Battle Of The Snow Whites

Seems like there are 21 Dwarves on the way from Hollywood with three different Snow White projects in development, and two them causing all kinds of friction…

First we have The Brothers Grimm: Snow White , which is being developed as a 3D movie by Relativity Media, a relatively new player in Hollywood that has been splashing its money about in the last few years. Vulture reports that Relativity has offered directing job to Tarsem Singh ( The Cell , The Fall, last year’s Britney/Pink/Beyoncé “We Will Rock You” Pepsi commercial).

Next, we have Snow White And The Hunstman , from Universal, who bought the script (in one of the biggest deals of the year) from Alice In Wonderland producer Joe Roth. Commercials director Rupert Sanders is attached as the helmer for that project.

The problem here is that Relativity also recently entered a deal with Universal to co-finance three out of every four Universal releases through 2011. “We consider this not just a film co-finance deal,” Relativity owner Ryan Kavanaugh said at the time, “but a true partnership.” So you can understand why he might be miffed that the guys who he’s giving his cash to have suddenly decided to back a rival project. Presumably Huntsman won't be one of the one-in-four movies Relativity is financing for Universal.

Meanwhile Disney is also prepping a Snow White project – Snow White And The Seven – in which the Dwarves are replaced by Shaolin fighting monks. Cool.

Can SFX enter the fray as well? We’ve got this idea called Snow White And The Blake’s Seven Dwarfs. Anybody want to lend us a few million to develop it?

Dave Golder
Freelance Writer

Dave is a TV and film journalist who specializes in the science fiction and fantasy genres. He's written books about film posters and post-apocalypses, alongside writing for SFX Magazine for many years.