He Also Did: The author wrote another steampunk series, Larklight and its sequels. They feature British Stuffiness, an amiable giant crab, a close-knit family, an equally close-knit band of very pleasant Space Pirates, a giant blue lizard in a crinoline, a Ninja Maid, and an entire race of nice hats. Not an entire race of people who wear nice hats, an entire race of people who (most of the time) are nice hats. We suspect antidepressants.
Approval of God: Philip Reeve enjoyed the film, and was so impressed by Jihae's performance as Anna Fang in particular that he wrote Night Flights, a short story collection focused on the character.
Box Office Bomb: Budget: $100-150 million. It ended up the biggest victim of the "Christmas Blitz" of 2018 when it opened to a pitiful 7.5 million domestically, fifth below Ralph Breaks the Internet, Universal's own The Grinch, The Mule and Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse. Then it was hammered even further the following week by Aquaman, Mary Poppins Returns and Bumblebee, and ultimately grossed a measly $83.2 million worldwide. It is the biggest bomb of Peter Jackson's production career* (to add salt to the wound, the film actually made less in North America than Jackson's World War I documentary They Shall Not Grow Old from the same season), and analysts initially projected Universal would lose up to $150 million on the film when accounting was done. Deadline was even more pessimistic, estimating the loss at $170 million, which would have actually made itthe worst box office bomb of all time (at least before the COVID-19 Pandemic). After all the numbers were in, Deadline's prediction was confirmed, the film is currently the single biggest confirmed box office loss ever after inflationnote twoor threeother films that may have lost more, but their figures are given as a range so it could have been less.
Completely Different Title: The film is called Predator Cities Chronicles in Russian, which refers to two of the fan names for the book series: Predator Cities Quartet and Hungry City Chronicles.
Saved from Development Hell: Peter Jackson purchased the film rights to the novel in 2009, but the project was put on the backburner due to Jackson and his production company already being busy making The Hobbit trilogy. Production would officially start in 2016, with the final film being released in December 2018.
Working Title: Was shipped to cinemas under the name "Squeaky Wheels".
, and was so impressed by Jihae's performance as Anna Fang in particular that he wrote Night Flights, a short story collection focused on the character.