Yellow Snow: A Grimm Pissing Match Over Snow White Movies

Which version of Snow White do you prefer in 2012?

We haven’t had a good “which version of Snow White is the best?” discussion since– NO! Nobody has ever had that discussion. That sentence should have read “finally, we get to have the ‘which version of Snow White is the best?’ discussion” discussion.

Two studios, Relativity and Universal, have decided to take a stab at making gritty re-imaginings of the Snow White tale. The primary compulsion to do this has to do with brand-recognition, a major motivator in movie-making, now more than ever. For example, take two recent American military vs. aliens movies: Battle: LA and Battleship (stillborn birth set for next summer) — it doesn’t matter that they both are terribly-constructed movies, the very fact that one is based on a familiarly-named board game is the reason it’s laughable existence is warranted. Familiarity and brand-recognition, you don’t have to figure out what the movie might be about.

As such, we have Snow White and the Huntsman from Universal and first-time director Rupert Sanders, and we have Relativity’s offering, The Brothers Grimm: Snow White, directed by Tarsem Singh. Here’s the kicker: they might be released within a couple of weeks of each other next June. Not since Armageddon vs. Dante’s Peak have we had this kind of action.

Lets dissect this. Universal is going kind of old school with this one, throwing trending, recognizable names at the top of the marquee. Used to be that you could just say “Tom Cruise in Mission: Impossible II” and the money would print, fold, and deposit itself, but the actor-brand became less profitable in comparison to the franchise-brand, at least for studios looking for a more lucrative first-dollar deal. With Huntsmen, Universal is casting Kristen Stewart (Twilight) in the title role, and also strapping armor onto her and teaming her up with Chris Hemsworth (Thor) as the, uh, other title-character, the Huntsman. If I remember my Disney history, the huntsman was the one that dropped Snow White off in the woods, setting her free instead of cutting out her heart. In this version, I have to assume they probably fight monsters and fuck instead of cleaning houses and singing.

I’ll give Hemsworth credit because Thor blind-sided me with its crackling zaniness, and really had no business being as fun as it was, but look at Kristen Stewart in that armor! She looks like Mia Wasikowska in The Worst Movie Of All Time. In fact, all of the promotional photos for Huntsman are dried out semi-sepia bullshit that look like something James Franco probably did while he was high last Thursday.

What’s it going up against then? Tarsem Singh, master of Steaming Hot Clusterfuck. He’s actually a film-school contemporary of Michael Bay and David Fincher, and his style falls on a comfortable latitude between the two. Longitude-wise though, he’s more like Tim Burton, if Tim Burton scouted real-world locations instead of casting Johnny Depp and building shitty gothic miniatures. Did you see The Fall (2006)? It’s a global fairy tale morphine-dream shot in 18 different countries and is a great excuse to buy a Blu-ray player. It’s cute, beautiful, and sad.

Tarsem’s approach to the Snow White story looks to be more sedated, and be more of, you know, an actual fairy-tale, and not Twilight by way of Zack Snyder’s medium-terrible Sucker Punch (my review). He’s casting semi-unknown Lily Collins (The Blind Side) in the lead role, backed up by Sean Bean and Julia Roberts as the King and Queen, respectively. Other details are fuzzy. The film’s mood is tougher to guess right now, given the lack of official art, but I’d wager the thing will have a visual creative sweep so wide that you’ll forget you aren’t playing a PS3 game.

If I had to put money on it, and I probably will, because I’ll see anything that Tarsem makes (OMG! Immortals! Mickey Rourke’s bunny-helmet! Art direction like a moving Caravaggio painting! Frieda. Pinto.) I’d say that Snow White & The Huntsman will be the winner. It all comes down to recognition within the recognition. At first glance, Huntsman is Snow White with hot people and swords. Done. Stop writing, you’ve hit gold. The rest is gravy.

Tarsem’s Snow White appears too enigmatic to even benefit from its built-in marketability. There’s also no way in hell Relativity can win the marketing matchup against Universal, who will be stung by the risk they sorta lost on with Cowboys & Aliens last weekend (mini review: it’s “Lost: The Western: The Movie,” decide if you want that), and they like that Fast 5 rode its star-power right into the black. They’re going to make Huntsman a very safe movie. Creating a a good movie within the confines of marketability is cinema’s magic trick, just ask Christopher Nolan, so hopefully they remember to make this monstrosity soul-compatible.

This pissing match between Snow White movies, of all things, is a prime example of how movies get made these days. Take a familiar, preferably public-domain brand, add grime and combat, give it a PG-13 rating, and give the word-of-mouth machine something to masticate on. Which will be better? How different are they? Does it even matter, I’ve gotta take this girl to see something at the movies this weekend and Dark Knight Rises isn’t out yet! Chicks love princesses and guys like doing whatever with girls, shit, just gotta get out of the house. Seriously, we’ll see most anything.

We’ll even tolerate the existence of two Snow White movies coming out in the month of June.

Image source: Hollywood Reporter

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