Hollywood is churning out classic fairy tales with a twist
The always excellent Steve Zeitchik has a good article in the LAT yesterday about Hollywood’s current fascination with developing and producing fairy tale movies. The entire piece is well worth reading, but let me excerpt a few key comments. First here is what film producer and former studio head Joe Roth says:
“What we have are stories that people have a general knowledge of but don’t know the specifics,” said veteran Hollywood producer Joe Roth, whose Oz movie, “The Great and Powerful,” has James Franco playing a wizard and Mila Kunis a witch. “We believe we can retool and reboot, work out a new story while using technology to our advantage.”
Then this:
The trend, say Hollywood insiders, comes in part from the need to appeal to younger filmgoers (or at least a sense of our younger selves) as well as the industry’s coveted grail of “pre-awareness” — the notion that a movie is better served if audiences are already familiar with the title. And what could be more familiar than centuries-old childhood stories?
And finally this:
Unlike Hollywood’s fascination with disposable pop-culture names — say, “Transformers,” or the upcoming “Footloose” — fairy-tale movies toy with the sacred. In paying tribute to (and deriving marketing benefits from) these classic texts, Hollywood executives are, in a sense, hoping to have their gingerbread and eat it too. They want reinvention, but they also know they need tradition.
Can you say “similar but different”? Similar as in pre-existing fairy tales. Different as in using new “technology” [read: 3-D, digital filmmaking, CGI].
There’s also this trend toward ‘re-casting’ stories — a spin on the premise such as Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters or a switch in narrative point-of-view such as Snow White and the Huntsman.
I know I bloviate frequently about how the ‘similar but different’ mindset reigns in Hollywood — as in here, here, and here to note just a few posts — but it really is true and any writer who aspires to work in the business really needs to be mindful of it.
The studios say they want original stories and writers with fresh voices. True, but within the broader confines of a storytelling universe that feels comfortable to them. In other words, ‘similar but different.’
For more of Zeitchik’s article, go here.