I didn't happen to like Tim Burton's
Alice in Wonderland but there's a fair few of you who did. After all, you don't get to $1 billion box office receipts without making a few friends along the way but I'd like to hope that better things are on the way from the countless sheep-mentality rip-offs that are being greenlit now to capitialise on Disney's mega success story of this year.
Right now... Universal are gearing up to cast
Snow White and The Huntsmen - their live-action revisionist adventure film based on the classic fairytale which
Charlize Theron is now officially in talks to play the heartless Evil Queen and
Michael Fassbender (and not
his Brit rival Tom Hardy... seriously, those guys must spot each other day at casting offices) being chased for the Huntsmen role. That one is being worked on by commercials director
Rupert Sanders for filming to begin early 2011 for a release Christmas 2012, which probably means Theron will have to choose between a high-profile, high-camp Evil Queen in a Snow White movie OR a supporting gig in
a Clint Eastwood political biopic. I know which I'd rather see her in but I also know which one is likely to be more appealing. The project... ...takes a revisionist buddy movie spin on the tale, seeing the titular huntsman being hired by the evil queen to track down her runaway stepdaughter, the fairest in all the land. When he realizes that the queen intends to kill Snow White, he helps her escape, and the pair go on the run. At the very same time, Relativity Media are courting
Julia Roberts for the very same villainous role in a rival studio project, the much darker sounding
The Brothers Grimm: Snow White from the visually spectacular helmer
Tarsem Singh and producer
Brett Ratner. That one might actually be interesting. It supposedly begins with Snow White's step-mother killing her father and it pulls no punches in it's R-Rated, 'edgy' horror. Though with Julia Roberts being courted and the title now rumoured to just be Snow White (again... taking the Alice in Wonderland route), things have probably changed since then. I'd like to think that both productions won't just be Alice in Wonderland's with different characters but I'd also like to think that sweet old lady who offers me an apple isn't trying to poison me.