Reinventing fairy tales
Syfy is reinventing fairy tales as part of its Saturday night TV movie franchise that will give a contemporary twist on a classic stories.
For example, Hansel & Gretel will take place years after escaping the witch in the haunted forest, with Hansel returning to seek revenge. In Little Red Riding Hood, a descendant of Little Red discovers her family secretly hunts werewolves. Fairly radical, huh?
“It’s exciting to take a treasured brand and put our own sideways spin on it,” said Thomas Vitale, executive vp programming and original movies at Syfy. “By turning familiar timeless stories inside out, we’re creating an entertaining new genre for our popular Saturday night movie franchise.”
According to The Hollywood Reporter, Syfy’s Saturday movies continue to be one of the last bastions of regularly produced made-for-TV movies. Each film is typically an international co-production made with a budget of about $2 million and shot on 35mm film. Syfy works with about 10 indie studios, which also distribute the titles on DVD. Each tends to average about 1.8 million viewers Saturdays during the network’s twice-monthly original airings.
Beauty and the Beast kicks the five movies off on February 27.
Source: The Hollywood Reporter
