Disney has long prided itself on
its great feature-length adaptations of media, from the classic tradition of
fairy tales to the more recent pop culture sources like books and comics. They originally
co-produced the first two installments of Walden Media’s “Chronicles of Narnia”
film series (20th Century Fox took over for the third, but as now a
Disney subsidiary the “Narnia” movies are all Disney’s). While they may have
lost the likes of “Harry Potter” to Warner Bros., there are other book series
that the House of Mouse can adapt, such as the “Artemis Fowl” series by Irish
author Eoin Colfer, the film of which premieres this year.
While a teaser for the “Artemis
Fowl” movie was already released by Disney last year, CNet tells us that a longer trailer that came out this week sheds
light on what seems to be large changes to the storyline made by the studio.
While Eoin Colfer’s books introduce the titular Artemis Fowl as a preteen
criminal mastermind carrying on the legacy of his father, the film Artemis
(Ferdia Shaw) looks to be out of the loop regarding his father’s true work
until he mysteriously disappears, and the news paints the supposed art collector
as a grand larcenist.
The Disney trailer then gives a
good long preview at the franchise element that made Colfer’s books stand out
for long children’s literature, the existence of an underground society
inhabited by fairy folk, whom Artemis’ father (Colin Farrell) has had dealings
with in the past. This is actually another significant change from the source
material, with Artemis actually starting out hostile to the fairies after he
kidnaps one of their police officers. Here, Officer Holly Short (Lara
McDonnell) is actually a fairy liaison to the elder Fowl, working as a team
with “giant” dwarf Mulch Diggums (Josh Gad) and the Fowl family butler (Nonso
Anozie).
While fans of the “Artemis Fowl”
books might take exception to Disney turning the originally mean and vicious
prodigy mob boss to a young man only just learning of his real “family
business,” this and other changes to the plot were actually welcomed by Eoin
Colfer. What really helped sell the adaptation for him is that director Kevin
Branagh (multiple Shakespeare adaptations, Disney’s live-action “Cinderella”
and MCU’s “Thor”), screenwriter Conor McPherson, and even the leads Shaw and
Farrell were all Irish, as befits the primary supernatural setting of the
franchise.
Disney’s “Artemis Fowl,” which
finally manage to overcome development and production delays spanning years,
arrives in cinemas on May 29.
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