In Bill Willngham’s comic book epic Fables, Snow White, the Big Bad Wolf, Prince Charming, and scores of other characters from folklore are forced to live together in exile in Manhattan. Now ABC is offering them all a chance at life on television. The network has ordered a pilot based on the trials and tribulations of these legendary characters living in our modern world.
The Fables pilot is being written by Stu Zicherman and Raven Metzner, creators of the short-lived ABC series Six Degrees, and will be directed by David Semel, who also directed the pilots for Heroes and My Own Worst Enemy. The comic book series follows a group of Fables, characters from fairytales and folklore, who flee their magical Homelands after they are conquered by the mysterious Adversary. The Fables arrive in our “Mundy” world and build their own society, Fabletown, based in Manhattan.
There is no word on whether the pilot will follow the first book in the series, in which Fabletown deputy mayor Snow White and sheriff Bigby Wolf investigate the murder of Snow White’s sister Rose Red. But the writers promise that Snow White and Bigby will have similarly central roles in the show as they do in the comic books.
"We set up a structure to allow any fairy tale character to show up in any one episode," Metzner said.
The fairy tale characters will keep some of their trademark characteristics. For instance, Prince Charming will be handsome, while Big Bad Wolf will have to shave a four-day shadow from growing back every day.
But overall, "they are just like real people in the real world who live and breathe and look just like you and me," Metzner said.
This isn’t the first time a network has tried its hand at adapting the series. In 2005, NBC ordered a script for a Fables series, but never made it to production. If ABC ultimately decides to pick up Fables as a series, it could appear on the 2009-2010 television schedule.