Bill Willingham’s Vertigo Comics sensation Fables is headed to Hollywood…again…according to The Hollywood Reporter.The story, which deals with fairy tale characters forced out of their homelands by a merciless dictator and forced into hiding in a New York brownstone, has been in and out of development for nearly a decade. That time in development hell has been made up of both a film option that never got as far as a script being written and a television adaptation that almost went at ABC before the network passed. Not long after they passed on Fables, ABC drew fan ire when they picked up Once Upon a Time, the story of fairy tale characters forced…well, you get it.Nikolaj Arcel, who directed the Danish critical darling A Royal Affair, is attached to direct the film, which will be written by Jeremy Slater. Slater’s resume is pretty sparse, but he knows comics: the writer is attached to Josh Trank’s Fantastic Four reboot.David Heyman and Jeffrey Clifford of Heyday Films, who produced the Harry Potter movies for Warner Bros. (who will presumably distribute Fables as well), are on board to produce. In spite of being a creator-owned property, Fables is a Vertigo staple, and Vertigo’s creator arrangements give Warner Bros. first swing at the film adaptations of the properties.
