It’s official: Tarsem Singh has signed on to Relativity Media’s 3D (of course) version of The Brothers Gimms’ Snow White, scheduled to begin filming in March 2011. The news that Tarsem was offered the directorial job has been around for weeks, it just didn’t become official until The Wrap broke it yesterday.
As to how they’re going to adapt the classic story of poisoned apple eating, it’s been said it will be “an edgy, modernized re-imagining that will hew closely to the Grimms’ original German folk tale”.
Edgy is the right way to do this, if they’re wanting to stick close to the Grimm stories. The true non-Disney story is far more vicious than the animated classic most of us know, with such things as heated iron boots for the evil Queen’s punishment, heart eating and attempted child murder. Tarsem’s untitled film is still being aimed at a family audience (!), so how they’re going to keep that edgy, close-to-the-source angle will be interesting.
Also of note is that Relativity is wanting Natalie Portman for the Snow White role, while Tarsem is pushing more for an unknown – which may be the smartest route due to Portman’s schedule. Regardless of who they cast, a theoretically rougher 3D Snow White tale from a visually creative director might turn out to be a great thing after all.