from Facebook: a few thoughts on Harry Potter and the Cursed Child

http://minhlebooks.com/blog/elephant-piggie-hamilton

This just in, authors are bad people if they revisit their own intellectual property… and if you feed into this behavior you’re basically killing cultural progress.

Well, yes, but there’s almost universal agreement–even from the author of the essay–that this play isn’t rubbish. But even if it were, that doesn’t mean that audiences like rubbish, or that we aren’t willing to try something new.

The lesson–if there is one–goes something like this:

(1.) Large corporations need safe bets, projects that are pretty much guaranteed to make money. That way, they can stay in business and, once in a while, even take a risk on something original.

(2.) (a.) Audiences may not be nearly as enthusiastic about a rehash of something they used to like. But some projects–like this one–are worth the attention.

(b.) Some people are foolish enough to fall enough for the hype time after time.

(c.) And if the large corporations aren’t releasing anything else, audiences may be desperate enough to pay for the rehash.

(d.) Unless it’s Independence Day: Resurgence.

As long as they’re not disappointed that it’s not actually a novel. :-)