It’s easy to think a blockbuster book guarantees a blockbuster movie.

We’re used to series like Harry Potter and Twilight, that leap from the page to the movie screen and catch fire immediately, but a bestselling book series is no guarantee of cinema success.

For every Hunger Games, there is a Golden Compass or Lemony Snickett proving that it doesn’t matter how good a book is, the film adaptation needs to appeal beyond the core audience if it’s going to have a future.

The latest example of this is City of Bones, the first in a planned franchise based on Cassandra Clare’s Mortal Instruments books. After the first film bombed commercially and critically (it has a score of just 12% on movie review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes), Constantin Film has put the brakes on the sequel.

Mortal Instruments: City of Ashes has been delayed indefinitely, with the studio saying: “Pushing back the start of production of City of Ashes was a decision we did not take lightly. But after speaking with all of our partners on the creative and distribution side, it was clear that it will be beneficial to have more time to reposition the film in the current market place.”

The film, which cost $60m to make, has only taken $70m so far – a huge disappointment for what was meant to be the start of a mega-franchise.

It’s not dead yet, but the signs aren’t looking good.

One book series that may yet prove its cinematic worth is R.L.Stine’s kid-friendly horror series Goosebumps.

The books, which have sold more than 300 million copies worldwide, have already been turned into a TV series and video game, and Tim Burton was developing a movie in the late 1990s. Nothing happened with Burton’s version, and there hasn’t been much other news since Sony acquired the movie rights to the series in 2008.

However, now it turns out that Jack Black is in talks to star in a feature film, playing an author who is terrorised when his horrible creations come to life.

If the deal comes together, he’ll reunite with Gulliver’s Travels director Rob Letterman, which may suggest a surfeit of CGI creatures.

Hopefully for Goosebumps’ legions of fans (many of whom are now grown up), the pair can produce something better than Gulliver’s Travels, which was less enjoyable than drinking cold coffee.

Disney wasn’t the only big dog at the Bank of America event. Warner Bros was there too and CEO Kevin Tsujihara dropped a few more details about what we can expect from Ben Affleck’s Batman in the Man of Steel follow-up.

This Batman will be “tired, weary and seasoned”, which matches director Zack Snyder’s own announcement that Affleck will portray a man “who is older and wiser than Clark Kent and bears the scars of a seasoned crime fighter”.

This all sounds very good to me, so long as “tired, weary and seasoned” isn’t just movie speak for “stubble”.

Origin of species is a brilliant idea

At a dull Bank of America investor conference last week, a juicy detail about the new Star Wars films sneaked out. We’ve known for a while now that some stand-alone films about Star Wars characters are in development alongside the new trilogy, but a Disney exec revealed that these stand-alone films will be origin stories.

The idea of releasing a new Star Wars every year from 2015 was confirmed, with Disney chief financial officer Jay Rasulo stating that the company will alternate each year between a trilogy film and “an origin story”.

Earlier this year, many sources were reporting that the first Star Wars standalone film would focus on Yoda. If that’s true, it means we can expect Star Wars Origins: Yoda in 2016.

Origin stories is a brilliant route to go down, and the decision means that there is a huge list of potential future movies. I’d particularly like to see a film centred around one of my favourite Star Wars bit players, Malakili – the keeper of the Rancor in Return of the Jedi, who is moved to tears when the man-eating creature is killed by Luke Skywalker.

A short story about the character and his relationship with Jabba’s monster already exists, A Boy and His Monster: The Rancor Keeper’s Tale, so most of the hard work is already done. Come on, Disney, make it happen