ruthlessly bigger cities “ingest” the smaller ones in its world. However, the more it progresses, the more it becomes evident that it should have either been a longer 3-hour movie or a TV show altogether. Perhaps, in the future,Mortal Engineswill get a better TV treatment that captures the epic scope of its ideas. That seems unlikely, though, since the IP is not popular enough.
Better Marketing Could Have Raised Its Box Office Numbers
Mortal Engines' storyline is driven by a bizarre and novel concept where mobile cities roam a post-apocalyptic Earth and consume other smaller or stationary establishments to sustain themselves. The movie’s source material is well-known but not as popular as other mainstream fantasy novels. Owing to this,Mortal Engines' marketing was supposed to sell what the film was offering with its intriguing ideas and philosophical underpinnings. However, the marketing failed to streamline the ideas behind the movie and sell it to audiences. This again significantly dilutedMortal Engines' box office numbers.
Mortal Engines
Mortal Engines is a 2018 action/adventure film from director Christian Rivers and writer Peter Jackson. Based on the novel by Philip Reeve, Mortal Engines is set 1,000 years in a post-apocalyptic future where cities are turned into giant vehicles that attempt to destroy one another. The film stars Hera Hilmar, Robert Sheehan, Hugo Weaving, and Jihae Kim.
