Kristen Stewart as Snow White? Quick, Grab an Apple.
Friday, February 4, 2011 at 9:36AM If there's anything good to say about Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland and its billion dollar gross, it's that it might make Hollywood a safer place for female-driven magical tales. Disney's Tangled and its $449 million gross (and rising) enthusiastically seconds the notion that fairy tales and old timey stories aren't passe. Fairy tales are a good well to draw from: they're familiar and thus as easy to market as any hit franchise and yet they're flexible and thus of interest to artists who can bring fresh takes to old stories.
Kristen Stewart and Snow White... with birds.
Initially the prospect of Snow White and The Hunstman thrilled. It got even more mouth-watering when Charlize Theron and Viggo Mortensen were named as the Evil Queen and the Hunstman, respectively. But now that we have our Snow White in Kristen Stewart, the apple seems poisoned prematurely.Stewart's performance as Joan Jett in The Runaways proved that she could in fact play something beyond Self-Indulgently Mopey Girl (Twilight + Into the Wild + Adventureland) but playing a naive sweet dreamy girl suddenly thrust into danger because she's just too beautiful to live? That's such an about face it may be less a healthy stretch and more a case of getting strapped to the rack. Stewart's edge and performance style seem radically wrong for Snow White unless they're just using the name as a jumping off point.
Reinterpreting fairy tales can be fun, provocative, artistic and lucrative but don't you have to maintain some semblance of connection to the material?
What's in the box? A gift to moviegoers or something...awful.Plus there's the small matter of "the fairest of them all". This is not meant as a knock against Kristen Stewart who is obviously an attractive woman but I think few would worry for Charlize Theron's ego in that particular department up against practically anyone.
We wont know if this particular Snow White is a poisoned apple to moviegoers until 2012, but if it is there's still hope for the fairest of them all to find her prince and defeat the vain queen. Two other Snow White movies are also in development. Tarsem Singh's Brothers Grimm: Snow White (with Julia Roberts a possibility as the evil queen) would undoubtedly be something to gawk at at the very least. The other one is Snow and the Seven which Michael Arndt (Little Miss Sunshine, Toy Story 3) is scripting for Disney. One suspects not all of these movies will happen but with three competing Snow White themed movies and (what, seven!?) new Wizard of Oz themed movies, plus that Red Riding Hood thing with Amanda Seyfriend and maybe Tim Burton's take on Sleeping Beauty focusing on Maleficent, the Teens is going to be a very fairytale heavy decade if this keeps up.
Charlize Theron, Kristen Stewart, Snow White, fairy tales
Reader Comments (29)
"Reinterpreting fairy tales can be fun, provocative, artistic and lucrative but don't you have to maintain some semblance of connection to the material? "
Hah! If you are worried about this, you should probably never read "Snow White" by Donald Barthelme. :-)
Timothy -- is that like one of the many books that sprouted up in that post-WICKED genre where they just radically make stuff up -- even when it pulls it too far away from the source -- and make it "adult" for titillation?
True: I tihnk WICKED the musical is *way way way* better than WICKED the book, because it feels closer to the spirit of THE WIZARD OF OZ despite coming at it from the same angle as the book.
I'm not a huge Snow White fan - I don't think I've even seen the Disney version - but I was interested in this take on it. Unfortunately, with Stewart's possible casting, my interest has completely deflated. Her acting doesn't have much life in it and her box office appeal is strictly connected to the Twilight Films, so she hasn't proven herself capable of bringing in audiences. Most importantly, as has already been said, her "beauty" - which I think she doesn't have much of, honestly - doesn't even come close to Theron and that's a key plot component.
Nat -- Donald Bartheleme's "Snow White" is an early postmodern novel and it pretty much eschews the entire narrative. It's very formally fragmented, funny, and absurd. Think Goddard's "King Lear", but with humor and tact.
timothy -- well then, perhaps i SHOULD read it. You misled me into thinking it was bad :)
Woops! Yeah, my bad. It's a good book. Read it!
In Chicago, Catherine Zeta Jones had her ego hurt by Renee Zellweger.
If it can happen in musicals, why not fairy tales?
What a timely post... Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs premiered exactly 73 years ago.
Ryan T -- wow. i'm usually so good about such things but i didn;t know this.
arkaan -LOL
Snow White has to be played by someone classically stunning, with a perfectly simmetrical angelic timeless delicate greek-statue like face. I'd think of Isabelle Adjani or Jennifer Connelly when they were younger. Maybe Natalie Portman a few years ago. Not many others come to mind, perhaps Theron herself when younger, or some old Hollywood classical beauties such as Audrey Hepburn or Grace Kelly-who'd die her hair black.
Kirsten Stewart is not, by any means, beautiful enough to be Snow White.She is nor even pretty. Ordinary looking, homely, normal everyday girl.
And who can threaten Charlize Theron??? really????? They want us to believe Charlize Theron would be threatened by Stewart? Aint gonna happen!
“She’s Mother Theresa meets MacGyver” says Doug Broeska President of the CliniCard while visiting Sassoon Hospital in Pune, India. “She should probably at least be nominated for the Nobel Prize in Medicine.”
That’s an impressive statement but also accurate when it comes to Dr. Aarti Kinikar, Head of Pediatrics at Sassoon Hospital in Pune, India (Pune is a city of nearly 10 million, just south of Mumbai, and Sassoon General Hospital is the biggest public hospital in the region). During the H1N1 Flu outbreak last year (2009-2010), Dr Kinikar was faced with a medical emergency seemingly out of all proportion to anyone’s ability to deal with it. Bodies were literally piling up outside of the hospital morgue and she feared that most of the young children and babies that were coming to Sassoon with severe breathing problems would be added to the growing pile. The hospital had only 4 working ventilators and was facing a steady flow of children to the pediatric ward that quickly swelled to a deluge of over 1200, all of whom were in severe respiratory crisis.
As the numbers of very sick children grew so did Dr. Kinikar’s resolve. There had to be way to create the bit of air flow needed to keep a child’s lungs breathing. “The best medication is sometimes oxygen, and even though the children had made it to the hospital, without it they might die right in front of you…that’s a helpless feeling for a doctor” said Kinikar. Motivated by equal parts of desperation and inspiration, Dr. Kinikar rigged a simple breathing tube device only with materials on hand. The PNC pressure device called a “nasal bubble CPAP device” (Continuous Positive Airway Pressure) miraculously worked for 85% of the children who were treated. Although bubble CPAP has been around for decades, the device she rigged was much less elaborate than the expensive tubing and valve configurations that are commercially available by the same name. “I was taking a risk,” Kinikar said. “I didn’t know whether people would back me using a technique which didn’t seem to have much scientific push.” As a result of her willingness to step outside of convention, an estimated 500 childrens’ lives were saved at Sassoon Hospital because her fast thinking in a time of extreme crisis. A few dollars worth of plastic tubing had taken the place of much more expensive devices which weren’t available to the hospital at the height of the emergency anyway.
http://www.ccsviclinic.ca/ . Continued in the next comment.. Full Article also available here.. http://ccsviclinic.ca/?p=793
Thinking about it, maybe not even Portman. Snow White has to be, well, snow white, ghostly, milk white pale. Portman's skin has golden/yellow undertones. She has the face for it sure, impossibly simetric and perfect features, but she doesnt have the "uber-white face and very black hair"contrast that the character demands.
Maybe Winone Ryder in her "Age of Innocence/ Little Women" days, God, was she pretty, and she really had the princess/doll/angel perfect delicate simetric little face thing going on.
Honestly, if the filmmakers really wanted a top-shelf, no-stretch beauty to play Snow White (and rival Charlize Theron), they could've, should've just cast Olivia Wilde (or, better yet, an unknown). It's like the film will or will not be successful *because* of Kristen Stewart.
Helena Bonham Carter as Maleficent? Johnny Depp as her thwarted love interest? Too much eye makeup on them both? Tchaikovsky's balletic score replaced with uninspired Danny Elfman? Please tell me this won't happen. Please tell me if it does happen it won't be Tim Burton at the helm. Please, please, please.
The should cast an older Snow White and an even older queen. In fact Julia Roberts and Meryl Streep will be playing mother and daughter in August: Osage County (which of course I’m bored by until I see the actual trailer or a still from the set) it would be more fun if the were playing Snow White and the Evil Queen – or take Wild at Heart apporach (instead of TWOO) they could do Snow White.
There's a brazillian actress who would be THE perfect snow white, her name is Ana Paula Arosio:
http://www.google.com.br/images?hl=pt-br&source=imghp&biw=1366&bih=559&q=ana+paula+arosio&gbv=2&aq=f&aqi=&aql=&oq=
http://www.google.com.br/images?hl=pt-br&biw=1366&bih=559&gbv=2&tbs=isch%3A1&sa=1&q=ana+paula+arosio+linda&btnG=Pesquisar&aq=f&aqi=&aql=&oq=
BUT, she is brazillian and not that much younger than Theron- maybe they're even the same age, I'm not sure.
2000's = Superheros
2010's = Fairytales
:)
See, I would think the problem with this casting is actually Charlize. I don't think she'd be threatened by *anyone*, looks-wise. And after The Runaways, I'm willing to give Stewart the benefit of the doubt. Besides: so pretty. So very, very pretty.
I wonder if Deborah Ann Woll, who plays Jessica in True Blood, would look good with very dark hair.....She is stunning and as pale as a vampire can be! ;-)
Liv Tyler circa the "Crazy" video would have been a good choice as well.
Walter, maybe you're right. Who could possibly threaten Charlize, as far as looks are concerned????
Zooey Deschanel would've made a good Snow White
I do adore Charlize, but am the only one who wants to see Vera Farmiga play the Wicked Queen? I think that would solve all casting issues here.
I'm gonna cheer for the f#$%ing witch! Hopefully she'll help us get rid of this "thing" and maybe can take the other "things" that come with her in the stupid vampire novel/movie. Just read the first 20 pages of the first book... you're shoot yourself!
finally, something to get excited about.
Nathaniel's too nice to say it but I'm not- Kristen Bell is not attractive enough to be Snow White.
Why is it most of you are willing to give Anne Hathaway the benefit of the doubt as Catwoman, but not Kristen Stewart as Snow White? I have deep reservations about the two, but Anne has yet to prove that she even has it in her to play a sleek sexy menacing character but most of you are just simply keeping your fingers crossed and hoping she delivers.
People have already given up on Snow White and the ink isn't even dry yet.
Uhm.. Is everybody's opinion on Charlize Theron's acting abilities seriously so low that you can't even fathom a scenario where she'd have to convincingly pull of "threatened". Yes, she's preposterously stunning, but I'd wager I won't have any problems suspending my disbelief.
What's more, isn't Maleficent miffed by the fact that the mirror "ranks Snow White above her" rather than due to her own opinion of the girl's looks? So presumably even if they decided to cast Jonah Hill in drag as the princess, the queen would still "feel threatened" and would take action and go all Tonya Harding on our poor heroine.
I really don't have a problem with Stewart.
A few tidbits:
@ Maito: Maleficent is not in Snow White she is in Sleeping Beauty.
@ Jim Wilson: The actress in talks for the role is Kristen Stewart not Kristen Bell.
I'm aware of that JayJ, just a mistake. Woops. Kristen Bell is not as good looking as most seem to think but she's far better looking than Stewart.