Fairy Tales Made Into Movies
It’s more than “Once upon a time” for these fairy tales. The just-released dark, yet stylish “Red Riding Hood“ is kicking off a slew of Hollywood versions of classic children’s tales.
With fertile ground for reimagining – from the gruesome to the family-friendly – fairy tales have built-in audience recognition. These upcoming and classic films are evidence that Hollywood is still, perhaps forever, in love with fairy tales.
As a movie star, Red hasn’t had quite the career of Cinderella, say, or Snow White or Sleeping Beauty. In this version, Amanda Seyfried (who will, yes, be inspiring audiences to say “What big eyes you have!”) calls up a darker image as Valerie, whose attraction to a woodcutter turns deadly.
“Tangled” starring a pop-star turned actress and a TV spy , is one of the few fairy tales (other than this new one) that Disney hadn’t covered. It got the animated treatment last year.
A British hunk du jour and a Disney starlet give a New York hipster update on a classic in this just-released movie.
A major Hollywood studio is in preparation for a 3-D version of an adult look at what happens 15 years after a clever brother and sister outwitted a cannibalistic witch. Find out when it will be released.
Barring an attack by disgruntled dwarves, there are three new versions of the tale of the magic mirror and the evil queen in the works.
The tale is told largely from the view of the Hunstman in “Snow White and the Huntsman”.
“The Grimm Brothers: Snow White” takes a darkly comedic look at the classic story.
“Snow and the Seven” takes a totally different turn and features martial arts.
“Jack the Giant Killer” is a remake of a violent British folk tale about the struggles between men and giants.
In this dark thriller, Hanna is raised as an assassin in the wilds of Finland until she sets out across Europe in a cat-and-mouse game of violence. It stars an Oscar-nominated young Irish actress and an Australian hunk.
In this 1998 fairy tale variant, Drew Barrymore plays an orphaned servant girl who falls in love with a prince.
There are several versions of this Hans Christian Andersen classic, but the 2002 TV miniseries version starring an actress from a famous family as the icy-hearted main character is a memorable one.
Starring a sexy Oscar host, this fairy tale retelling (which is also based on a children’s book) follows Ella on her quest to lift a life-long curse.
These family-fun animated films are actually based on a modern fairy tale picture book about a young ogre who finds the ogre of his dreams after he leaves home to explore the world.
Hans Christian Andersen wrote this classic fairy tale about a mermaid who sells her identity for the love of a human prince. The book as Andersen wrote it is decidedly more sinister than the family-friendly 1989 animated movie, which is full of laughs and very catchy tunes.
Source: Specials
