blogs.forbes.com: Superman? Boring. The Dark Knight? So 2008. No, the hottest person wearing a cape in Hollywood right now is Amanda Seyfried.
Turning to fairy tales for inspiration is nothing new in Hollywood. Disney has been doing it since 1937 when the studio made Snow White and the Seven Dwarves. That movie included some of the more disturbing aspects of the story like the huntsman who, under orders from the Evil Queen, takes Snow White into the woods with the intention of cutting her heart out. But it didn’t dwell on that. Most people remember the original Snow White for the jolly, funny dwarves and Snow White finding her prince.
“A fairy tale title will register immediately and have some sort of emotional impact,” says Jeff Rabinov, president of Warner Bros. Picture Group which produced Red Riding Hood.
But in today’s Hollywood, that stories are being mined for their darker potential and aimed at the lucrative teen audience who grew up with Harry Potter and graduated to Twilight. Studios are always looking for stories that will have a built-in audience. That’s why there are so many sequels, movies based on books, comic book movies and remakes out there. Fairy tales not only come with that built in recognition but they often hearken back to childhood which means viewers will already have warm feeling towards the story.
Snow White and the Huntsman, slated for a Christmas 2012 release, focuses on Snow White’s relationship with the man who ultimately sets her free in the forest instead of killing her. Snow White will be played by Twilight’s Kristen Stewart and Viggo Mortensen will play the Huntsman.
A competing Snow White project is scheduled for next summer. This one will star Julia Roberts as the Evil Queen and, according to the Internet Movie Database, will be about Snow White and the dwarves trying to “reclaim their destroyed kingdom.”
Already this year, audiences have been treated to Beastly, a modern retelling of the Beauty and the Beast story that quietly slipped into theaters last weekend earning $9.8 million. The movie features star-of-the-moment Alex Pettyfer as a vain, rich New York teen who turns ugly and High School Musical’s Vanessa Hudgens as the girl who finds the beauty within him.
For a complete list of upcoming fairy tale movies, click here.
No comments:
Post a Comment