EXCLUSIVE: The billion dollar worldwide gross of Alice in Wonderland has turned public domain fairy tales into the hottest segment of an otherwise sluggish script marketplace. In the latest deal, Relativity Media has made a preemptive acquisition of The Brothers Grimm: Snow White, an edgy 3D re-imagining of the German folk tale written by Melisa Wallack. Wallack’s script work includes The Dallas Buyer’s Club, and she wrote and directed the 2007 Aaron Eckhart-starrer Bill.
The deal has aggressive progress to production stipulations in the preemptive deal and I’m told the writer will make low seven-figures if the project gets made. ICM repped the writer. The Brothers Grimm: Snow White will be produced by Bernie Goldmann (who produced Meet Bill), Ryan Kavanaugh and Brett Ratner, with Tucker Tooley exec producing and Rat Entertainment exec John Cheng also involved in a producing capacity. Ratner previously got Kavanaugh to acquire the Sundance Film Festival documentary Catfish, and most recently Skyline, the scifi alien invasion thriller directed by Greg and Colin Strause which sold at Cannes.
Deal follows an upfront seven-figure Disney pitch deal for Devil Wears Prada scribe Aline Brosh McKenna to script a re-imagining of Cinderella. Disney also is moving quickly on The Great and Powerful Oz, with Adam Shankman and Timur Bekmambetov circling. Sam Mendes just dropped out of consideration, but there is rumor that Guillermo del Toro might meet on the project now that he’s free of The Hobbit. Warner Bros and New Line each have version of Oz that are based on the public domain books by L. Frank Baum.
All of the incarnations of Snow White are based on the German folk tale, but this one hews closely to the distillation by the Grimm Brothers.
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“This is not your grandfather’s Snow White,” Ratner said. “Melisa went back to the 500 year old folk tale and put in some of the things that were missing from Walt Disney’s film. His dwarves were miners, and here they are robbers. There is also a dragon that was in the original folk tale. Walt made one of the great movies of all time, but ours is edgy and there is more comedy. The original, made for its time, was soft compared to what we’re going to do.”
Said Kavanaugh: “This is a project we’ve aggressively pursued and believe in. We love Melisa Wallack’s script and her fresh take on the classic story we all grew up on. This film will bring together fans of the original fair tale and draw new audiences who enjoy adventure films.”
Brett Ratner is involved so you know it will be good. Plus, the public is going to be clamoring for the 700th re-imagining of classic characters. I think the good in all this is that a few years from now, when these movies are bombing, there will be a huge market for new characters, new worlds, and new creations.
As an aside, I once overheard Ratner say to a waify teenage model type (in the stairway at the Chateau): “Even if I get nominated I won’t attend.”
Lots of people choose not to attend the Razzies.
Instead of bashing ratner, bay, raimi, del toro, etc. Mr. Comedy WRiter, why don’t you spend your time perfecting your writing or getting your stuff made? Does calling somebody else’s work bad or spreading rumors about them help you deal with the fact your not where you are in life?
Positive, Comedy Writer is on the money. This is symptomatic of a big problem in Hollywood – nobody wants to take risks anymore. Original material is not in demand. Studios want movies based on well-known stories, products, video games, board games – anything that already has a built-in following. So Comedy Writer could spend all the time he wants perfecting his writing or trying to get his stuff made, but he’ll end up very hungry and poor. Or he could spend his time writing the adaptation of Boggle, the Movie, and then come on these boards and bitch about how Hollywood is sucking the life from his body.
The last time they tried an “edgy re-imagining,” it ended up sitting on the shelves and going direct-to-video/TV, and it starred Sigourney Weaver, no less!
I thought I was the only one who remembered that.
Dear “comedy writer” maybe in a few years when people are sick of the movies you are talking about, one of your movies will finally get made? then you can quit blaming other people for your failures? face it, brett ratner and other producers who make commercial stuff are successful and you are not.
yeah and macdonalds make a fortune selling crap too. we don’t all have to eat it, suckup. ‘successful’ is not the only thing to aspire to in life. BP is successful. haliburton is successful. creativity has worth too. why worship so slavishly at the altar of the dollar?
Fox should just re-release Ever After.
that’s cinderella, newb.
It’s true, realistic. None of my movies have gotten made. I’ve made a fair amount of money selling three of them (and have written TV shows that have been produced), but I am not Brett Ratner and probably never will be.
However, if my features do get produced, I expect you and everyone else on message boards everywhere to hold me up to a reasonable standard of excellence. If my movies suck, I should be called out on it. If I start selling new versions of pinocchio, i absolutely should be called out on it.
Cheers…
So you want us to call you on it when your script for a remake of Sleeping Beauty as a musical starring Lady GaGa gets made.
;)
And what exactly is it YOU do besides post inexperienced nonsense with cute little ;-)’s at the end of it while trying to poach us Finke Followers?
Better yet, call it “Poaching Nikki” as a piece of blogging art starring Furious D.
Maybe Kavanaugh can work McGruber into the script.
This could be good. What about Emma Roberts for Snow? Or Leighton Meister?
I know I’m being a nitpick, but “Alice in Wonderland” is not a fairy tale. It is 19th-century English literature.
Sure it is, just like Jungle Book, Sword in the Stone, Robin Hood….pretty much anything that Disney animated is a Fairy Tale ;)
PS What’s literature? Is that on Xbox or PS3?
How does Relativity still have money? Just blows me away.
Messing about with fairytales is just too risky especially if they delve for something darker or alter the facts that we have learnt over time, such as changing the dwarves from miners into robbers. Not for me …
I really likes to watch the Fairy Tales movies as they are mostly comedy movies which I loves to watch them.
The only way to really reimagine these fairy tale-type stories is as horror films. That’s what many of them essentially are, just in a subtle way.
What about SNOW AND THE SEVEN? Maybe this will light a fire under Disney
Actually, if it’s based on the Grimm Brothers’s tale, it actually IS my grandfather’s snow white…
Jesus Christ, don’t any of you know Hollywood history? For example (and their are many), three “Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde” features alone were made between 1920 and 1931 and between 1898 and 1933, at least twelve feature versions of “Cinderella” were shot in the US and Europe! If a feature version of any public-domain book gets made it’s a good thing for two reasons: 1) a lot of talented, working people got paid to make it, and 2) pray that it’s successful because that will prompt the movie ticket paying public to see more movies. Bring it on!
As a screenwriter myself, I can sympathize with ComedyWriter. It is frustrating when you know you have something good, and it gets no attention, while at the same time “product placement movies” and “re-imagined stories” are getting 100million+ budgets.
Ya can’t take it personally. If what you have truly is good, then keep going for “the meeting”. Observe that in the end, Hollywood makes all kinds of movies. A good story is a good story.
Er…. I don’t remember seeing a Dragon in any versions of the folktales I’ve come across, although it it true that in some versions of the original tale, the Dwarves are robbers.
I’ll see it if they keep in the section where they make the witch dance to her death in iron shoes that have been heated until burning hot.
It’s a shame that people post such negative thoughts. Ratner, Kavanaugh, and Tooley are a dynamic team of producers that are successful because they are passionate about their work. They are busy, so busy that they don’t sit around and have the time to pass judgement in public domain. Those who are judging – what expertisE or rIght do you have? Really should look at yourselves first before wishing ill on others. Grow up or just dispose yourself.