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Not ANOTHER Fairy Tale Ending - OnMedea

Not ANOTHER Fairy Tale Ending

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alice_in_wonderland.jpgOnce upon a time, Hollywood was creatively bankrupt... again.  The year was 2011 and poor little Hollywood didn't know what kind of movies to make. 

The heads of the major studios (including Manka Bros. - the owner of OnMedea) knew that a film adaptation of the fairy tale "Alice In Wonderland" made over $1 billion at the box office in 2010 and said "That's a lot of money." 

So after much thought (or not), Hollywood decided to make EVERY FREAKING FAIRY TALE EVER WRITTEN INTO A MAJOR MOTION PICTURE!

Come on, really? 

Every day, I read about another studio doing another fairy tale adaption.  And all of them are a DARK, GRITTY version that the "19th century authors originally had in mind". 

Not a fluffy Hollywood squeaky clean version that doesn't scare our whimpy modern day kids - but a frightening and bloody tale like children used to experience when kids were tough and enjoyed waking up screaming from a horrifying nightmare because of the bedtime story they were read.


red_riding_hood.jpgTo be fair, I think it was a great idea to reimagine Red Riding Hood with a darker tone  - which is certainly fitting of the story.  And while the trailer looks like a cross between a perfume ad and Twilight, I still believe it's a solid original concept and should result in strong box office.  (I'll certainly be there opening weekend.) 

But then came a fairy tale adaptation tsunami (which includes 3 SNOW WHITES!) that has now completely flooded the town. 

Here's a sampling of what's coming up:

  • Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters (Paramount) - Starring Jeremy Renner, Gemma Arterton (and, no doubt, various star cameos), H&G are now accomplished bounty hunters out to get the witches who nearly killed them years before.
  • Pinnochio 3D - a stop motion reimagining of the classic fairy tale.  Expect a very dark and disturbing retake on this one as it comes from the genius mind of Guillermo Del Toro.  I can already imagine losing sleep after I witness the stop motion, painful transformation of the children into donkeys sequence.
  • Hey Diddle Diddle (Manka Bros.) - a grim reimagining of the classic bedtime ditty set during the 1930s in a Soviet Union gulag.  Why does the cow jump over the moon?  Freedom.
  • Grimm (NBC) - Gritty TV cop drama set in a world where the characters of Grimm's Fairy Tales actually exist.
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pat_the_bunny.jpgAnd that's just in the next couple of years.  Just think if these projects make money what we'll see next:

  • Rumpelstiltskin - featuring the beloved garden Gnomes from Gnomeo & Juliet in their first R-rated turn.
Etc. etc. etc.

And the sad reality is, I won't be able to take my five year old daughter to one of them because, if I did, she would wake up screaming in the middle of the night after witnessing Snow White disembowel one of the dwarfs (or something). 

But I guess these movies aren't made for her.  They're Fairy Tales - they're not made for children for Christ's sake.  They're made for the guys who go to Comic-Con.  And THEY lived happily ever after.

jill_kennedy_small.jpgJill Kennedy - OnMedea












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4 Comments

Molly Glover said:

I want to see the Little Match Girl as a hard bitten cynical defense attorney working in Chicago.

3 little pigs said:

No love for the pigs? Come on bitches.

Hollywood Producer said:

It's possible the next wave will be smaller movies to see if there's any meat to the current wave of successful smaller "indie type" movies. I wouldn't be surprised if 2012 sees a lot lower production values and lot more grit.

santos loquasto said:

See, the problem is, most of these movies will do very well because once a studio decides on a genre they make sure it will work and force it down our throats with marketing. Five years ago I had a story for a new Snow White and I was told fairy tales, even with dark twists, were not what anyone wanted to see. Now it's, have you written any twists on a fairy tale. Yeah, Snow White. Oh, there are 3 of those in development. What else?

About Jill Kennedy

Jill Kennedy - Blogger - OnMedea Jill Kennedy is an Ivy League MBA / refugee from Lehman Brothers.

Manka Bros. (and the Manka Business Channel) hired her (for a very low sum) to cover the world of media (not the world of Medea) in her own words without corporate interference.

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About Medea

Medea Medea was a real bitch from classical mythology - as most famously dramatized by Euripides.

She was a sorceress and wife of Jason, whom she assisted in obtaining the Golden Fleece. When Jason deserted her, she chopped up their children. One could say, Medea acted as rationally as a major media company.

 

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