Sony Pictures Animation had some success in 2012 exploiting supernatural creatures for comedy with Hotel Transylvania. A sequel is already in the works, and the company has decided to stick with unusual leading characters, picking up a pitch focusing on the mythical Medusa and hiring My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic cartoon series creator Lauren Faust to direct it.
Antz co-writer Todd Alcott and producer Holly Golden were behind the original comedy concept, which appears to be following the current trend for revisionist fantasy tales by exploring the genesis of the Greek monster. Our heroine will be a decent, beautiful young girl who annoys the wrong goddess. Turned into the snake-haired demon, she learns to embrace her differences.
"I love the originality of it, the comedy take on Medusa,” Michelle Raimo-Kouyate, president of production at Sony Animation, tells The Wrap. “The minute I heard it, it felt ingenious and clever and funny.”
While we’re not sure that the whole “embracing what makes you unique” concept sounds as fresh and original to us, Faust certainly has the chops to make something like this work, given the gold she spun from the classic 1980s Hasbro pony property. “In recent years, with movies like Tangled and Frozen, and not to toot my own horn, the popularity of My Little Pony, people are more open to female protagonists,” Faust says in a statement. “Just because something is about a girl, that doesn't mean it's not for them.” Maleficent ($183 million worldwide and counting) certainly seems to prove her right…