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If we got angry about this kind of thing we'd be angry all the time

A New Sleeping Beauty Adaptation Will Feature a Stalker Take on the Classic Tale

by Alanna Bennett | 4:20 pm, July 16th, 2012


This year it was the pale complexion and red lips of Snow White, but next year’s It-Girl princess will undoubtedly be Sleeping Beauty. We’ve already seen glimpses of Angelina Jolie as the titular role in Maleficent; now there’s talk around Hollywood that producer Neal Moritz (21 Jump Street) is taking on a comedic take on the classic fairytale. So what makes it so hilarious? Well, this version paints our fair slumbering beauty as a crazed stalker. *Sigh*

When I first read that there would be a stalker-ized portrayal of the story, I wasn’t all that skeptical; it seemed to fit quite nicely, actually. That was, until I found out who the stalker was.

See, I’d assumed it was the guy who puckered up for a sleeping stranger who would be the one to turn out to be a bit untowardly attached. You know, the prince. Not the girl who just happened to be taking an extended nap where his lips landed.

That appears not to be the case. This new take on Sleeping Beauty will, according the The Hollywood Reporter, be “a modern-day retelling that finds the male protagonist accidently awakening Sleeping Beauty and finding that he can’t get rid of the lovestruck heroine.”

It is set to be written by Andrew Waller and Mike Gagerman, who don’t have much listed on their IMDb pages, although both as credited for American Pie Presents Beta House. It is also being produced by video game writers Corey May and Dooma Wenschuh.

Who knows, it could be hilarious. But if any of you can still remember back to the 2010 Razzies you’ll recall how one of the last mainstream woman-as-stalker comedies went. The operative word being “badly.”

It may be a bit too soon to completely write this movie off–as we still have only a very small piece of the picture. Writing good female characters definitely doesn’t mean writing them all as Beacons of Strong Female Feminist Warriors–it means writing them as complicated, flawed, fleshed-out characters in their own right. If this movie somehow pulls that off, then congratulations to them, for they will have done something, unfortunately, fairly rare. As it is, however, what they propose sounds awfully like what we’ve seen in romantic comedies over and over again–women painted as high-strung, over-emotional creatures who latch onto any romantic interest as if it’s life or death. So far we are far from impressed.

Prove us wrong, Hollywood. Please?

(via The Hollywood Reporter)

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  • http://twitter.com/elwang Pete Pfau

    They don’t fare well in general. Didn’t My Super Ex Girlfriend bomb too?

  • Anonymous

    Why would it have been any better if the stalker was a man instead? You are missing the biggest point, that the movie sounds bad either way.

  • Anonymous

    Don’t you need to kiss SB to wake her up? How do you accidently kiss a sleeping girl?

    I think it sounds like it is much too soon to write it off. I mean, think about this…a girl is desperate to love and be loved and has been told a kiss of true love will rescue her. Then this dude kisses her and doesn’t like her like he thought he would etc. How many time have we all loved someone, only to realize it was a dud? 

  • Terence Ng

    I could see how this would be interesting (albeit cliche) if they went the Midsummer Night’s Dream four-lovers-in-the-woods way. But that’s putting a lot of faith into the trope machine.

  • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100000500177841 Rachel Banzhaf

    Trip, land in a liplock. Anime does it all the time! (and it’s pretty much always horrible)

    I could see this working if Sleeping Beauty acts like Giselle from Enchanted. But her prince isn’t bound up in fairy tale rules so he finds it creepy and wants nothing to do with her. 

  • Anonymous

    Because getting stalked is sooooo funny! Lolololol, NOT. I wish people would make more original stories. I love a good modern retelling of a classic, but I’m in total fairy tale fatigue right now with Hollywood.

  • http://twitter.com/tcavagne Tessa Cavagnero

    It sounds like it could almost be like Fiona’s initial reaction to Shrek reluctantly rescuing her. Except she was intelligent and had real feelings. This honestly just sounds stupid.

  • Alex T

    This actually sounds strikingly similar to a romantic teen book based on sleeping beauty. It turrned out to be an okay story, albeit overly fluffed up, but a pretty cutesy book.  

  • http://profiles.yahoo.com/u/YXIXYOH5SVZ6KUFDROBIFGE4O4 Mark

    It would have been better because that makes more sense. In the original tale, it was not Briar Rose who kissed (and, in some versions, HAD SEX WITH) a sleeping, obviously non-consenting prince, it was the other way around.

  • Anonymous

    “Writing good female characters definitely doesn’t mean writing them all as Beacons of Strong Female Feminist Warriors–it means writing them as complicated, flawed, fleshed-out characters in their own right. If this movie somehow pulls that off, then congratulations to them, for they will have done something, unfortunately, fairly rare”

    Thats not rare, it so common place as to be the majority.

  • Anonymous

    Ditto. If i never EVER see another modern reinterpretation of a fairy tale, for as long as i live, it’ll still be to fracking soon.

    Seriously folks, making modern day retakes of fairy tales, where the context has been superceded with some contemporary context is the most cliched, boring rubbish i’v seen in a long time.

  • http://www.facebook.com/mark.matson6 Mark Matson

    Right.  In the original fairytale, Beauty provides the prince with several children before she wakes up.  There plenty of creep factor to work with in that story.

  • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100003037095323 Jerilyn Nighy

    Someone please buy the bean counters in Hollywood a full set of the Lang’s color fairy books or something by Calvino or Briggs.  There are a bajillion fairy tales that haven’t been adapted for the screen.

  • Anonymous

    I agree completely with everything you wrote here, I too assumed the stalker would be the Prince. It’s the obvious choice. Making the female character the stalker is problematic as well as disappointing. I have lost interest in this movie.

  • http://pulse.yahoo.com/_R7GVNIKWG3S2UTHEQOMSZXT4M4 Anna B

    Why do I see visions of Ranma 1/2 and his many fiancees?

  • Anonymous

    This is what happens when people forget to ask who they’re making a movie for: guys aren’t crazy about rom-coms in general, so they won’t care much about this one, and girls generally find it icky when they’re forced to relate to a character who is portrayed as wacko. Maybe Judd Apatow could pull this off, because he has a primarily male audience, but this is obviously not a comedy made for mainstream women (which is not to say that no woman would find it funny, just that most won’t).

  • Anonymous

    Oh, yea. It would either have to be over the top cute, like in Enchanted or it would have to be scary as anything stalker. Actually, I think I’d prefer a horror version of Sleeping Beauty.

  • Erika M

    Sounds a lot like A Kiss in Time, which was an AWFUL book. Not looking forward to what will probably be a mess.

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