According to The Hollywood Reporter, Bill Willingham’s long running, and much loved, Fables series is headed to the big screen, and it has Nikolaj Arcel attached to direct.
The adaptation is written by Jeremy Slater, who worked on a draft for the upcoming Fantastic Four reboot, but the trade magazine says nothing about Mr. Willingham’s involvement in the project. The creator went on Twitter yesterday to say that while he’s glad he has fewer secrets to keep, he also said he wouldn’t talk more about the project. Mr. Willingham is scheduled to appear at the Baltimore Comic Con in September, and since he is sitting on a special Fables panel, it wouldn’t surprise me if he talked more about the film project then.
Fables had been pitched to be a television series a few years ago for ABC, who decided it would be better if they created their own fairy tale series, Once Upon a Time. With the resurgence of fairy tale movies, it’s nice to see one of the best modern takes on classic characters get what it deserves.
4 Comments
Yay, Fables!
While on the one hand I love Fables, and would like to see it adapted. On the other hand I’m concerned some people would see it as a ripoff of Once Upon a Time & Grimm. I would be interested into how large of a scope they’d go for.
I was excited when I thought they were doing a TV show if Fables. I’m worried about a movie. The amazing, overarching storyline was so good and I can’t imagine it crammed into an hour and a half. I hope they don’t try to do the entire story.
Unfortunately, people are going to think it’s a rip-off of Once Upon a Time, just like people said the John Carter movie was derivative of movies like Star Wars.
I wonder if they’re adapting one of the existing stories or doing something wholly original. I’d recommend Animal Farm or March of the Wooden Soldiers; both would allow for a quick explanation of the situation the Fables find themselves in, and have a goodly amount of action.