Well, Beyond the frigging Rave has now come to an end. Though neither I nor most of the other old Hammer fans have been remotely impressed, the comments on the website seem to indicate that new Hammer did manage to create a number of young (read: right demographic) fans, so the experiment seems to have worked at least on a raising the awareness level.
Two news items have lately come in about the direction the company is going to take. On the one hand it appears that they indeed keep on producing new films and have plans for at least three more. On the other hand Hammer seems to be again changing hands. These news items can in full be found here and here.
I know I'm in the wrong demographic and therefore matter not at all, but I think Hammer's legacy of excellent horror is only in the past. I just can't see them doing anything that honors the Hammer name and still being successful today.
ReplyDeleteThey aren't exactly being taken over again. Hammer's parent company has bought outright Spitfire, which is a US company which had a production partnership deal with Hammer.
ReplyDeleteThe two are being brought together to serve as one business, but two brands. A bit like Exclusive and Hammer being basically the same company but operating on slight different agendas.
The new company's catalogue is largely filled with Hammer material anyway.
Hammer is now operating on a scale unprecedented with the company, and with huge amounts of money at its disposal. Cautious though older fans may be, the future does look rather more optimistic than it has done for a long time.