Once upon a time, movie producers took time to craft new tales, bending the rules of cinema.
But recently (though one could argue it’s a trend that has gone on for a while), Hollywood has seemed to come to the consensus that recreating old tales is more interesting. The theme this summer — and apparently continuing on throughout the next year — is fairy tales.
One of this summer’s most-hyped films was “Snow White and the Huntsman.” Starring Kristen Stewart and Thor from “The Avengers,” “Snow White and the Huntsman” featured a Snow White that was a little bit more warrior than  housemaid
for dwarves.
Upcoming films include “Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters,” featuring Jeremy Renner as a grown-up Hansel who shoots witches and demons and “Pan,” a retelling of Peter Pan revamped with cops rather than pirates.
On ABC, there’s “Once Upon a Time,” a show that features time-traveling fairy tale characters of sorts, trapped in the
modern world.
But even the revamped themes seem a bit lazy. “Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters” sounds like it’s borrowed the plot of 2005’s “The Brothers Grimm,” and as for “Pan,” cops searching for mysterious kidnappers while keeping up with a fairy tale theme sounds a lot like NBC’s show “Grimm.”
So why the sudden interest in turning stories meant for children into teenage romantic dramas and knockoffs of CSI: Medieval?
I think it stems from the same reason that “Hey Arnold” and “Angry Beavers” are on Netflix, and “Lion King” was
re-released in theaters complete with 3D: people want to relive their childhoods.
But still, as much as playing on nostalgia to make money from movie-goers works, sometimes it doesn’t go so well.
Right around the same time as “Snow White and the Huntsman” came out, another, less dramatic version of the Snow White tale came to theatres, sans K-Stew, starring Julia Roberts as the evil queen. While K-Stew’s “Snow White” did well for itself, “Mirror, Mirror” breezed through theaters barely noticed, ending up at the budget theater after a few short weeks.
The campy, more kid-friendly version wasn’t what people wanted to see, though it was arguably more cartoonish and more like their childhood favorites.
It seems that what viewers want to see is their fairy tale princesses all grown up, just like they are. They want Snow White to fight her own battles alongside the dwarves, not wash their socks for them while they’re at work.
Arguably, the re-written fairy tales trend started with Disney’s “Alice in Wonderland,” which featured a grown-up Alice revisiting the place of her childhood.
Sound a little familiar?