10 Brothers Grimm Tales Which Disney Should Adapt

Plot: A princess goes to meet a prince in another kingdom, but her treacherous maidservant rebels against her and usurps her position. Forced to work as a geese herder, the princess tries to regain her powerful status.

Since Wicked, there has been a rise in fairytales which subvert expectations by making a usually villainous character into a leading protagonist. Disney made shedloads of money when they adapted this formula for Frozen and Maleficent, and The Goose Girl is really suited to the revisionist approach. With the popularity of films like Us and Parasite, interest in the class struggle is at an all-time high and adapting The Goose Girl would allow Disney to try their hand at this subgenre. Interestingly, Disney have tackled “princess vs. maids” plotlines recently. In Disney Channel’s bold and creative Tangled sequel Tangled: The Series, Rapunzel’s increasingly strained relationship with her handmaiden Cassandra was one of the main sources of conflict, and it would be fascinating to see Disney tackle a similar dynamic in one of their films.

The Goose Girl has some fantasy elements (such as a talking horse) but the emphasis should be placed on the relationship between the complacent princess and her frustrated servant, who can easily be adapted into an Elsa/Elphaba style misguided protagonist. The biggest change you need to make is altering the maidservant’s ludicrously gruesome comeuppance, but this can easily be cut or edited - this is a Disney film after all!