The Hollywood Reporter’s Heat Vision blog is reporting that Ron Howard’s and Brian Grazer’s Imagine Entertainment have partnered with Radical Pictures to bring the latter’s comic book arm’s fairy tale inspired Legends: The Enchanted to the big screen.
Legends tells the tale of Red Hood, a noted wolf hunter, whose discovery of Pinocchio’s remains leads her on an investigation of folklore serial killer.
If, or when, this film ever comes to fruition, it might be sharing the cineplexes with another murder mystery involving fairy tales adapted from comics. And if that other film arrives after this one, then they could be accused of ripping off this concept. However, it is the other way around.
That other concept is Fables, a Vertigo comic book that Bleeding Cool and Pajiba reports is being adapted into film. The first arc of the series dealt with the mystery surrounding the apparent death of a not-quite-as-well-known fairy tale character Rose Red. A TV series was said to be in development for the property, but of late rumors have concerned a film possibly helmed by Harry Potter’s David Yates.
While Legends might beat Fables to the silver screen, the latter has the advantage in comics . The Fables comic started in 2002 and is quickly approaching 100 issues. Legends has had only a special preview issue published in February of this year with the true start of the series set to begin this month.
Radical Comics has garnered a fair bit of criticism for the similarities between its series and Fables. But the company has never been a bastion of originality to begin with. Its comics–film proposals in comic book form, really–have included such public domain concepts as Hercules, Wyatt Earp, Aladdin, and the Arthurian legend.
So, if Fables does hit theaters after Legends, and your friends accuse it of ripping Legends off, you can set them straight.
