Sad news, order little Shadowhunters!

Just announced within this last hour, find Martin Moszkowicz, producer of the films, announced that the production of City of Ashes, which was set to start filming next week, has been officially postponed indefinitely. Here is a piece of the official press release below.

“Constantin Film” has a long tradition of adapting books to the big screen. Pushing back the start of production of ‘City of Ashes’ was a decision we did not take lightly. But after speaking with all of our partners on the creative and distribution side, it was clear that it will be beneficial to have more time to reposition the film in the current market place,” said executive producer Martin Moszkowicz of Constantin. “‘The Mortal Instruments’ series has an incredibly loyal and ardent fan base and is a bestselling book series. While taking Cassandra Clare’s vision to the screen, we want to make sure to draw on the full potential of the franchise.”

Now, while this news is extremely disheartening, it is not altogether surprising. City of Bones has been in theaters a total of three weeks, and it has not been able to match the 60 million dollar budget and 60 million dollar marketing campaign. That, paired with the less than satisfactory reviews, lead us all to believe that maybe we had to worry about the upcoming City of Ashes.

Now it has been announced that the production is postponed indefinitely, fans fear for the full canceling of the film. I’m optimistic for the moment. Movie sequels are often times postponed if the first film doesn’t quite perform up to standards. Rushing into a sequel, and spending a bunch of money to quickly film, produce, and promote a movie by next summer/fall is not exactly the smartest idea if the original hasn’t done very well. Hopefully, Constantin Films will take this time to rework the script or the film in some way to address the concerns of the fans, but more importantly (yes, I said it), the audience and critics, in order to make a better film, in order for us to get City of Glass. As much as this is made for the fans, it cannot be successful without the masses on board.

So I’m very sad, and disappointed in this news, but I have hopes that this will not be a permanent step and that we will hopefully see the news that production has been started up. I have a lot of faith in the team behind this movie. They have their hearts in the right place, and they wanted so badly to make a film for the fans, and for the most part, the fans have really loved the movie. Now its time to make this bigger, and bring in more people so we can keep the movie franchise going. This is a business, a movie business, and from a business standpoint, it makes a lot of sense, and they have to do what they have to do to stay in business.

And remember! No matter what happens, whether production eventually starts or whether they decide to cancel the movie completely, we still will always have the books. We always have the books and no one can take those away from us. We still have so much to look forward to! Shadowhunter Codex! The remaining Bane Chronicles! City of Heavenly Fire! The Dark Artifices! TLH! TWP!

Have a little faith, Shadowhunters, we always have each other and these books and our dear Cassandra Clare!

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