Well, I guess in [current day] we can't be displeased about anything and voice it. All we should do is suck it up, shut up and hand it all over. Clap clap clap, only positives, only warm embraces and acceptance. Keep criticisms and personal opinions close to the chest, unguard them only to your mother....
I've dropped thousands into these things. Excuse me if I came to the 300 dollar doll collector forum to whine about the funnybook movie, instead of dropping a "gee wee golly, this isn't for me (since it's keeping up the trend of butchering the source material) but I sure do hope whoever likes thoroughly enjoys it 100! love and kisses xo xo xo" Facebook comment...
Hardcore fans within the demographics of this forum/community don't have the numbers and don't have the purchasing leverage to support the kind of material that those many dedicated zealots want to go see.
Suzanne Collins knew exactly her target audience when she wrote The Hunger Games.
Serenity made about 40 million at the box office. That's both domestic and around the world. In theory, it made back it's budget of 39 million for production, but that doesn't account for the marketing, etc, etc. Now Serenity had the benefit of still being the DVD era, where large DVD sales were also a factor in what got made or how far it went.
So even with Joss Whedon's legacy fanbase, it just wasn't popular. And I loved Serenity, and I loved Firefly. But no one watched it. Not enough did. I mean if you poll the people here, sure, it's a widespread favorite. But it's still not enough.
The only answer I can give you is widespread appeal and acceptance of animation. I abhorred the Enders Game film, and it took a long time for Orson Scott Card to sign off on someone doing that film. However if it was an animated TV series, with 13 episode seasons and 3-4 seasons, they could have fleshed that out and made a low budget work. But it's not that easy to put that kind of story into animation and aim it at adults.
Same thing for Wheel Of Time. Just too expensive and too complex for live action.
The first question I ask myself is if the IP in question is in the right medium. Some horrific movies would have been good starting fodder for a TV series. Some TV series would have been better off as movies. I don't think Oliver Stone should have made a thousand different versions of Alexander the film. I do think a TV series would have allowed him to go into depth and really explore the story. But those kind of live action stories are expensive. If he pitched it post Game Of Thrones, he might have gotten the financing for it. In contrast, Prison Break only really made sense for one season. And a show like Masters of Sex would have been better off as a film.
The second question I ask myself is if it's just too difficult to tell that kind of story. Westerns struggle to make money. Most of them. Sci Fi also struggles most of the time. So a sci fi cowboy show and film by Joss Whedon was really pushing the limits.
Both Robert Rodriguez and Kevin Smith have said the same exact thing over and over again - If you want creative freedom, keep dropping the budget, and then you'll be left alone. Smith pointed out a lot of earlier movies were "safe" films. They were super low budget, his friends ( like Matt Damon and Ben Affleck) ended up bringing good name brand casting for basic rate, and he entered the industry at just the right time.
If you want more hard sci fi and more hard fantasy, more purist, then it has to be made cheap. But those are exactly the kind of live action series that aren't cheap by any stretch.
We are outnumbered. And beyond that, you are outnumbered.