Artemis Fowl Movie Delayed until May 2020

So, after 18 years of waiting… it looks like we’re going to have to wait a little longer. In true Artemis Fowl fashion… the movie has been delayed.

We’re getting reports in from various sources that the new Disney slate puts the Artemis Fowl movie as releasing in May 2020. Whilst we haven’t got 100% concrete confirmation, it’s looking incredibly likely. Subscribe to AFC on FacebookTwitterInstagram & YouTube for more information on this as it becomes available.

EDIT: Here’s our video take on everything:

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5 comments

  1. I’m glad it’s been delayed, but I’d rather it be cancelled completely. From everything I’ve seen about it an all the interviews and articles I’ve read it’s not an Artemis Fowl movie. They just kept the name and changed everything else.
    Is a movie that’s actually accurate to the books so much to ask for?

    • Agreed. I saw the teaser and every second I was saying “that’s wrong” for every scene. I hate directors and studios that can’t seem to follow something simple like a book. The script is practically written for them already. Root is supposed to be a male and Holly is the first female LEPrechaun. Casting isn’t half bad (aside from Judi Dench as Root). There might be snippets of the first book in the trailer but it’s far off from the rest of it. The plot of the first book is moreso a “sneaking around” type plot, not guns blazing in broad daylight.

      • Rene Christensen

        No one is making either of you watch it, so if you feel that strongly about it just maintain your head canon as is and let the rest of us enjoy the movie for what it is. I agree that root being female is a pretty big divergence from the books, it changes Holly’s circumstances (unless they give her some other path to becoming chief that doesn’t).

        I fail to see how butler being black really takes anything away – he’s described as a meat mountain who people turn to stare at, being black won’t really change that at all nor should it change his interactions with artemis.

        Holly being somewhat younger seems like an ok idea in my book, Eoin clearly has some romantic undertones between her and Artemis, which lhey might be able to emphasize and explore a little more. Its really all about how they use the changes.

        I think that’s the 3 biggest changes I have heard of so far.

        • It’s not about “head canon”, it’s about “canon”. More specifically it’s about established Artemis Fowl canon, which this movie completely disregards. It may not mean much to you, but as somebody that has loved these books and read every one of them dozens of times over since they came out and then waited years upon years for this movie this is a huge deal. I was excited that the movie was finally going to come out and I was eager to see it, until I saw the trailer and read everything I could about the movie. I expected things to be cut out or have a few little movie only scenes, that wouldn’t have been a big deal, but I was appalled to find that they made so many changes to characters and core elements of the books and basically cut out the essence of the story. The movie’s an AU at best and an original work using the names and titles of a known work for publicity and marketing at worst.
          Holly being the first female officer in the LEP is a major element of her backstory and one of the driving forces behind her actions and the way others behave towards her. It’s also why there’s always so much attention and pressure on her from the rest of the fairy community. It’s so important that the author makes a point of it throughout the book. Making Commander Root female thus completely erases a huge portion of Holly’s backstory and many of the motivations and reasons behind certain plot elements and character behaviors. You almost have to rewrite Holly and 85% of the things surrounding her completely, at which point she’s not even Holly anymore. She’s just a character that happens to share Holly’s name.
          We got to see a younger Holly in Time Paradox and the bit of romance that resulted from that: The famous kiss. Holly can’t just be younger from the get go. It takes time to get through schooling and training and to rise through the ranks to get where Holly’s gotten. They could shift her age by a few years but for her to be a member of the police force she still has to be an adult and for her to have reached the rank she’s supposed to be at she can’t be near her teenage years. So they still couldn’t explore too much romance between Holly and Artemis without sticking an R or NC17 rating on the film.
          If they didn’t want to up the rating but wanted to keep the romance either Holly would have to be a young teen and not a police officer or Artemis would have to be 18 or older. Regardless of which route you go it causes backstory and motivation problems yet again. Artemis is 12 and Artemis being 12 is a huge deal. He’s a child genius, which is a key part of his character and is so important that the author repeatedly makes a point of it throughout the story. Take that away and Artemis is no longer Artemis. The writers would be ruining characters for what? A romance that never existed in the first book to begin with and has no place in the plot until later books?
          Changing Butler’s ethnicity wouldn’t be a problem if canon hadn’t established that he’s Eurasian and there weren’t elements of his canon background that make more sense with him being Eurasian. To diversify the cast, instead of changing the Butler siblings’ ethnicity they could have cast Asian actors to play them. They also could have cast an African American actress to play Holly considering that in the books she’s described as having “nut brown skin”. Nothing in canon actually had to be changed to bring diversity. Diversity is already there.
          So I guess you haven’t heard about the official Disney website implying that the fairies are responsible for Artemis Fowl I’s disappearance? That’s a detail that would completely alter the story and characters, especially if they try for more movies. In the first book Artemis kidnaps Holly for the sole reason of getting ransom gold. He has nothing against the fairies. They’re just a means to an end. Nothing personal, just business. Holly hates Artemis at first and then they end up becoming friends. Artemis is a villain at first and he later grows into a good person because of his friends. Making the fairies responsible for the loss of Artemis’s father, and by extension the loss of his mother too, that changes the motivation behind Artemis kidnapping a fairy. It creates a personal bias and a reason fueled purely by emotion, which would be out of character for the Artemis of the first book. It also makes the kidnapping revenge instead of a simple means to an end. Making it revenge for the loss of his parents makes Artemis a more sympathetic character, his motivations less selfish and greedy, and over all far less of a bad person. That goes against the character he’s supposed to be and the character development he experiences throughout the series. For Arctic Incident to be a sequel or if they want to tack it on to this movie they’d need to rewrite half the book and change the dynamics between characters, until, like this movie, it’s not even the same story anymore. Or they could diverge from the series completely in any future movies considering how far away from canon they’ve already gone.

  2. I have some reservations concerning this movie. I will watch it but probably not in the theater… I will wait and see what the consensus is. More then likely I will wait for it to be released onto Blu-ray.
    I’m glad they are no longer doing book 1 and 2 together. What concerns me most is all the female cast playing lep recon forces.
    Judy Dench has a low gravely voice she can with the right costume play a male role so I can get behind that. But Trouble is MALE not female, and changing that for the sake of “girl power” is destroying the reason detra of Holly’s character.
    I have no issue with the actor portraying Butler I feel he will be great in his role regardless of the Ethnicity issue stated in the book.
    I will try to keep an opened mind for this much loved book but Disney can sink this fast by trying to make a girl power statement.

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