By Arik Cohen
When the Twilight movies turned 13-year-old girls into the sort of franchise-obsessed herds typically reserved for teenage superhero fanboys, it sparked a vampire trend that is just now, years later, beginning to fade. We saw a hit franchise (Twilight), other vampire films (Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter, Vampire Academy), as well as hit TV shows (True Blood, The Vampire Diaries). It also spurred a hunt for the next big young adult series, with Lionsgate eclipsing Twilight with The Hunger Games. Although maligned by most critics and filmgoers over the age of 15, Twilight spurred a trend. If someone was sitting on a vampire spec, it was a great time to get it out there.
But what if you didn’t have a vampire spec? What if you weren’t that sort of writer? What if you writing about Vampires would be like Eminem recording a country album? Should you still do it? Should you follow the trend? Do you chase a zeitgeist?
The short answer is “no.” The long answer is “probably not.”
The popular thinking is that trends ebb and flow, so why spend time trying to surf it? By the time you write that great vampire spec, the vampire money grab may well be over. Now you’re stuck with a script that’s no longer “in” and not even something you liked to begin with. Plus writing a script solely to follow the business trend is inherently lacking in passion. In the battle between art and commerce, this would be commerce storming the beaches of art’s Normandy. And we’re writers damn it, we’re artistic, we’re in it for the stories, not for corporate satisfaction.
I have a difficult time finding fault in this logic. We are in it for the stories. We are in it for the art. But I’d like to play devil’s advocate here, because this is Hollywood so even the devil has an agent.