The Other Boleyn Girl 2?

After what seemed like an onslaught of negative reviews, there are heavy rumors that the producers of The Other Boleyn Girl have decided to create a sequel. In sync with author Philippa Gregory’s Tudor series, which began with The Other Boleyn Girl, the sequel will take on both title and story of the next book, The Boleyn Inheritance. For period-piece junkies the thought is intriguing, and it simply proves that despite the negative criticism, fans paid enough for the first film (roughly $67 million) to get a second serving.

Philippa Gregory has been a top-five favorite author of mine for several years now. It’s been awhile since I’ve sat down with one of her novels, because the moment I finished The Other Boleyn Girl (roughly five years ago), I ran out, bought the rest, and headed to the beach for days of nonstop reading. The Other Boleyn Girl was the first of her books I read and I still remember the shock I got out of the ending; it was tear-jerking, believe it or not. (I did not learn ANY of this history in high school history classes — were we supposed to?) But I did not have the same reaction with the film.

I am sure we would agree that inherently, books can be far more beautiful, passionate and breathtaking than films based on books. For example: Love In The Time Of Cholera. I would say this was most certainly the case with The Other Boyeln Girl as well. I’m pretty sure this was your classic trashy romance novel shrink-wrapped to include some star-studded Hollywood faces singing to the tune of an amazing author. The ingredients were there, but the story seemed shorter and more abrupt, a fate many movies based on novels suffer from. The costumes were eye-catching, and I even enjoyed the casting; but the end result didn’t hold me, which is surprising as I’m generally more lenient in my critique when discussing a film or story I am overly excited about.

Nonetheless, these minimal rantings lead me to express my hope that The Boleyn Inheritance will be an improvement on its predecessor. Hopefully creators can take from their early criticism to enhance their vision of Gregory’s writing. As I mentioned before, The Boleyn Inheritance will pick-up after the end events of The Other Boleyn Girl. What I find interesting is that the Showtime series The Tudors just wrapped up its second season, which leaves off where The Other Boleyn Girl did. I suppose I wonder why producers would choose to make another film after after a relatively popular TV series created the same story. I am sure The Boleyn Inheritance will have a much more expansive budget than The Tudors, but they’ll have significantly less time to tell the same story. I’m not holding my breath, but I can tell you no matter what, I’ll still pay for tickets to this sequel.

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