Thanks to the billion-dollar grossing 3D “Alice In Wonderland,” get ready for a glut of films based on public domain works – a godsend for studios because unlike films based on contemporary copyrighted source material, they pretty much don’t have to pay a red cent for these older, license-free works.
Deadline reports that Brett Ratner, Ryan Kavanaugh, Bernie Goldmann, Tucker Tooley and John Cheng are to set produce an edgy “3D re-imagining” of the classic tale “Snow White.” The project, titled “The Brothers Grimm: Snow White” (which pretty much sets this thing up as a franchise), was written by Melisa Wallack who most notably has done work on the AIDS drama “The Dallas Buyer’s Club,” that, while still in development, has at various points attracted the likes of Brad Pitt and Ryan Gosling.
“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.” So you hear that Walt Disney, you soft old bastard? Brett Ratner knows better than you. So robbers, dragons and more comedy? And in 3D? We’re dreading this already.
Other rebooted franchises on the way include a Disney reboot of “Cinderella“ written by Aline Brosh McKenna (“The Devil Wears Prada”); “Oz The Great And Powerful” with Robert Downey Jr. attached and a number of directors circling; two “Three Musketeers” projects (one from Paul W.S. Anderson and another from Doug Liman); and two more “Wizard Of Oz” films, one set up at New Line and the other at their parent company Warner Bros.
We reckon studios will keep going back to this well if people keep buying tickets, so expect tentpoles to be blander than usual for the next few years.
