Today went from BROTHERS GRIMSBY to Brothers Grimm.
According to The Tracking Board, everyone’s favorite green-suited thespian Andy Serkis is going to produce, direct, and star as Rumplestilskin in Fox movie called STEELSKIN. Hossein Amini (DRIVE, TWO FACES OF JANUARY) will write the script, which will allegedly be “tonally similar to (the Amini-written) SNOW WHITE AND THE HUNSTMAN.”
We won’t know until JUNGLE BOOK: ORIGINS comes out in just under two years whether Serkis has any talent as a director, but the big pull here is him taking on the lead role of the mysterious creature who spins straw into gold. This is the guy who singlehandedly made mo-cap acting a legitimate art form with his pathetic, sinister Gollum. Who wouldn’t want to see him sing songs and trick women as the impish Rumplestiltskin?
Of course, if they go the SNOW WHITE route, they’ll likely have the female lead adorned in armor and launching a full-scale offensive against ‘Steelskin and his fellow woodland creatures; I mean, you need a third act, right?
It’s great to see Serkis asserting control over his art form by directing more films. Sure, it’s easier to talk about his expressive face than the multitude of VFX artists who bring those expressions to life, but this way, Serkis has more of an ability to work closely with those artists and craft the best mo-cap performances possible.
Lot of fairy tales and Disney remakes (or both) coming out these days. We’ll see if this one sticks out from the pack.
