If it's not SF and the time travel changes nothing significant, then what's the difference between this movie and "The Truck-Driver's Wife" or "The Travelling Salesman's Wife"?
If you need to "run the other way" then perhaps you shouldn't be making this movie.

Oh yeah - and they're talking about your movie on Sci Fi Wire.

The Time Traveller's Wife is about time travel as much as Twilight is about biology.

Some of the best Sci-fi is actual not considered Sci-fi by their creator. For some reason they like to consider themselves beyond that genre. Look at Diana Gabaldon and her work on the Outlander series. Claire goes through the stones and ends up two hundred years in the past, and yet that is considered a historical work of fiction, but it is one of the best books ever wrote. I believe that for a work of fiction to be good it must have some sci-fi in it. So they can say what they want, and we the fans can say what we want and in the end who do you think will win out.

The decision to distance themselve up-front from the science fiction aspect may be wise.
The Christopher Reeve/Jane Seymour film 'Somewhere In Time' suffered at the box office because it was marketed as a SciFi Time Travel story, rather than a love story involving time travel. The film later became a cult hit on video and DVD, but failed miserably at the box office because of the way it was advertised.
And for the record - I love SWIT...

So Time Traveler's Wife isn't about time travel, Eli isn't post-apocalyptic, and Thirst isn't a vampire movie. Who are these guys trying to fool? Just because they say something isn't something doesn't make it so.

Clearly this is what Nero got up to during the years after he destroyed the Kelvin.

SPOILERS!!!!! I love scifi. When you read the book it DOESN'T feel scifi. It's a love story. Henry could just be a truck driver leaving town every week. The problem is he THINKS he knowns when and how his going to die, in the PAST, but he doesn't know how far in the future that is.

And god forbid you hide Sci Fi behind stupid spellings. . . .

It doesn't really matter to me what genre it's labeled as, as long as the people making the film understand the subject matter they are working with.

However this guy comes off sounding like a tool, and my excitement for TTTW has just diminished dramatically.

I recently finished the book and it's not sci-fi in the slightest. Yes, Henry time travels, but the story is more romance than anything else. Sadly, to get legions of women to go to the movie (and drag their boyfriends/ husbands with them), toning down the sci-fi aspect is probably a good thing. A lot of women (not me, obviously - or any other woman lurking around Scifi Wire or Pink Raygun) hear the term "time travel" and automatically perceive that it's not something for women.

PUH-LEEZE! This movie has BOMB written all over it.

Strike that.

This movie will bring in enough money to make its budget, do nothing more and will have been forgotten within 2 months of its release.

I read the book and can honestly say that, yes, this will play with scifi just as much as any other movie. However, time travel is simply a part of the story. It's furniture.

Very little emphasis is placed on it other than the time traveler is pulled without his choice. (Think Quantum Leap without the tech)

That said, I must warn all scifi guys out there. This is a chick flick! If you want to make your girl like scifi, trick her into watching this and you might get her to like true scifi afterwards, but this story is all about the relationship and the "wife" who grows up knowing who she will be with and eventually how it will all end.

It's a good story and worthwhile as a drama, but don't under any circumstances compare it to traditional scifi. Any scifi enthusiast will find the time travel aspect to be as riddled with holes as swiss cheese.

Just take your gal to the flick and keep a few tissues handy. (for her, of course)

God forbid you call a television channel Sci-Fi, or worse Science Fiction. SyFy is the old dignified name for the genre.

I hated this book. Visiting his future wife when she is 6? Seducing her as soon as turns 18? Not to mention the weird sex scene between his present and future( I think it was future, can't remeber, could have been past) self. Ick. Ick. Double ick. Sci Fi or not, it's bad.

Hey, I remember this was done good.

It was called Journeyman.

Ugh! Whenever I hear "it's not really sci-fi", I fear for my movie dollars because I suspect the creators aren't going to take the premise seriously enough to be interesting. Trust me, there's a reason it's the Time Traveler's Wife and NOT the Truck Driver's Wife.

To be fair to this movie though, I think it IS good sci-fi as well as a good romance. I think it's just nervous marketing from executives who think the "mainstream" audience (i.e. girls) won't "get it".

Anyone reading sci-fi seriously should know that the genre has expanded beyond it's hard science beginnings (not that I don't love a good hard sci-fi read).

And ... they should know that lots of girls both read and write this sci-fi and fantasy. How do you think "paranormal romance" became so popular?

When will executives learn to trust the books they purchased the rights to?

Since when is Science Fiction a bad thing??? Should I start hiding my books before they get burned, because they are Sci-Fi. Heck, I can't even watch Sci-Fi channel any more...as its now the Syphilis channel to attract specific women and kids who will probably never be Sci-Fi fans anyways. Its time to reclaim the landscape. Vote at syfyi.com. Perhaps these guys can do something to bring Sci-Fi back as something to be proud of.

Having read the book: Yes, it's a love story...about the way that one of them traveling through time affects their relationship. You can't take the time travel out and have the same story.

It's an epic love story. It's also science fiction. The two can coexist.

I don't mind that's he's adverse to pigeon holing is film as sci fi (although it sounds like he has a VERY narrow view of what sci fi is).

But he takes the most interesting concept of the film and says to forget about it. I was intrigued by this film, now the film maker has made it sound boring by trying to neuter the conflict.

RE: "The Time Traveler's Wife is not a sci-fi movie. Rather, it's an "epic love story".....

---- Hell, I can handle that a lot better than 'SyFy' presenting WRESTLING as entertainment.
Granted the wrestlers don`t look or act human, but I still don`t see wrestling as science fiction.
So to recap; we have a movie with Time Travel that isn`t sci-fi and a sci-fi channel that chooses NOT to show science fiction during prime air time.

Well I guess it now goes into the box next to Michael Crichton... Things I am NOT a fan of.

The author wrote the book as a literary piece that happens to have a time travel element: reference HG Wells' The Time Machine. She' a university professor of English and this was probably her dissertation which she has to professionally publish within a specific amount of time.

If the director doesn't want his film called Science Fiction, Then maybe he shouldn't make a Science Fiction film. I am so G** D**N! tired of this negative label being hung on science fiction. If mainstream people doen't want to watch an SF film F**K em!
IOt's their loss.

Science Fiction is simply another form of story telling and like all story telling if it's good is about human relationships in all their permutations. Science fiction simply has some unusuall elements that can effect those relationships.

Sometimes you can make a more honest analasis of humanity by looking at it through the SF genre.

Same thing with writers who write SF then claim that it's not SF and hate being called an SF writer (Harlen Ellison anyone?)

I say F**K them too!
If you don't want to be called an Science Fiction writer, Then don't write Science Fiction MORON!!

>> When will executives learn to trust the books they purchased the rights to? >>

In this case, they are, pretty much. The book wasn't published as science fiction either. It was published as mainstream fiction. It seems that the moviemakers are trying to do the same thing the publishers did with the book -- get around genre expectations by describing it in a way that makes the audience expect what they want the audience to expect, rather than the set of expectations that come with the label "science fiction."

Labels are about managing expectations, and this one is no different -- if someone goes to this all set for a cool time travel story, they're going to get fed up with the fact that it's all about a relationship and the time travel something they use to explore the relationship story without even caring about how it works or why. The novel's very good, but it was a story that would better attract an audience that would enjoy it if it was presented as mainstream fiction rather than as a science fiction piece. So they did, and it worked.

It's really fantasy, when you get right down to it -- there's no science to the time travel, and no real pretense at it; it's just an odd condition that the husband has for no reason other than that the author wants him to have it. But it's literary fantasy, closer to magic realism than to the sort of thing you find in category fantasy. So they want to get that across.

It worked for the book, helping it become a bestseller. It may work again for the movie. But they're not concerned with whether it fits the definition of science fiction/fantasy -- they're concerned with what it creates in terms of audience expectations.

So is it technically fantasy? Sure. Is that the best way to promote it? Probably not. So they're trying to promote it the way the book was promoted.