Image Credit: Disney
It’s a tale as old as time: A revisionist fairy tale blows up at the box office (this time, it’s Oz the Great and Powerful, which made over $80 million this past weekend), and suddenly all the studios want in on creating the next big live-action “fairy tale.” (In this case, “fairy tale” means any popular children’s story).
Disney is looking to develop Beauty and the Beast into a live-action film, possibly to be written by Joe Ahearne (Trance), according to a Deadline report. The studio’s 1991 animated movie is a beloved classic, and was the first animated movie nominated for a Best Picture Oscar. There was also a successful Broadway musical version that ran for years. A modern-day high school take, Beastly, recently happened as well, but the less said about that the better.
This isn’t the only belle trying to get to the box-office ball. There have been rumors for quite some time that Guillermo Del Toro is working on a revisionist take with Emma Watson to star as Belle. (She is also rumored to be in the running to play Cinderella, opposite Cate Blanchett’s wicked stepmother in a live-action update of that classic fairy tale). This is in addition to a ton of other fairy tales currently in development or production, including Angelina Jolie’s Sleeping Beauty update Maleficent, which is slated for a July 2014 release.
Besides Belle, Cinderella and Aurora, check out some of our other hopes for fairy tales looking for an updated live-action spin. To be honest, there simply aren’t that many classic tales left. READ FULL STORY »
