Fables Movie Update (There's *Almost* a Script Already!)

Bigby Wolf by Jeremy Bear

Gotta love getting bonus news on the end of a completely different interview which posted yesterday (Friday) afternoon...

I Am Rogue had an exclusive interview with Producer David Heyman, who had a huge hand in bringing the Harry Potter books to the big screen and whose currently-screening project is a little film called Gravity (you may have heard of it? Sandra Bullock, George Clooney... yeah - that Gravity). His current project-in-the-works is, you guessed it, bringing Fables to the big screen*.

Here's the Fables-relevant portion of the interview:

Producer David Heyman

Finally, are you still working on the feature film adaption of author Bill Willingham’s fan-favorite comic book seriesFables? 

Heyman: I am and I’m really excited.  

It has had over 133 issues and is still going, so there is a lot of story to narrow down into one movie. How do you decide what to focus on? Are you going to just concentrate on the Big Bad Wolf’s storyline, or will it feature other popular characters like Jack Horner? 

Heyman: I think we want to bring in most certainly elements of many different characters that make up this world because it really is about a community of sorts. I’m sure Bigby will feature. We’re working with a really brilliant director in Nikolaj Arcel (A Royal Affair). 

Are you still in the script stage? 

Heyman: Yes, we’re in the script stage. We’re waiting for a first draft now.      

So what we now know/is confirmed, is:

1) Fables is well and truly happening - for REALS Y'ALL! (OK, yes. I'm still super excited about this. Why? It's exciting stuff. Period.)
2) They have signed a director: Nikolaj Arcel (A Royal Affair)
3) They have a writer/s, and have gone from treatment/pitch to "script stage" where a first draft is currently being written (that's a big deal - a lot of films get stuck in development and writers don't even get employed to do a first draft)
4) They have chosen their core players (at least) from the gigantic cast of Fables are it looks like Bigby (aka the Big Bad Wolf, aka Fabletown's Sheriff, aka Snow White's love interest)
5) They're going to have a decently sized cast in which characters will play their storybook roles as part of a community (as opposed to faceless/featureless background/filler casting)
6) They're leaving a lot of room open to develop a franchise with a community set-up (ie. sequels, feature stories etc) should the movie go over well
7) This movie is moving along at a good pace and if they keep on this track we could actually see a movie by sometime in 2015... (based on average successful, highly anticipated and well funded movie development)

We have yet to hear word of the next biggest priorities: art direction and casting (but you can bet your Fables collection they're being talked about in every Fables movie meeting right now.)

All sounds great to me. I may have to ramp up my Fables catch-up reading faster than I thought. (This is NOT a complaint.)

* BTW - in case you've forgotten this is being helmed by Warner Bros in conjunction with DC Entertainment.