In the wake of Tim Burton’s mega-successful Alice In Wonderland redo, Sony have picked up a movie treatment that puts a new spin on the Little Mermaid fairytale.
The studio have bought the rights to Carolyn Turgeon’s novel Mermaid: A Twist On The Classic Tale , while Country Strong director Shana Feste (above) has been tapped to adapt it for the screen.
This new version of the Hans Christian Andersen fairytale follows a mermaid who goes on a perilous journey to marry a prince from a rival kingdom in order to save her own ravaged home.
But when she gets there, she discovers that another beautiful maiden has already fallen for the prince’s charms and has sacrificed everything to be with him.
Turgeon’s novel is said to have been more tonally faithful to Andersen’s dark fairytale, which ended in a depressing and haunting way that Disney cleaned up for their ’89 animated version.
It’ll be interesting to see if Sony and Feste decide to give their reimagining a sting in its tail as well, or if they’ll feel pressured to deliver a more upbeat ending.
