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Nostalgia is King

The 2017 film adaptation of Stephen King’s IT shattered box-office expectations, quickly establishing itself as one of the most successful horror films in history. So what made IT such a blockbuster phenomenon? It was the perfect storm of nostalgia, character-driven storytelling, and smart marketing. IT tapped into a powerful wave of 1980s nostalgia. The film arrived at the height of our cultural obsession with revisiting the past, heralded by shows like Stranger Things a

2 min read

The Power of a Morally Gray Hero

As a romance author, I spend a lot of time thinking about how to make readers fall in love with a character. It’s not always about the chiseled jaw or the charming banter (though those don’t hurt). Sometimes readers want a hero who blurs the lines between right and wrong to achieve their goals. In First Blood , David Morrell introduced the world to Rambo, the original morally gray hero. The Broken Hero Before It Was Cool When First Blood hit shelves in 1972, America was ree

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The Recipe for a Fantasy Blockbuster

When you combine a beloved story, a massive global audience, brilliant marketing, and breathtaking world-building, you get more than a successful movie. You get a cultural event. Generations grew up with Bilbo Baggins’s unexpected adventure. And after the massive success of the The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King trilogy, audiences were eager to return to Middle-earth for The Hobbit. The movie was a homecoming for fans. Fanatics packed the theaters on opening weeken

1 min read