{"id":572802,"date":"2026-04-09T00:12:10","date_gmt":"2026-04-09T00:12:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/572802\/"},"modified":"2026-04-09T00:12:10","modified_gmt":"2026-04-09T00:12:10","slug":"bill-murrays-epic-steampunk-sci-fi-is-already-being-forgotten-by-a-generation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/572802\/","title":{"rendered":"Bill Murray’s Epic, Steampunk Sci-Fi Is Already Being Forgotten By A Generation"},"content":{"rendered":"

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\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tBy Britta DeVore<\/a>
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t | Published 1 minute ago\t\t<\/p>\n

\"City<\/p>\n

We\u2019re so incredibly used to having every piece of media at our fingertips, with streamers like Netflix offering copious amounts of TV shows and movies for the price of a subscription. Still, some titles haven\u2019t made it to streaming platforms. In an era where fewer than fifty percent of households have access to a DVD or Blu-Ray player, that means they can\u2019t be watched. And if a movie can\u2019t be watched, it will be forgotten.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s exactly what\u2019s happening to City of Ember, the 2008 steampunk fantasy movie. Despite a star-studded cast led by Bill Murray, the movie isn\u2019t available to stream anywhere except as an extremely pricey rental on Apple TV<\/a>. It\u2019s worth paying that price to see.<\/p>\n

\"city<\/p>\n

The film, which is based on Jeanne DuPrau\u2019s 2003 novel, The City of Ember, is a fantasy lover\u2019s dream as it takes audiences underground to the titular city. Running on a generator that has served its purpose for more than a century, time is running out, and with it, the lights within the deep cave start to dim and flicker. <\/p>\n

Taking matters into their own hands and seeing themselves as the city\u2019s only hope at restoring light to even its darkest corners, two teenagers, Lina Mayfleet (Saoirse Ronan) and Doon Harrow (Harry Treadaway) go on a dangerous yet exciting journey to turn the lights back on for good.<\/p>\n

\"city<\/p>\n

After having earned an Oscar nod for her work in Atonement, City of Ember was another pivotal stepping stone in Saoirse Ronan\u2019s career, which would ultimately lead her to earn three more Academy Award nominations and heaps of accolades for her work in such projects as Brooklyn, Lady Bird, and Little Women. The casting team behind the fantastical tale\u2019s on-screen adaptation was on their A-game for this one, as they also nabbed names including Bill Murray<\/a> (Lost in Translation) and Tim Robbins (The Shawshank Redemption).<\/p>\n

Just as it was a pivotal career moment for its star Saoirse Ronan, City of Ember was a similarly huge moment for director Gil Kenan. Two years earlier, Kenan had paired up with Columbia Pictures for the animated horror flick, Monster House, giving him the preparation and connections needed to jump into live-action filmmaking with City of Ember. <\/p>\n

From there, Kenan\u2019s hold on Hollywood continued to expand with the helmer attaching himself to the 2015 remake of the horror classic Poltergeist, the holiday fantasy flick, A Boy Called Christmas, and, most recently, Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire<\/a>.<\/p>\n

City Of Ember\u2019s Box Office Disaster<\/p>\n

\"city<\/p>\n

Unfortunately for Kenan\u2019s first live-action film, all the big names around (which included Tom Hanks<\/a> and Gary Goetzman as producers) couldn\u2019t save the production from being a financial disaster. Despite making a concerted effort to time the movie\u2019s release shortly after the final book of DuPrau\u2019s series hit shelves, City of Ember couldn\u2019t keep the lights on at the box office. After spending $55 million on the feature\u2019s production, the movie would only rake in $17.0 million, marking it as a gargantuan box office bust.<\/p>\n

City of Ember didn\u2019t bomb because it was terrible; it bombed because no one knew what it was supposed to be. Released in 2008 with a modest budget and almost no marketing push, the film suffered from a complete identity crisis. It looked like a kids\u2019 movie, played like a dystopian thriller, and was based on a book that didn\u2019t have the built-in audience studios were hoping for. <\/p>\n

Saoirse Ronan wasn\u2019t a box office draw, and the rest of the cast, while solid, didn\u2019t give audiences a reason to show up opening weekend. Add in a dark, grim visual tone that undercut its family appeal and a release window crowded with bigger, louder competition, and City of Ember simply got buried,one of those cases where a decent movie disappears because the studio never figured out how to sell it.<\/p>\n

Why The Critics Got It Wrong<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Critically, City of Ember landed in that frustrating middle ground; reviewers generally agreed it was well-made, but not compelling enough to matter. But those critics judged it for what it wasn\u2019t instead of recognizing what it actually was. <\/p>\n

Reviews knocked it for being \u201clow-stakes\u201d and too simple, but that restraint is the point; the film isn\u2019t trying to be a bombastic dystopian spectacle, it\u2019s a slow-burn mystery about decay, curiosity, and survival. What critics labeled as thin plotting is really deliberate minimalism, allowing the world itself to carry the tension. <\/p>\n

The production design wasn\u2019t just impressive; it was the movie, creating a lived-in, dying civilization that most bigger-budget films fail to achieve. And Saoirse Ronan anchors it with a grounded, human performance that fits the story\u2019s scale perfectly. City of Ember was sincere, patient, and visually rich, qualities critics mistook for weakness when they were actually the film\u2019s biggest strengths.<\/p>\n

Why You Can\u2019t Watch City Of Ember<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Unfortunately, with weak box office and middling reviews, making City of Ember available on streaming<\/a> hasn\u2019t been a priority for anyone. It\u2019s not available on any major streaming service.<\/p>\n

Currently, the only way to stream City of Ember is via Apple TV, where you have to pay an exorbitant on-demand fee. If you haven\u2019t seen it yet, pay up and watch before it\u2019s gone. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By Britta DeVore | Published 1 minute ago We\u2019re so incredibly used to having every piece of media…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":572803,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[52],"tags":[25088,252185,252186,88,252187,252188,252189,252190,15079,206,86211,12226,252191,7382,188095,22169],"class_list":{"0":"post-572802","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-movies","8":"tag-bill-murray","9":"tag-city-of-ember","10":"tag-dystopian-future","11":"tag-entertainment","12":"tag-ghostbusters-frozen-empire","13":"tag-harry-treadaway","14":"tag-jeanne-duprau","15":"tag-monster-house","16":"tag-movie-news","17":"tag-movies","18":"tag-saoirse-ronan","19":"tag-sci-fi","20":"tag-steampunk","21":"tag-streaming","22":"tag-tim-robbins","23":"tag-tom-hanks"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/572802","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=572802"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/572802\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/572803"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=572802"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=572802"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=572802"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}