I wondered if Lord of the Rings would usher in a new wave of fantasy films, perhaps even a wave of fantasy trilogies. I was excited about the idea (although I'm not keen on overusing the serial format) because there is a LOT of great fantasy literature out there that would make great movies. Even more interesting to me would be good original stories, although original screenplays tend to be much shallower than screenplays based on novels.

Blah. Here's how the cash-in on LotR begins:

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Andy Vajna and Mario Kassar's C-2 Pictures, which produced one of the summer's most anticipated pictures in Terminator 3: Rise Of The Machines, is preparing an epic fantasy trilogy called Evermere which has landed at Sony Pictures. Describing the project as "Lord of The Rings meets Harry Potter," Vajna told Screen that he thought the first installment in the film would be the company's next film before the cameras.

The trilogy marks the first such to go into production since New Line's risky experiment The Lord Of The Rings, all three instalments of which were shot in one go at an estimated cost of $270m. Of course the risk paid off with worldwide theatrical revenues alone on the first two films at some $1.8bn. Vajna said that, although Evermere is still in preparation stages, the three films will not be made at the same time.

C-2 worked with Sony on its first two pictures. The studio bought I Spy outright and purchased international rights to T3 once the film had begun principal photography. Warner Bros won the bidding war for domestic rights to T3.

Evermere was written by David Goyer (Blade I & II, The Crow) and James Robinson (who wrote Fox's upcoming summer epic The League Of Extraordinary Gentlemen) and bought as a spec by C-2 in 1998 for some $1m. It tells the story of a 17 year-old orphan who discovers that he is heir to a throne in an alternate universe (called Evermere) and travels there to usurp his corrupt uncle who has seized the throne. Chuck Russell was originally attached to direct, but there are currently no director or cast attachments to the project.

"It's an exciting adventure set in a new world and is a wonderful romp for teenagers," said Vajna.

Between them, Vajna and Kassar have produced and financed some of the most ambitious films of the last two decades including Terminator 2: Judgment Day, Total Recall, Stargate, Cuthroat Island, Rambo II & III Die Hard With A Vengeance, Evita, Nixon and T3.

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As much as I love fantasy as a genre, I absolutely despise the "kid gets transported to fantasy world and saves it" genre. Although this has occasionally been done well, I'd generally much rather read about adults, and I'd generally much rather skip the "WOW, LOOK AT THE MAGIC AND THE MONSTERS, WE MUST BE IN A FANTASY WORLD!" gawking phase that consumes so much time in such stories. I'd much rather learn about the people that have lived all their lives in a fantasy world -- the whole point of fantasy (well, besides telling a ripping good yarn or two) is to explore human nature by seeing how it copes in unfamiliar worlds.

I can't figure out why a "kid usurps throne from evil uncle" story would take three whole movies, but even more inexplicable to me is how the SPEC for the story sold for one million dollars. This isn't a screenplay; this is an idea (that somebody else had) for a screenplay for movies that may not get made. I must ask myself: what the heck am I doing working as a software engineer when I could be cobbling together other people's ideas and selling them for seven figures.