Little Mermaid Film May Be On Hold

Christine emailed me a few weeks(!) ago about a Little Mermaid film in development.  (See Joe Wright Making Live Action Little Mermaid and Fairy Tale Trend Reveals Female Sex Threat; A Comprehensive Guide to Fairy Tales in the Works.) It's been in my queue to learn more about I'm busy eating, sleeping and eating upcoming SurLaLune books.

Then I saw this news from this week. From Joe Wright Says He’ll Wait Until Fairy Tale Fad Is Over Before Tackling ‘The Little Mermaid’:

In case you haven’t noticed, Hollywood has fairy tale fever. “Red Riding Hood” hit theaters last month, and that’s just the start of a forthcoming onslaught that will include “Jack The Giant Killer,” “Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters,” “Snow White And The Huntsman,” Tarsem Singh‘s Snow White film and just last week a Sleeping Beauty movie was packaged with Hailee Steinfeld in the lead. As you may have forgotten, “Hanna” director Joe Wright was eyeing his own fairy tale-based movie but he may put it off for now.

Speaking to press at WonderCon where he was promoting his upcoming teenage assassin flick, the always candid Wright didn’t hold back about his personal attachment to the project—but he’s been put off by the deluge of similarly themed films. “I’d really love to do that cause it’s a very personal project for me,” Wright said. “My father was a puppeteer and he did a puppet show of ‘The Little Mermaid’ and it was always my favorite show. I used to sit and watch it thousands and thousands of times. Unfortunately since we put it into development there’s suddenly been this weird &*%# onslaught of fairy tale adaptations that wasn’t happening even when we were doing ‘Hanna.’ I wish I’d done it a few years ago actually. I’m fairly sure that I will do it one day because I kind of need to do it. It’s in my head and I feel like I know the film. But I might not do it for a few years, I might wait until everyone’s done.”

Now I'm not a big Little Mermaid fan, but I admit this one makes me sad. I'd love to see this one developed and soon. And is anyone else fascinated by Hanna? My husband is. I know there has been buzz about how it has fairy tale qualities, but I don't know much about it beyond that...