Saturday, March 21, 2015

Gilliam's "The Brothers Grimm" Being Adapted for TV Series

Looks like we will be getting another fairy tale series to watch weekly soon! (ish)

Announced Thursday this week:
According to reports, The Ring screenwriter Ehren Kruger will adapt Terry Gilliam’s 2005 adventure film The Brothers Grimm into a TV show. The film, which starred Matt Damon and Heath Ledger as the titular brothers, followed the two men as they uncovered that the folklore passed down from generation to generation was based on real supernatural happenings. 
The screenwriter also wrote Gilliam's screenplay, but he's better know now for Transformers: Revenge Of The FallenTransformers: Dark Of The Moon, and Transformers: Age Of Extinction

From Deadline:
The new series will follow the swashbuckling adventures of brothers Wilhelm and Jacob Grimm, who discover startling mythology and supernatural stakes behind the folklore sweeping 19th century Europe.
(And I now understand the timing of releasing The Brothers Grimm to Netflix streaming.)

So, swashbuckling? I always imagine pirates when they use that word, but I guess they sort of are in Gilliam's version. Why do I have this weird feeling we may see a little steampunk added to the mix? About the only thing those tales with their darker, "thrilling spirit" (see below) don't have in terms of violence, is giant explosions.
“The tales of the Brothers Grimm are beloved around the world and offer an endless well of story and character to draw from. It’s a natural fit for television,” (said Devine, Miramax’s Executive VP of Film & TV.) “We reached out to Ehren Kruger and producing partner Daniel Bobker to see if they had any interest in making The Brothers Grimmmovie into a TV show and the pitch Ehren came back with blew us away,” added Pipski (Miramax VP of Television). We’re thrilled to be working with a writer of his caliber.” 
“The original stories the Brothers set out to collect were not for the faint of heart and we’ll be making a show that gets back to those origins and their cautionary, scary, thrilling spirit,” said Kruger.
I'm not surprised to see a variety of tales coming to a series because older tales (thanks in large part to Schonwerth and the "reboot as live action fairy tale movement") are vogue once again, but Gilliam's Brothers Grimm? I guess they need something adventure-y and with a different setting (ie, the 19th Century) to distinguish it from other shows.

I'm not confident about the team, but the concept has promise. More details as they are revealed...
Custom  DVD cover
Sources: HERE & HERE


4 comments:

  1. Seriously? That movie was such a turkey? I guess if they can make a decent show out of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, then there is hope.

    It always amazes me, though that people always seem to want to turn the Brothers Grimm into some kind of men of action rather than keeping them as scholars. What's next, Charles Perrault: Ogre Hunter?

    ReplyDelete
  2. They will as always miss the point of the stories -- the whole rites of passage, the emotional/evocative journey of transformation of the hero or heroine. It will focus as always on the danger, the terrifying, the destructive -- as though the end of the story is about fighting those things -- and not about change. I always feel they fail entirely to understand the whole point of the fantastic in those tales -- treating them as horror stories.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Well, there are going to be different interpretations and different ideas about what the points of the stories are. Some will feel too far afield for some people while others may feel like they hit home. That's the great thing about folklore, though. It's open to everyone to do what they will with it.

      Delete