The fairy tale craze is in high gear in Hollywood, with movies (Snow White And The Huntsman, Mirror, Mirror) and TV shows (Once Upon A Time and Grimm).
I adore Once Upon A Time and have no objection to these famous tales being reworked, even satirized. In fact, my last completed project (which was rejected by a publisher today, Ireallydon’twanttotalkaboutitnow) is a sequel to a fairy tale, and my take on the original tale is pretty irreverent.
But, oh my, oh my. This trailer for Hansel And Gretel: Witch Hunters looks awful.
As I said in my blog post about upcoming movies I’m excited to see, trailers can be deceptive. They can make a bad movie look better than it actually is, and there are cases when a poorly made trailer sinks a good movie. At least, that’s what fans of John Carter claim–I haven’t seen it yet, so can’t say one way or the other.
I like Jeremy Renner a lot and up to now he’s made some savvy decisions about picking mainstream movie roles. Maybe this looked better on paper.
It seems to me this is an attempt to make a fairy tale movie that appeals to a male audience, but I can’t help thinking about what happened when they tried to meld history with vampires (Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter). The movie flopped. Sometimes this kind of genre-bending just doesn’t work.
It can take just one really bad movie or TV show to sink a whole genre, at least for a significant period of time. Hopefully, this isn’t as bad as it seems.
MOON IN GEMINI 
They already delayed it from its original release date, never a good sign, although the excuse was to give Jeremy Renner more time to become a star after Mission Impossible, Avengers, and Bourne. We shall see.
Since it’s almost impossible to predict when someone will turn into a movie star, I doubt that’s the real reason. But you never know, this could still become a hit.
I doubt one movie will cure us of loving fairy tales. We’ve been retelling the same stories for generations – and we still love them. If this film is bad it will just be … forgotten, but Hansel and Gretel will probably keep being told for a few generations yet.
Oh, I agree. I meant the current craze of making movies or TV shows based on fairy tales.
I didn’t watch the trailer yet, but I thought The Brothers Grimm was good and wouldn’t it fall under that category?