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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