After the billion-dollar gross of “Alice in Wonderland,” every studio in town has been trying to jump on classic (and crucially, out-of-copyright) characters and reinvent them for the 21st century. “Twilight” director Catherine Hardwicke is currently helming “Red Riding Hood” with Amanda Seyfried; Tim Burton and Angelina Jolie are circling “Maleficent,” the revisionist version of “Sleeping Beauty”; and Elizabeth Banks is set to play Peter Pan’s favorite fairy in the romantic comedy “Tink” for Disney, who also have a new version of “Cinderella” in the works from “The Devil Wears Prada” scribe Aline Brosh McKenna. And that’s not to mention Bryan Singer’s “Jack The Giant Killer,” “Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters,” “Legends” and “Fables,” all of which are in various stages of development; hell, even Catherine Breillat’s getting in on the action with “Bluebeard” and “Sleeping Beauty.”
But even with this in mind, surely it’s overkill for there to be three separate films focusing on Snow White on the way, two of which are even from studios that happen to have a close relationship. Universal picked up the rights to the spec script “Snow White and the Huntsman” a couple of weeks back for a cool $1.5 million and attached rising director Rupert Sanders, but that clashes with a project currently in development at Relativity Media (who co-finance two-thirds of Universal’s productions) entitled “The Brothers Grimm: Snow White.” The latter, fortunately not a sequel to the Terry Gilliam misfire, was bought by Relativity back in June from a spec by writer Melisa Wallack (“Bill”).
But Ryan Kavanaugh’s company aren’t being put off by a little competition, as Vulture reports that the company have offered the directing gig on their version to Tarsem Singh. Singh made his debut a decade ago with the gorgeous, but deeply unpleasant serial killer flick “The Cell,” before redeeming his reputation somewhat with “The Fall” (which is equally gorgeous, and equally empty). Singh is currently working on the Greek epic “Immortals” for Relativity, and we imagine they’re happy with what they’re seeing if they’re offering Singh the job.
We can’t imagine that both will end up going ahead, even if Singh signs on, and we suspect that it’ll come down to whichever one is ready to go first. Frankly, we wouldn’t be upset if neither happened — the third Snow White picture, “Snow and the Seven,” which relocates the tale to China and replaces the dwarves with Shaolin monks, is a more enticing prospect, particularly with Michael Chabon having worked on the script at one stage. Still, word’s been very quiet on that one, although Vulture suggests that it’s still ongoing — perhaps it’ll prove to be director Frances Lawrence’s next film once he finishes up “Water For Elephants?”
