Hollywood turns to musicals and fairy tales for remakes

By Sarah Sluis

Today, not a word of comic book or board game adaptations. Instead, Hollywood has turned to classic and female-friendly works for their latest adaptations.

First up, a feature film adaptation of South Pacific, which is being spearheaded by Amber Entertainment, a fairly new production company, and Imagem, the rightsholders to the Rodgers & Hammerstein musicals. The project comes on the heels of the success of the Broadway revival. Debuting in early 2008, the revival won seven Tony awards and has played to crowded houses. Clearly, something about the post-WWII musical is meshing well with the current zeitgeist. The stated idea is to make the movie harder-edged, but keep the singing and dancing intact. I think this musical has a good chance of attracting both older audiences that remember the musical or 1958 movie, as well as younger ones seeing it for the first time. Mamma Mia! was a huge success not only because of its ABBA roots but also because it drew in intergenerational audiences. As long as it's not too harder-edged, I think those audiences will see the movie as a welcome nostalgia trip.

Next, Joe Wright is in line to direct an adaptation of The Little Mermaid, which Working Title is developing.

The project has a family connection: the screenplay is based on a puppet production by The Little Angel Theatre Company, which Wright's father John founded. Wright has such a strong visual sensibility and is a master with the camera, so I'm sure his version of Mermaid will look beautiful. I can only hope they don't go with the Disney version of the tale, though the Hans Christian Andersen version is a little morose for modern tastes. In the original, for example, not only does the mermaid not get the guy, her real goal is to achieve an immortal soul, not true love. She refuses to kill the prince as a way to save herself after he marries someone else, and ends up turning into a Daughter of the Air, a creature that has the chance to achieve an immortal soul after three hundred years. These details are quite contrary to how people remember the tale now. However, little details from the original fairy tale, like how the mermaid's new feet hurt and bleed, might give the story a more grown-up sensibility. In the meantime, Wright fans only have to wait until April to see Hanna, the tale of a girl who discovers she is from a family of assassins.