Remember the horror-comedy THE BROTHERS GRIMM starring Heath Ledger and Matt Damon? The movie was not very successful and yet Miramax is adamant that it has the potential to be a great series on the small screen. That is why the studio is teaming with THE BROTHERS GRIMM screenwriter, Ehren Kruger, to bring us the further adventures of the fairy tale authors/demon hunters.
The new series will tell the further adventures of Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm as they traverse 19th century Europe fighting monsters and supernatural beings while transcribing the tales for generations to come. Kruger, best known for scripting THE RING and TRANSFORMERS: AGE OF EXTINCTION, has developed an idea that the studio felt was too good to pass up. He had this to say about the project.
“The original stories the Brothers set out to collect were not for the faint of heart and we’ll be making a show that gets back to those origins and their cautionary, scary, thrilling spirit.”
In 2005, THE BROTHERS GRIMM looked like it could herald Terry Gilliam‘s long awaited return to studio filmmaking but instead grossed just over $100 million worldwide. The film was met with mostly negative reviews from critics who lambasted the weak story. The visual style of Gilliam’s film was commended, but it was not enough to make the movie a hit.
Fairy tales have been popular fodder on the small screen with SUPERNATURAL, ONCE UPON A TIME and GRIMM still chugging along and CONSTANTINE recently mining similar territory. It would seem if this show plans to go darker that it may be a better fit for a cable network, but at this time it is unknown where the show will end up. I would be more excited if Gilliam were involved, but I will wait and see how this turns out.