In case you haven’t noticed, Hollywood has fairy tale fever. “Red Riding Hood” hit theaters last month, and that’s just the start of a forthcoming onslaught that will include “Jack The Giant Killer,” “Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters,” “Snow White And The Huntsman,” Tarsem Singh‘s Snow White film and just last week a Sleeping Beauty movie was packaged with Hailee Steinfeld in the lead. As you may have forgotten, “Hanna” director Joe Wright was eyeing his own fairy tale-based movie but he may put it off for now.
Speaking to press at WonderCon where he was promoting his upcoming teenage assassin flick, the always candid Wright didn’t hold back about his personal attachment to the project — but he’s been put off by the deluge of similarly themed films. “I’d really love to do that cause it’s a very personal project for me,” Wright said. “My father was a puppeteer and he did a puppet show of ‘The Little Mermaid’ and it was always my favorite show. I used to sit and watch it thousands and thousands of times. Unfortunately since we put it into development there’s suddenly been this weird fucking onslaught of fairy tale adaptations that wasn’t happening even when we were doing ‘Hanna.’ I wish I’d done it a few years ago actually. I’m fairly sure that I will do it one day because I kind of need to do it. It’s in my head and I feel like I know the film. But I might not do it for a few years, I might wait until everyone’s done.”
So it goes in Hollywood, where your project may have entered development as something a bit fresh only to be quickly surrounded by competitors. We’ll have to see if Wright can get to it but it certainly sounds promising. Set up at Working Title, who also shepherded “Pride and Prejudice” and “Atonement,” the original story is based off the Hans Christian Andersen fairytale and has a script by Abi Morgan (“Brick Lane“), and is partly inspired by the aforementioned stage production by the Little Angel Theatre Company, which was founded by Wright’s father.
As for what’s next on Wright’s plate, he’s getting ready to mount “Anna Karenina” this fall which so far has Keira Knightley attached in the lead role, with Jude Law as her husband Karenin and Aaron Johnson as her lover Vronsky. But for now, you can check out “Hanna” when it hits theaters this Friday.