If you’re tired of vampires, werewolves and zombies getting all up in your cinematic grill, how about faeries? Disney seems to think Tinkerbell is hero material, but other filmmakers (such as producer Guillermo del Toro on Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark) realises the flighty types can be mined for their menace. Universal is clearly in agreement with Guillermo, since the studio has set Boys Don’t Cry director Kimberly Peirce to direct Wicked Lovely.
While it sounds like a drama about a beauty pageant set in Boston, it’s not actually Ben Affleck’s next film. Wicked Lovely will be adapted by **Corpse Bride **writer Caroline Thompson from Melissa Marr’s fantasy novel, which follows a teenaged girl who possesses the ability to see dangerous faeries.
Initially, she’s warned by her wise grandmother to ignore the creatures lest they attack her, but then the Summer King, Keenan, barges into her life, snatching away her mortality and asking her to become his Summer Queen so they can take on his mother, the Winter Queen. If she says no, the Winter Queen will complete her plan to take over and destroy faeries and humans alike. Typical bloody Winter Queens – you just can’t trust ‘em.
The original book arrived on shelves in 2007 and since then Marr has been busy, writing one a year with the latest, Radiant Shadows, due this year and the next, Darkest Mercy, hitting shelves in 2011. Given Peirce’s history with young people confronting problems (admittedly more reality-based in Boys and Stop-Loss), she sounds like a solid choice for this type of story.