Notes on the Fairy Tale Trend

Three years ago, I wrote up this post, Nine Fairy Tale Films I Want to See, speculating that fairy tales might become the next big trend in Hollywood. That turned out to be true. The "edgy" Brett Ratner "Snow White" project that inspired the post went through several wild convolutions, and ended up at Disney as "Mirror, Mirror." Oh, the irony. Three of the other fairy tales I wanted to see movies for also did make it to the screen: "Hansel and Gretel," "Jack and the Beanstalk," and "The Snow Queen," which became "Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters," "Jack the Giant Slayer," and the upcoming "Frozen," which is the "Snow Queen" project that Disney had previously cancelled. Plus "Beauty and the Beast" and "Arabian Nights" projects are knocking around in development.

And then we've also had "Snow White and the Huntsman," "Tangled," "Beastly," "Red Riding Hood," "Hoodwinked Too," "Puss in Boots," and a couple of disturbing art house takes on "Sleeping Beauty." If you're feeling generous, you can add movies with related themes like "Oz the Great and Powerful" and "Hanna" to the pile. Disney has "Maleficent," "Cinderella," and "Into the Woods" pretty far along in the production pipeline at the moment. Also, it would be remiss not to mention "One Upon a Time" and "Grimm" on television, or that Warner Brothers is taking another stab turning "Fables" into a movie. Though there have been underperformers and outright failures, others have been substantial hits. It doesn't seem like we'll be seeing the end of the fairy tale trend at the movies any time soon. The question is, have these films been any good? Have they brought more creative and more diverse offerings to theaters, the way many of us were hoping for?

Yes and no. What you notice very quickly about most of these fairy tale films, is that they're either traditional family pictures like Disney's "Mirror, Mirror" and "Tangled," or they've been forced to conform to the template of your typical action movie. Hansel and Gretel were aged up into adults, given medieval weaponry, and let loose on witches and trolls in a gory, R-rated horrorshow. Snow White, as played by Kristin Stewart, faced a parade of monsters in a dark and gritty fantasyland. She also had to share billing with Chris Hemsworth's hunky Huntsman, who handled most of the combat. Sure, there are more prominent female characters in these fairy-tale movies than your average blockbuster, particularly in the villain department, but at the same time you see a strong desire to stay male-friendly. This means more male characters, less emphasis on romance, and a starker (and more boring) visual aesthetic. Even Disney, with their brightly colored musical Rapunzel story, was careful to feature the male hero in all the ads and changed the title to "Tangled."

It's interesting that only the little-seen "Red Riding Hood" and "Beastly" can really be considered part of the recent crop of "Twilight" influenced supernatural romances aimed at teenagers. You'd think there would be much more crossover, considering how many fairy-tales have young heroines and love connections at their center. This year we've had a flood of "Twilight" clones involving witches and werewolves and mystical creatures, but they're all very contemporary stories about modern day girls. Meanwhile, the fairy tale action moves are mostly done in period settings, their fantasy creatures and concepts exploited for spectacle. Compare this year's "Warm Bodies" and "Jack the Giant Slayer," both starring Nicholas Hoult. "Warm Bodies" had plenty of CGI zombies, but the driving force of the movie was the interspecies romance between Zombie!Nicholas Hoult and a cute blonde. "Jack the Giant Slayer," by comparison, did have a love story in it, but it was perfunctory stuff. Far more time was spent frantically running around fighting giants and foiling a dastardly plot to take over a kingdom. And Hoult was more fleshed out as a zombie than as Jack.

I see no reason not to feel optimistic about the future films, though. "Snow White and the Huntsman" and "Hansel and Gretel" are both getting sequels, and we can expect more of Grimm's grimmest from them, but Disney's betting pretty heavily on the family-friendly approach. They have the bulk of the more visible and ambitious fairy-tale projects on the way. I doubt we'll see too many action scenes crammed into "Cinderella" or "Into the Woods" (not that they won't try), of course. Plus, there are others interesting projects in development that seem to be striking out in different, less obvious directions. If you've wondered where the revisionist and satirical takes on the fairy tale genre have been, producer Neal Moritz is working on a comedy version of "Sleeping Beauty." There's reportedly also feminist retelling in the works, with Hailee Steinfeld attached, that takes place entirely within her dream world.

In a couple of years, I suspect there are going to be a few more titles I can check off my list.
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