Snow White & The Huntsman - Snow white - Mirror, Mirror– (Snow &) The Order of The Seven! A look at the three Snow White movies on the way & their directors work so far...

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Kristen Stewart VS Lilly Collins

So far on this site I’ve mostly covered Snow White & The Huntsman. That’s mostly because; despite the fact that it is only due to start filming it has more information, more art and a Title. It’s also a more interesting  cast & concept, so far, than Tarsem’s Lilly Collins Snow White; which has thus far only released a twee picture of Lilly Collins as a Cath kidstoned Snow White and no actual title as yet. Now a third Snow White film has stepped up its game and is going to see if Snow Whites really can be as popular as Vampires and Super Heroes.

Now Disney have finally gotten their own live action Snow White film, in development as far back as 2002, out of the basement and ready for daylight by hiring a director. Michael Gracey has replaced long time director Francis Lawrence on the film now titled “Order of The Seven”. Gracey is famed for his visual effects work and in particular his commercials for T-Mobile & Lipton. It makes for an intriguing combination; Relativity’s still untitled Snow White film is being directed by Tarsem, a director very much famed for a visual flair over a narrative substance, with films The Cell & The Fall. (It’s a tag he may shake off with this year’s Henry “Superman” Cavill starrer, Immortals): Universal’s Snow White & The Huntsman is being directed by Rupert Sanders (http://therealeverton.blogspot.com/2011/07/snow-white-huntsman-look-at-director.html ) who is also known for his award winning work in advertising and is promising to bring a visual flair to his vision. Now this isn’t to say that all three of these Snow White films will be all style and no substance, just that there’s a definite theme building up here with these three “updates” of the classic fairy tale.

Untitled Snow White Project: Relativity, Director Tarsem Singh...

Little is known about Tarsem’s version, but the flowery, brightly lit and coloured picture has led to much speculation that it is a more standard live action version of the story. It is probably a little too much of a blind leap, but it’s hard to argue with the word used by Huntsman producer, Joe Roth, “soft” to describe the Tarsem version. The casting of Julia Roberts as the queen also adds to this impression.

The Cell

Despite this the film is thought to be a twist on the traditional version of the fairy tale. The rest of the major cast includes Sean Bean (Lord of The Rings, Game of Thrones), who surely is to the role of Kings and Lords what Andy Serkis is To Mo-Cap; Armie Hammer (the Social Network) as Prince Andrew.

Here’s an example of some of Tarsem’s earlier work...

Immortals due 11/11/11...

The Cell trailer...

The Fall trailer...

Release date 16^th of March 2012

The Order of The Seven (AKA Snow & The Seven): Disney, Director Michael Gracey...

So what is the Disney Snow White all about then? Well, as with Snow White & The Huntsman, more is known about this version than the Tarsem one. Now called ‘The Order of The Seven’ the film focuses more on the seven characters destined to help Snow White (referred to as Snow). Set in China the seven Dwarves are now seven warriors, each from different backgrounds with different styles of combat. Sounding like Ronin they are all members of an ancient order who have lost themselves and see an opportunity to redeem themselves by helping the fleeing Snow White and vanquishing the unspecified evil that is chasing her.

Evian Commercial

Like Snow white & The Huntsman the film feels like an extension of Snow White: A Tale of Terror, wherein the men that helped Snow White had their own issues to deal with and the Queen’s powers were extended to the point where she could attack Snow White from afar.

Gracey was shooting and developing film from an early age and became the youngest animator at the Animal Logic,(Which was responsible for the animation on the Oscar winning film Happy Feet). His Australians connections go deeper as he was part of the creative team of two o Baz Lurhman’s most visually spectacular and celebrated films, Romeo & Juliet (1995, DiCaprio & Danes) and Moulin Rouge (Kidman & McGregor).

Lipton Commercial

Michael Gracey’s Lipton Commercial featuring Hugh Jackman...

As well as the above commercial Gracey (alongside Pete Commins) drew massive attention and plaudits for T-Mobile dancing adds and the Evian dancing baby commercial...

Evian...

T-Mobile...

This work led to Oprah Winfrey hiring him to direct the opening for the 24^th season of her talk show, featuring a massive choreographed piece to a live Black Eyed Peas performance...

No  release date as yet.

Snow White & The Huntsman: Universal, Director Rupert Sanders...

Filming on this film is due to start any day now, but despite not even rolling film the film has stolen a March on the relativity film by wowing fans and press alike at Comic-Con in June. A look at the director’s commercial works as well as a test reel, made to convince the suits of the vision. Producer Joe Roth compared the film to another of his production, Tim Burton’s Alice In Wonderland; what he described as “...backwards engineering” from a well know story, where you use a familiar framework, but give a new twist to it. The picture of their Snow White, Kristen Stewart, in armour does echo Mia Wasikowska’s Alice when she fights the Jabberwocky in that film. The white tree on her shield also mirrored the claim that the film was aiming more for Lord of The Rings than Hi-Ho, Hi-Ho. Speaking of which apparently the film will begin with eight Dwarves, but one will meet a swift end and allow for the film to skirt the copyright surrounding seven dwarves.

The casting of the Dwarves has sparked almost as much interest as the impressive lead casting, with some of the finest “character actors” in the business cast in a flurry of activity towards the end of June. These dwarves are warriors too and they are all given the names of Roman   Emperors: Ian McShane (Pirates of The Caribbean 4, Deadwood) is their leader Caesar, Ray Winstone (Beowulf, The Departed) as Trajan, Bob Hoskins (Who Framed  Roger Rabbit, Disney’s A Christmas Carol) as Constantine, Nick Frost (Paul, Tintin, Shaun of The Dead) as Tiberius, Toby Jones (Captain America, The Rite), Eddie Marsan (Hancock, The Disappearance of Alice Creed) as Hadrian, the brother of Ray Winstone’s Trajan and Stephen Graham (Pirates of The Caribbean 4, Snatch) as Nero.

Added to this we have Oscar winner Charlize Theron (Monster, Hancock) as the Queen (looking very sinister with her beautiful dagger); Kristen Stewart (Twilight Saga, Zathura) as snow White; Chris Hemsworth (Thor, Red Dawn, Star Trek), who seems to living up to his billing (from such players as The Hollywood Reporter and MTV) as one of the A-List stars of Tomorrow after his audience and critic adored performance as Thor this summer; Sam Claflin (Pirates 4, The Pillars of The Earth) as Prince Charmant, another character who is not the same as the  storybook character.

Here’s the synopsis...

“In the epic Action-Adventure Snow White And The Huntsman, Kristen Stewart (Twilight) plays the only person in the land fairer than the evil Queen (Oscar winner Charlize Theron) who is out to destroy her. But what the wicked ruler never imagined is that the young woman threatening her reign has been training in the art of war with a huntsman (Chris Hemsworth, Thor) who was despatched to kill her. Sam Claflin (Pirates of The Caribbean: On Stranger Tides) joins the cast as the prince long enchanted with Snow White’s beauty and power.

The breathtaking new vision of the legendary tale is fro Joe Roth, producer of Alice In Wonderland, producer Sam Mercer (The Sixth Sense) and acclaimed commercial director and state-of-the-art visualist Rupert Sanders.”

The film’s title elevates the status of the Huntsman several levels above the traditional character’s role. In this version not only does the huntsman fail to kill Snow White (whether by design or incompetence) but he helps to train her for the day when she will need to protect herself from the queen and fight to win the kingdom. The role was originally looking to be cast with an older actor in the form of Viggo Mortensen, so it seems unlikely that the story will feature any kind of romance between Snow White & The Huntsman, despite the casting of Hemsworth.

The show reel had striking imagery including a fairy being born from the body of a cow, Knights fighting and shattering into black stone when struck, a Queen (not yet Theron) wearing her crown whilst bathing in milk; a Princess Mononoke style scene where Snow White (again a stand in) is petting a giant wolf and giant Wooden demons (definitely not Ents) coming out of trees.

Here is a look at the Sanders commercials shown at Comic-Con...

Halo 3: Believe trailer

Call of Duty: Black ops – Soldier

Monster.com – Legs

Release Date 1^st f June 2012

So there you have it. Looking forward to all of them? None of Them? It seems that all three movies are going to be quite different so we could be in for three treats, rather than three close, mildly different versions of the same film...