Modern Film Making

Saturday, June 6, 2026

What Fresh Hell is this?

In March, I learned a fun new fact.

Three Ravens Press is divesting itself of a lot of properties, trying to focus on their primary IPs—something called JTF13 and something else called Car Wars. If you don’t know what these things are, I’m not going to explain.

What does this matter to me worth a damn?

Fun fact: my original Love at First Bite trilogy came out through them…

Yes. This series has killed yet ANOTHER publisher.1

For those of you keeping score at home, this is the fifth edition of the first book, and edition four for the rest.

In the beginning, Honor at Stake went through Damnation Press. Yes. Really. A technically “Christian book” series went through Damnation.

When Honor at Stake was nominated for the Dragons in the first year, I really wanted book two to come out in short order. Damnation Press was taking their time. They gave it back to me. It felt like they threw it at me.

In short order, I found out why:

I believe within the month of my publishing what is now Demons are Forever,2 Damnation press folded like a house of cards. It was bought out and eaten by another publisher. Don’t ask me the name, I don’t recall.

I self-published Honor at Stake and the rest of the series between 2016 and 2017.

Book three, Live and Let Bite, was nominated for a Dragon in 2017.

2017? Yeah, it had to be 2017.

In 2018, Silver Empire Press, run by morgon and Russell Newquist, picked up the whole vampire series, my entire Pius series, and they pushed me to write Saint Tommy NYPD.

Then 2020 hit. Eventually, Covid and associated policies led to the death of Silver Empire in 2022, in a tale that they will get around to telling in their own good time.

With nothing else for it, I shopped it around. Love at First Bite was picked up by Three Ravens, and rereleased in 2023.

Three Ravens was also going to publish Honeymoon from Hell. But I wanted to give them four books at a time. (Yes, four. I would have self-published Cross Over.) By the time I wrapped up the series, their situation had changed, and Three Ravens wasn’t taking on any new series. If it was not their IP, it was not their problem.

Flash forward to now, and circumstances have changed. Again.

No, Three Ravens isn’t dying. I guess they’re ditching Love at First Bite before it kills them like it has the others. Heh.3

I’m just going back to straight up self-publishing the whole bloody thing. Like I said, Book one is on the fifth edition. No one wants to republish something that’s already come out repeatedly. I’ve even tried some of the usual suspects already, to no avail. Yes, that one. I know what you’re thinking.

So, I’m getting them all republished. Again. By the time you read this, the latest, self-published editions should be up and running at the usual links. I hope.

We’ll see what happens.

At this point, I just want my books available to everyone who might be interested. Self-publishing is just the most reliable way at the moment. You know, until Amazon just de-platforms me for no reason. I’m certain it’s coming eventually.

But yeah. I’ve been doing this dance for fifteen years. After 40 books (I recently counted), I’ve run out of patience. I have no Ducks left to give. All your ducks are belong to us. Quack.

No. I promise you I’m not losing my mind. Not so that anyone would notice a difference. But if you don’t get the reference, I’m not going to explain it.

Yes, I’m at the point where this feels just plain Sisyphean. I’m really hoping that Blaine likes my work, so I can keep writing novels for Land & Sea, maybe focus on them as my primary work from here on out, and do other novels and shorts in my down time. Maybe I can have down time. Maybe I can even force myself to go to conventions and do nothing by hang out and just …. interact with people. Wouldn’t that be odd?

Anyway, so the Love at First Bite books are being republished, by me, myself and I.

The funny thing is, Three Ravens told me about this change right before I had a new marketing campaign ready go to.

That’s probably a good thing. The marketing relied on reviews from JD Cowan (who reviewed the series when the books first came out), and he’s currently been kicked off of social media, for reasons no one is particularly certain of. It’s weird, but life is getting weirder in general. Or I could be coming down with something. Or both.

I should be coming out with a list of Dragon Award suggestions for you sometime soon. We’ll see. So far, I’m thinking Richard Paolinelli and Shami Stovall. I’m not sure who else, yet. Then again, I’ll have to double check the categories. They keep changing on me.

No, I’m not pushing On Tiber’s Edge for an award. I don’t think Wargate or Blaine care about awards. The Dragons no longer has a Military SF category. And I’ve burned months of my life just trying to host discussions on the topic, so I’m just working with other people to cultivate the next list. I work with a review site, so why not?

Again, feel free to ask me anything in the comments. If you get an email, you can ping me through the comment button at the top.

And please, feel free to buy a book, or leave a book review. Either would be greatly appreciated.

Friday, June 5, 2026

On the Problem of Harry Potter

Normally, I would say that most books should be made into TV shows, if not just plain old miniseries.

Read the novel Jurassic Park, and you see just how much of a pale imitation the film is. Heck, read both Critchon novels, you can see just how much story was jammed in, then cut up and sprinkled over so many films.

It’s why miniseries were so big in the 80s—take a James Clavell novel, and it takes ten hours to tell the tale. I’ll still take Richard Chamberlain as Jason Bourne over Matt Damon any day of the week, even if the man was already too old for the part.

What prompted this?

You may have heard that the Harry Potter book series is being turned into an HBO TV show. It’s going to be one of those articles. If you want to look over the trailer, go ahead. But I’m not going to post it here.

Let’s look into why this is going to be a bit of an issue.

Modern Film Making

You thought that headline was going to be “Modern Audiences” didn’t you? Heh. Maybe later.

I saw parts of the trailer side by side with clips from the original movies. I must say, the new trailers were so dark, so dim, so poorly lit, so Zach Snyder filtered, when I saw the clips from the original films, I felt like I was flash-banged with color and light.

But this? Who turned off the lights?

I’m almost afraid to ask who directed this. But then I realized it doesn’t matter, because I rarely see color in a movie anymore. Sure, John Wick liked neon. Nobody 2 was a comedy that was pretty well lit. But so many people are using filters in sepia, gray, and dark blue that I feel like I need NVGs just to see what’s going on in the movie. Don’t even ask me what happened in The Batman, I couldn’t see anything.

Clearly, this show is going to suffer from Game of Thrones-itis, which has infected all of fantasy these days.1 Ooh, everything is so dark! So grim and gritty!

First of all, as Peter David pointed out, “grim and gritty” was a tagline coined for Adam West’s Batman. It was supposed to be absurd, not a suggestion for cinematography.

Second, these are kids books. We don’t need the grim and gritty kids book. Hell, I started having problems with some of the films when they decided to turn off all the lights for the better part of the film.2 Someone bring back Christopher Columbus.

Another issue of modern Hollywood: hiring nobodies to write the adaptation.

Francesca Gardiner has few credits. The most notable of which include Killing Eve (lesbian espionage, oh joy), His Dark Materials (let’s beat up on CS Lewis), and Man in the High Castle (Nazis).

Laura Neal … are you kidding me? Some of this is literal pornography. I thought I was joking about the Game of Thrones effect.

Martha Hillier has written some Viking stuff … some mystery stuff.

Not one of these writers has a substantial CV. What the Hell? Modern media really does mean “hire nobodies to write your scripts.”

The Casting

The HBO show will, of course, suffer severely from a lack of casting.

What do I mean by this?

The original films had Shakespearean actors.

Maggie Smith
Michael Gambon
Kenneth Branagh (whose entire career is Shakespeare.)
Alan Rickman (I have a DVD of him playing Tybalt. It’s odd to see him that young.)
Ralph Fiennes
Emma Thompson
Jim Broadbent
Helena Bonham Carter
Timothy Spall (Yes, the pet rat.)
Imelda Staunton (Umbridge).
Richard Harris had stage experience going back decades, probably with his drinking partners, Peter O’Toole and Richard Burton.
Zoe Wanamaker practically grew up in the rebuilt Globe Theater, and she was wasted on a throwaway cameo.
Robbie Coltrane played Falstaff.
Gary Oldman is a damned chameleon.

All of these people were veterans of the stage and screen. Some of them for decades. Most of these people had star power all their own that you could draw an audience just for them. Even Bill Nighy has star power, and he was practically wasted in the Potter franchise.

This Harry Potter … doesn’t have that. Seriously, the biggest name here—if you’ll pardon the expression—is Warwick Davis, resuming his role as the music professor.

There is, of course, Jonathan Lithgow. His biggest role is … as a lizard person in The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension.

That’s a promotion still I got from IMDB of Lithgow as Dumbledore.

Not to be picky, but why does his beard look like it’s AI? And the background look like it’s CGI? It’s sort of bending behind him, like it’s about to fold in half. Did they not have the budget to build sets? Are we playing Resident Evil on the original Playstation?

So, no, I don’t have much hopes for this cast. They’re going to be compared to the original cast, and unfavorably. It looks like they’ve hired a bunch of character actors. Which is great. I like character actors. They can, you know, act.

But none of these people have high caliber star power. None of them are draws in and of themselves. And if you’re going to try to sell people on a product they already have at home, you want to draw them in with something that will assure them that this product is at least as good as what they already have. “It’ll be just like what you enjoy, only way more of it.”

This cast? Doesn’t sway me.

I’m not sure the production values help much either. Am I the only one who’s wondering why the beards area all wrong?

I’ll at least give them this, the Weasleys are all redheads. This crew hasn’t signed on to the Ginger Genocide. I guess that’s a plus.

What’s that? I hear you ask. I’m missing someone?

Snape

Meet your new Snape, Paapa Essiedu.

Now, ignore for the moment that he looks like a male model, and not the greasy, pale, hooked-nose character described in the novel. Let’s ignore that his hair looks like it was poorly glued on.

My first objection is who dressed this man? Seriously, who thought any of this was a good idea. Leather jackets? Are we in a school, or a motorcycle club? I think they may have stolen the costume from a Silent Hill production.

You see what I mean about having little faith in the cast … or the production … or costumes …

Anyway, you might have noticed that this new Snape is black. Why did they hire him and not Adam Driver, who kind of looks like Alan Rickman if the lighting is right?

Harry Potter Fans Want Adam Driver As Snape In Prequel — Driver. I don’t know if this is modified in any way.

I suspect it’s because Adam Driver is in demand. (How does he have over 50 acting credits already?)

So is Mark Strong, who has a similar profile, and a great acting range.

So is Benedict Cumberbatch, and he looks funny enough to be Snape. (Yeesh. He was in five films last year.)

Paapa Essiedu’s demand? Not so much.

Good news. I looked up Paapa Essiedu, and he has Shakespearean credits.

Bad news. I have actually seen him act in these roles. I am not impressed.

Remember when the British media made Anne Boleyn black, in the most blatant DEI rewriting of British history? Paapa Essiedu played one of her relatives.

Of course, hiring a black actor to play Snape is going to be an issue later on in the series. Last time I checked my memory of the novels, during his time in Hogwarts, Harry Potter’s father James damn near tortured Snape, and I seem to remember Snape being hung upside down from a tree. No, that wouldn’t play differently with a black Snape. Not at all.

But I suspect that’s the point. Why hire a black actor? Cover. You might have already seen that Paapa Essiedu claims to have had death threats over being cast in the role. Really? Has he received as many threats as Rowling has had over the trans issue?

Isn’t it funny how those claims of death threats pop up immediately?3 I guess that means if you object to his performance in any way, you’re a racist.

Which is, I suspect, the point. HBO has a groundwork laid for the usual “Ghostbusters 2016” defense. Which is, you may remember, is “Blame the audience.” Ghostbusters 2016, or Ocean’s 8 or Charlie’s Angels doesn’t work? It’s misogyny! If Blue Beetle doesn’t work, it’s racism!

If this doesn’t work? Clearly racism.

Going through IMDB at random, I’ve been checking the resumes of various actors. Paapa Essiedu may have the least amount of acting credits among the adults. Normally, I’d write this off as more DEI casting, forcing diversity wherever it can be shoehorned in.

Though if that were the case, I’d be looking for more than just one race-swapped character.

I’m starting to wonder if he was hired solely on the basis of “if you don’t like this show, you’re a racist.”

It’s a theory.

Back when the Harry Potter films were being made, I remember an interview with JK Rowling discussing how she was on set as a consultant to make sure the books were accurately adapted to the screen. After all, the last thing a bunch of Producers wanted were the parents of angry ten-year-olds writing angry letters, because “You idiots ruined my child’s book series.”

This is funny because it’s now 25 years later, and you have to wonder how much of the rationale is being used to make the current edition for HBO. Only the fans being targets are not fans of the books who went on to read other books. No. Of course not. Literate people are always a joy. They have open minds.

No. I mean the terminally online. Those people who only read Harry Potter, and nothing else. Those people who only see modern politics in everything, and through the lens of Harry Potter. They’re the ones who insist the President is Voldemort, and any supporters are Death Eaters. They hang out on Blue Sky all day and seemingly have nothing else to do.

Ironically, they’re also infected with the same politics that made a lot of them turn on Rowling. You see, they were carried away by leftist ideology, and Rowling had a line in the sand they did not.

The funny thing is, Hollywood is making Harry Potter for these people—people who probably aren’t going to show up, because they hate Rowling more than anything else.

Do I think it’ll go anywhere? It doesn’t impress me. The production looks cheap. It’s dark. The cast is meh. And I don’t care if Rowling is attached to it, she’s already proven she’ll happily rewrite her own books if it aligns with her politics, which are still infected with some of the same lefty DEI nonsense.

As usual, feel free to ask me anything in the comments. If you get an email, you can ping me through the comment button at the top.

And please, feel free to buy a book, or leave a book review. Either would be greatly appreciated.

Thursday, June 4, 2026

Supergirl Lead Says Film Is Trash

Since Ghostbusters 20161 Hollywood producers have learned the code to shield themselves from reprisals: Blame the fans. If the media product bombs, the fans are too misogynistic, racist, homophobic, whatever.

But also since then, actors have used it to signal to the audience that “Yeah, this movie is going to suck. You’ve been warned.” Whether they’ve meant to signal it or not. Sandra Bullock compared the loathsome Ocean’s 8 to Ghostbusters 2016 before it came out—it bombed. When Ewan MacGregor played Roman Sionis in Birds of Prey,2 he described the role as a chance to be part of a feminist film that tackles misogyny in both its extreme and everyday forms—thanks for the warning, no one went to see the lousy film.

And now, Milly Alcock,3 who will play Supergirl, has similarly signaled that this film is trash and no one should see it.

Looking at that face, I wonder if she’s supposed to have Down Syndrome, or if that’s a particularly bad angle.

I hope the screen shot stays there, I can’t bring myself to quote that stupidity. I feel like I’m losing braincells just reading it.

But breaking out the defense of the movie that “the misogynists will throw crap at it because I’m female” is possibly the biggest signal that everyone is going to hate it.

This isn’t that big of a surprise. I took one look at the trailer and said this was a bad idea. Looking at Gunn’s comic book sources, and script writers signaled additional problems, only with bright flashing lights and an alarm klaxon. Gunn has hired a nobody to write the script, and is using knock comic book hack Tom King as a source material, all so Gunn can make Supergirl yet another variation on Guardians of the Galaxy.

Usually, actors wait until the month of the film’s release before they start throwing up the air defenses. Supergirl doesn’t release until June. If she’s pulling this crap in late March / Early April, that strikes me as premature. Why do it that early? My only conclusion is that someone thinks that Gunn’s Supergirl is going to be such a dumpster fire, they need to defend it right this minute.

On second thought, this shouldn’t be a surprise. After all, after the recent WB buyout by Paramount, this may be James Gunn’s only shot at keeping his job as the head of the DC Cinematic Universe. He has already spent an ungodly amount of money on side projects that has seen little return on investment—from Creature Commandos to Peacemaker. Looking up the box officer on Jame’s Gunn’s Superman, Gunn seems to be hard at work cooking the books to declare the film profitable.

Therefore, Supergirl has to make money. That at least explains the early defense of a film that already looks pretty bad, and gets worse the more that you look at it.

James Gunn’s involvement in DC films gave me zero interest in watching Supergirl. The trailer gave me negative interest. Alcock’s statement induces nausea.

The funniest part is that, given this statement, I have no doubt that Lobo will represent Toxic masculinity. He is of course, the most anticipated element of the film.

But it is good that Alcock signaled to everyone that this film is going to be garbage. I’m certain that if anyone had any doubt, she has dispelled them.

Again, feel free to ask me anything in the comments. If you get an email, you can ping me through the comment button at the top.

And please, feel free to buy a book, or leave a book review. Either would be greatly appreciated.

Wednesday, June 3, 2026

Remember this rant? How Tremors Can save Hollywood

It is exactly as the title suggests.

But this is the particularly important part.

And yes, the film makers knew how to stretch a dollar. They put a dollar on the rack and they just kept twisting until the dollar screamed. Mostly by using horror tropes to their advantage — using the Monster’s POV (like Jaws), having Bad Things Happen to secondary characters out of sight, hidden monsters (also Jaws). And pyrotechnics are comparatively cheap.

Why do I bring this up?

The Movie Obsession just came out.

May be an image of one or more people and people smiling

At current rate of speed, it’s probably going to make a quarter billion dollars at the box office.

Obsession was apparently made by a 26-year-old YouTuber, for $750,000, shot over just 20 days

You read that correctly. It was made for less than a million. It’s probably going to make a quarter-billion.

It’s almost like good writing and good acting can trump vomiting a million dollars onto the screen with a bunch of flashing lights and CGI, and trying to smack you in the head with tH3 mE$$@G3.

Instead of, I don’t know, Joker: Folie a Deux — a $200 million garbage fire that hated the audience. Or Mickey 17’s $118 anti-Trump screed. Or $165 million for The Mandalorian & Grogu, which is getting its ass kicked by Obsession.

As I said last time, the bloat is going to kill films. How insane is it to burn $300 million on a film, and assume you’re going to make a billion? Do you know how rare that is?

Meanwhile: good writing, good acting, and good production values equals profit.

Seriously, I am a total and complete nobody who writes books because I’m not useful for anything else. And I can figure this out.

Markets reward value. Not virtue-signaling. Not “the message.” Not burning cash or money laundering.

Perhaps treat your audience like they have a brain. Maybe keep corporate suits out of the movie-making process. Slash and burn the overhead like it’s Pasadena.

So thank you, I was right.

Again, feel free to ask me anything in the comments. If you get an email, you can ping me through the comment button at the top.

And please, feel free to buy a book, or leave a book review. Either would be greatly appreciated.

Buy from Baen Books

Thursday, March 6, 2025

Originally posted on Substack on March 11, 2024. So, there will be another update on this coming soon.