The success of Disney’s live-action resurrection of Alice in Wonderland has sparked a new trend in Hollywoodland. In keeping with the last decade, it is still one where stories are recycled. Risk still reigns, but there’s a surge coming from studios to rediscover fond fairy tales, with a modern twist.
It’s the reason there are two Snow White modernizations in theaters within ten weeks (and another on the way). Why we’ve seen the return of Red Riding Hood, Alice, Sleeping Beauty and more, and why we’re expecting live-action adaptations of Hansel & Gretel (“witch hunters”), Tinkerbell, multiple Peter Pans, Maleficent, and more Snow White.
And, if you trace them back, many of them point to Alice in Wonderland super producer Joe Roth, who was chairman of Walt Disney Studios from 1994-2000. Roth Films is behind Snow White and the Huntsman, Oz: The Great and Powerful, Maleficent (starring Angelina Jolie), and Peter Pan Begins (Channing Tatum’s origin story idea where Hook and Pan are brothers). For Roth, this sure beats directing Christmas with the Kranks.
Meanwhile, the tradition of Beauty and the Beast is being expanded for the small screen. The CW is preparing a pilot episode of “Beauty and the Beast,” a modern reboot of the ’80s romance series, with a procedural twist. Meanwhile, Disney-owned ABC ordered a pilot for their own “Beauty and the Beast,” a medieval period drama that reads like a network “Game of Thrones.” (I can’t wait for the New York Times review from the clueless Ginia Bellafante.)
Just this week, filmmaker Christophe Gans (The Brotherhood of the Wolf) announced a French-language re-telling starring Parisian beauty Léa Seydoux (Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol) and reuniting him with French chameleon/actor Vincent Cassel. (Variety)
These remakes, reboots, and re-tellings beg the question: Can you improve on a classic?
Disney thought they could, in a way. Still leading the fairy tale charge after Alice, the studio recently resurrected The Lion King, my personal favorite, and made a mint by digging into their magic vault, producing a timeless story, and slapping an unnecessary third dimension onto a theatrical re-run. Everything old is new again, right? Just a dimmer version filtered through reusable plastic shades in this case.
(Though I suppose this 3D retrofit isn’t as egregious as this weekend’s re-release of The Phantom Menace, another excuse for Fox and George Lucas to roll out his tarnished saga and shake down the loyal, again. And James Cameron’s Titanic in 3D is on deck for April.)
The success of The Lion King only encouraged Disney, who promptly scheduled 3D returns in the U.S. for two of its classics a year through 2013, including The Little Mermaid and Pixar’s Finding Nemo. Next up was Beauty and the Beast though, itself a retooling of a classic fable and resurrection of a dormant Walt Disney dream, come true through ground-breaking computer animation in 1991 (an early Pixar contribution, four years before Toy Story). Beauty and the Beast reopened wide on January 13, to the tune of $22 million and over double that in total thus far. (Disney spent less than $10 million on the conversion.)
Personally, I was just grateful for the opportunity to watch it again on the big screen (and maybe a little curious about the 3D conversion), so my better half and I caught a matinee. $22, nine trailers, and a cute, cartoonish Tangled Ever After short later, a simple title card welcomed us to a special 3D presentation.
Then there it was again. The stained glass prologue. The arrogant prince, the unforgiving enchantress and her elaborate curse. Belle’s operetta-style opening. All in 3D, of course, though the retro-fitted depth looks more like cascading cut-out layers than the promised immersive experience. Plus the occasional stutter and proportion issues of traditional hand-drawn animation.
But I loved it all the same. Even because of its minor imperfections, not in spite of them, like a worn book with a cracked spine and dog-eared pages. A story about a bookworm who wanders into one of her fairy tales, and it transforms a provincial girl into a radiant princess. “A tale as old as time” with Broadway sensibilities and anthropomorphic household objects voiced by Angela Lansbury and the late Jerry Orbach. A Stockholm Syndrome musical!
Then there is Beast, an amalgam of mammals with a ferocious underbite, a handsome mane, and a wild, unpredictable temper. Never referred to by his given name, Beast is the quintessential bad boy. Dangerous, but with a quiet, resolved sadness and an eerie sense of foreboding. 
He’s a more complex male figure than Disney’s stable of dashing Prince Charmings, even if he’s essentially tamed in the process. As much as the fable is about Belle realizing a fantasy and recognizing inner beauty, the fierce Beast is the one magically, tragically condemned, not a somnolent or helpless princess.
The message of not judging a book by its cover is important, now more than ever, when media and pop culture “role models” skew personal body image and “regular” models look like they haven’t eaten in days. Belle’s brains and modesty and Gaston’s ill-fated vanity are welcome antidotes to the look-at-me poison of those vapid Kardashian dolts or the fake plastic egotism of “Jersey Shore.”
The re-watch was also a bittersweet reminder of Oscar’s first animated “Best Picture” nominee… in a year when a Disney/Pixar feature could not crack the top 5 in the animation category they regularly dominate. It was also a fond re-listen to the extravagant “Be Our Guest,” Gaston’s boastful solo, and the titular ballad… in a year when there are only two measly song nominees. (One is from Disney’s revival of The Muppets.)
Does this story still hold up a (magic) mirror to society? Maybe it’s the afterglow, but I believe it can. The core morality of Beauty and the Beast still applies to today’s audiences, and Shakespeare’s tale of forbidden love continues to be remixed. For years, it has been humans and vampires/werewolves, or super-men and beautiful damsels. Comics aren’t going anywhere (they’re just being rebooted), but stories about verboten young lovers will continue (and star Kristen Stewart), only in the form of familiar fairy tales… with a twist.
