Did the world need another adaptation of Cinderella? I put it to you that it did not. There have been literally dozens of them, to the point that exactly how many is hard to pinpoint. There are a handful of fairy and folk tales that get adapted over and over again. In part, I suspect that’s because of the Disney connection—any story Disney does has more pop culture weight than one that they haven’t. Which is not unreasonable, honestly, all things considered. But that doesn’t mean there aren’t dozens, possibly hundreds, of other choices to make movies out of. Some of these have apparently been adapted, but their adaptations are obscure.
“The Colony of Cats”: This obscure Spanish tale is one of my personal favourites. Lizina and Peppina are sisters who live in a small town that has the eponymous colony of cats—a manor house owned by talking cats. When people of the area are at their wits’ end for how to survive, they go to work as servants for the cats. Lizina is mistreated by her mother and sister, and goes off to become the best servant the cats have ever had. Things go well for her. The awful Peppina tries to get the rewards her sister does and fails.
“East of the Sun and West of the Moon”: A much better known story. A Norwegian telling of the “animal bridegroom” and “search for the lost husband” trope, wherein a girl is married off to an animal, discovers he’s not really an animal, loses him, and must go find him. The girl has to go rescue him. Don Bluth had a version in production and was unable to finish it.
“The Goose Girl”: You want dark and gritty? This is a tale with the dark and gritty baked in. A princess is, for reasons, sent off to marry a prince in another kingdom accompanied only by a single maid. The maid forces the princess to switch places with her—and has her talking horse put to death and the princess put to work as a goose-girl in the new husband’s castle. The goose-girl is prevented from revealing the truth, but she manages to have the horse’s head hung above the gate out of which she takes the geese every day.
“The Six Swans”: Which you may know with a different number or a different bird, but which is the story of a group of princes transformed by dark magic into birds. Their sister must weave shirts, often out of nettles or similar, with which to break the enchantment. She cannot speak while she does this.
“Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves”: This is another one that has been adapted, but its adaptations are seldom faithful. And that’s by the standards of “adaptations of fairy tales,” wherein “The Little Mermaid” gets a happy ending. The basic story is seldom kept, just “open sesame” and a bunch of thieves.
Anansi: Like, any of his stories. Heck, you could do a whole series that’s nothing but Anansi. And you could go in any direction with him. American Gods dabbled, before screwing over Orlando Jones, but there are a lot of other ways. You could make it appropriate for any age level, just by choosing which stories to adapt.
Maui: Likewise Maui. Yes, he was in Moana, but you could do fun stuff with actual Hawaiian Maui stories.
Coyote: See above.
Finn MacCoul: The Irish folk hero has many stories about him, and as with the previous three, any number of them could be well adapted.
“The Forest Bride”: This time an animal bride, the story of a trio of Finnish brothers who are sent off to find brides. By sheer fortune, the youngest ends up going into the forest and finding a mouse.
“Snow White and Rose Red”: I add this one last and a bit hesitantly. Because people think it’s just a version of “Snow White,” and it isn’t. It’s the tale of two loving sisters who live together and help out a bear, in what obviously becomes an “animal bridegroom” set-up.
That’s enough to be starting with, I think, though there’s also the ever-popular “pick literally any country outside Northern and Western Europe and ask what their popular children’s stories are” route. The collected stories of Oscar Wilde could be done, too. I’m sure a lot of countries have folk heroes of the Anansi/Coyote/Maui/Finn MacCoul variation who have dozens of stories you could use. When I was a kid, our local library had a whole shelf of these very thin volumes of stories from various Native American cultures that I’d love to read again—and maybe see adapted. Disney’s done some good shorts with a lot of American folk heroes, but there are plenty more of those to play with if you’re a mind. Heck, an animated series of Aesop’s fables would work. There’s a whole world of stories, many of which don’t have any glass slippers at all!
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