10 Bandwagons Hollywood Couldn't Resist Jumping On

7. Live-Action Fairy Tales

Ever since Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland unexpectedly earned over a billion dollars at the box office back in early 2010, it seems as if every well-known fairy tale is being given the live-action treatment, with the ominous phrases of 'gritty' and 'grounded' often being used in conjunction with these projects. The enduring popularity of the original stories has seen a great deal of these movies do big business at the box office, something that ensures the trend isn't over by any means. Following Alice in Wonderland's massive commercial success, a huge slate of similar projects were not-so-coincidentally announced, and now land at the multiplex with increasing regularity. For the most part, these movies also tend to be incredibly expensive; in the last two years alone we've seen Snow White and the Huntsman ($170m), Jack the Giant Slayer ($185m), Oz the Great and Powerful ($215m) and Maleficent ($180m) all released to varying degrees of critical and commercial success. The lower-budgeted likes of Mirror Mirror, Red Riding Hood and Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters have also capitalized on Hollywood's latest trend, yielding similarly mixed results. The slate of live-action fairy tale adaptations continues at pace; Kenneth Branagh's Cinderella is set to hit theaters next March, swiftly followed by Joe Wright's origin story Pan in July. Beyond that, Alice in Wonderland sequel Through the Looking Glass is currently in the midst of production, Bill Condon is attached to Beauty and the Beast and Sofia Coppola recently in negotiations for The Little Mermaid, all hoping to cash in on the popularity of what is a relatively recent cinematic trend.