Wicked stepmothers. Enchanted forests. Damsels in distress. Poison apples. But add into that, murder and modern convenience.
If you’re looking for something new and interesting to watch on TV or at the movies, why don’t you look at some of the new fairy tale remakes and spin-offs? There are plenty of movies based off of fairy tales already out there, and there’s a whole new line-up of movies that are being made. In addition to these, there are also two new shows on NBC and ABC that explore the stories behind popular fairy tales. These remakes are colorful, tend to be live-action, and inventive, adding new twists to well-known stories. But if they’ve already been done, why are people so interested in them?
You could say it all started with the brothers Grim. Between the years of 1812 and 1858, these German authors published seventeen editions of books full of “children’s stories”, including classics like Rapunzel, Hansel and Gretel, Cinderella, Little Red Riding Hood, Sleeping Beauty, Snow White, Rumpelstiltskin, The Princess and the Pea, and Puss in Boots. In 1938, Walt Disney began the trend of making fairy tales into movies with his release of a cartoon movie, Snow White and the Seven Dwarves. Over the years, Disney went on to produce many more films after this fashion, including Cinderella in 1950, and Sleeping Beauty in 1959. Now it seems Hollywood is once again taking an interest in these age-old stories.
There are lots of reasons to explain this new trend in interest, but here are some of the main ones. Many people may not know this, but movie studios find it “safe” to produce these kinds of movies. The familiar fairytale will have an audience already waiting to watch it, and the familiar name will capture the attention of people who would otherwise look for something else. Another reason is that the adults of this generation seem to enjoy seeing the stories they read as children on the silver screen with a “grown-up” feeling to them. They read the stories when they were younger a thousand times each, and now they like to see live-action, updated versions of them.
One final reason is that Hollywood has found a new type of audience to cater to, one that will keep coming back for more: young, educated women, interested in revisiting their childhood. Because this audience had proven that they are willing to pay to see a movie with a strong heroine, an intelligent plot, and of course, plenty of romance, studios want to satisfy this demand. Fortunately, fairy tale movies fit the bill perfectly.
If you’re interested in this kind of genre, there are plenty of new movies coming out, and two TV shows that have aired recently as well. In the show Once Upon a Time, an evil queen has transported all sorts of fairy tale characters into present day New England, where they are trapped in time as she rules over them as mayor. Its gorier counterpart, the TV show Grimm, is about a policeman who discovers he is a descendant of an elite group of fairy tale monster-hunters called Grimms.
There are plenty of fairy tale movies that have already come out and are worth watching, such as Enchanted, The Princess Bride, and Everafter, which is a realistic take on the classic Cinderella story. Some more recent movies are Red Riding Hood, Beastly, a modern look at Beauty and the Beast, and Tangled, which is about Rapunzel. And finally, some movies that are slated to come out soon are Snow White and the Hunstman, The Brothers Grim: Snow White, Jack the Giant Killer, which deals with the fable of Jack and the Beanstalk, and Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters. All of these are good movies by themselves, and all are good samplings of this new genre. Who knows? Maybe you’ll take a liking to the fairy tale movies. After all, we’re all going to be seeing plenty more of these kind of movies soon.