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ABC Greenlights Fables Television Show Pilot

Posted on Monday, December 8th, 2008 by Peter Sciretta

ABC has announced that they will be bringing the hit Vertigo comic book series Fables to the small screen.

Created and written by Bill Willingham in 2002, the series has won fourteen Eisner Awards. Based in a world where fairy tale characters have been forced out of their homes by a mysterious enemy known as the Adversary, and now live in a hidden community in New York City known as Fabletown. I have yet to pick up Fables, but I’m a big fan of DC’s Vertigo brand comics.  Eleven Volumes of the series have been released in trade paperback form (available for around $10 each on Amazon). The first volume description follows:

“Who Killed Rose Red? In fabletown, where fairy legends live along side regular New yorkers, the question is all anyone can talk about. But only the Big Bad Wolf can actually solve the case - and, along with Rose’s sisterSnow White, keep the Fabletown community from coming apart at the seams.”

Six Degrees creators Stu Zicherman and Raven Metzner are writing the hour-long drama pilot teleplay. The show is being setup in a way that would allow any fairy tale character to show up for any given episode, with the main story revolving around Big Bad Wolf and Snow White. David Semel has been hired to direct. Semel’s television credits include: Beverly Hills 90210, Buffy The Vampire Slayer, Dawson’s Creek, Roswell, Angel, American Dreams, House, Heroes, The Cleaner and My Own Worst Enemy.

source: THR

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  • WOO!
    HEROES killer?
  • OK. Care to elaborate on who/what did? Anyone? I'm genuinely intrigued.
  • Jaysun
    "graphic novel" is just a term created by people that are too afraid to say they read/write comic books. Neil Gaiman, Alan Moore, these guys are considered great writers. They say they write comics. So, comic book movies have been around a while. Plus From Hell, Ghost World and Road to Perdition pre-date sin city and 300, easily. The trend started in the 40's. People have wanted to make comics in to movies since its inception, that being comics, its just comics weren't considered literature until Sandman, then retroactively the critical mass of readers accepted Watchmen. The Dark Knight Returns is thrown in because it came out the same time as Watchmen, and there needed to be a third candidate for "Graphic Novel." DKR would have been just another comic if Watchmen weren't created.
  • Agony
    This is exactly what I was thinking. It's a fantastic comic though.
  • jason B
    even though it's passed on, i feel 'pushing daisies' paved the way for stuff like this.
  • Amen to the HBO bit, I've been saying since I picked up this series that it needs to be a TV show and it needs to be on cable.
  • anonymous fellow
    sounds like the southern vampire series (True Blood)
  • If it's on ABC it'll be cancelled before the season is done.

    This needs to be on cable. Vertigo and network TV do not belong in the same sentence.
  • Spoilers for those who haven't read Fables (seriously, go read at least the first few volumes now - not a game-changer, just a collection of great stuff) - how's a network show going to get away with Bigby Wolf & Snow White's pseudo-bestial romance?
  • I haven't decided whether to read this or not. The show could come off really campy like Buffy.
  • IK!
    Kip Mooney hit it right on the head. This is extended cable material, hands down. I'd really hate to see such a beautiful story crash and burn on a station that can't handle it.
  • lukeg37
    When I first read the news on this I was kinda stoked as I too love fables and always thought it would make an excellent adaptation to TV. However after further review I kinda dont want it to happen. I think ABC will conpromise the integrity of the source material and that will quite frankly just piss me off. I also think that upon viewing mainstream america will have a collective WTF and just wont latch onto it.
  • Thank you, no need to add anything.
  • Joe
    I can see it now in the ABC Corporate Offices.

    "OK, guys, we just canceled a promising expensive new fantasy series because it wasn't getting ratings like Dancing With The Stars should. What's on the docket? This here promising expensive new fantasy series with an obvious niche viewing market is up for grabs? Sure, let's greenlight it."
  • Joe
    That's a combination of True Blood (separate but equal communities between humans and a fantasy race, inter-race romance), Day Of The Dead 2008 (vegetarian zombies), and... well... American Zombie, basically the exact thing. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0765430/

    Sorry to burst your bubble.
  • sproks
    I love Fables to bits so I'm wary of seeing this come to TV. For me, the major draw of the initial comic book was that these were fairy tale characters I'd grown up with but in a whole new light. It's very much the adult answer to "What happened after 'Happily Ever After'?" but, considering how the general population is completely unaware of the grimness and grittiness of the original stories, I don't think they're going to get it. Some idiot parent is going to believe that it's appropriate for their little kid because it's got Snow White in it and is going to be in for a major shock.

    Oh lord, forget Snow and Bigby, how're they gonna handle Little Red Riding Hood?!
  • thats pretty badass. Ive read the first several trades and really dug them. I'd prefer to see this on showtime or HBO just because of the content, but we'll see how it turns out.
  • Oh ................... HELL. YES. You seriously need to pick this series up, this first story is pretty good, but it gets awesome later on.

    Lots of cursing, sex, violence .... this NEEDS to be on HBO. If they water this down, it'll come off as stupid. I'd still watch, but it wouldn't be nearly as good as it could be.

    Also, this show is gonna get real expensive down the line, with some of the effects they need to pull off. This first story is an urban mystery with not too much flash, but later on (if there is a later on, doubtful), there's some serious fabling going on.
  • That's really interesting.
  • Mr B
    The first 5-8 volumes are really quite brilliant. I've dropped off reading since then because of some directions Willingham took but there is a large amount of excellent material to pull from in the earlier books. And goodness knows they can stretch some of the storylines out for a season or 3 if it's popular.

    I will agree they're gonna need an FX team and hefty budget to do a certain amount of these characters justice. If they can't make Bigby ( Big B. Wolf), the size of a draft horse I'll be highly disappointed.
  • marz
    simon2it,u took the words right out of my mouth.it does sound interesting.kinda reminds me of who framed roger rabbit...except they kinda had their own little world beyond the tunnel.still,they intertwined every now and again.i have a great idea for a graphic comedy novel*can you say those two words in the same sentence?*anywho.i had the idea where zombies basicaly become accepted in the modern world and live sorta like their own 'race'..and it follows a zombie whose a vegetarian and has a crush on a living girl.even thought of givin him the name 'dusty'.lol it's just another story where two diferent types of worlds collide.unfortunately,altho i can write,i cant draw like i use to so...
  • marz
    truthfully,id prolly rather see this made as a movie.ive never read the comic but from what folk are saying,regular tv wouldnt do it justice.maybe on hbo like someone said.i feel the same way about them making king's 'the dark tower' series into a mini series like they were going to.id rather see that as a theater movie ala harry potter.
  • If this gets picked up and has the amount of adult (i.e., serious) content that it should, you just know that there will be some loons crawling out from under their rocks crying about 'The children" and that fable characters should be for children and not a way to deliver crazy "Hollywood liberal values" to them. We've seen it before numerous times with a power that has still kept cartoons trapped in the kids-only ghetto with few exceptions.
  • Plenty of graphic novels being put int production lately, it seems. I mean, more than usual. Do we thank Robert Rodriquez for starting the trend with SIN CITY, or more Zack Snyder with 300?
  • None of them. They didn't start the trend at all.
  • Although I love this idea I wonder why ABC thinks this show will be successful after they canceled Pushing Dasies I imagen this show would have the same type of feel.
  • I was thinking the exact same thing. If it makes an entire season beyond the initial 13 episode order I will be surprised. With that said I'm all for them giving it a try.
  • I don't see how this could happen. To me it always felt like a story that was told as a comic book because there really wasn't a better way to tell it. There is now way they could possible capture the epic scope this comic has with a TV budget and they won't be able to touch a lot of the adult themes the book does. If they pull it off I'll gladly eat my own hands.
  • I've got a sneaking suspicion that if this gets popular (which I desperately hope it does, I FREAKING love this book) that it would go the way of heroes if they fo a volume a season. in the second volume they go the farm, which is where all of the non human fables live, and that will be the tipping point, where it will get really good, or where it will lose it's mainstream audience.
  • I always thought 'graphic novel' was a one-time, chunky book telling a bulk story, while 'comics' were only so many pages and continued a more frequent series over time? Am I wrong? (Not being snaky, I'm honestly not sure...)

    And by trend, I mean more than ever - right now - graphic novels are being made into films. I know they have been around for years, but it was hardly common practice. However, on the back of recent successes, a graphic-novel-to-film-adaptation trend is clearly in motion. Seems a new graphic novel adaptation is green lit every week recently. You weren't seeing that 10 years ago. Even 5.
  • This is my favorite series right now. I'm totally caught up and I'm waiting monthly for every issue. Kinda sucks, but I'm reading Jack of Fables now to make me feel better. I'm hoping that the show will be very successful...even though I think a mini-series on HBO would be so much better like everyone else is saying.
  • Chad Davis
    League of extraordinary gentlemen, v for vendetta... etc. lots of movies were graphic novels before, just no one knows because READING them is just becoming popular.
    but to answer your question, a lot of "graphic novels" are just comics in a more condensed fashion. Fables for example, is a comic book series, the graphic novels are just a few of the comics combined into a volume.

    on a separate note, I LOVE fables. Second favorite series (next to Bone)
    Definitely pick it up if at all it sounds interesting, the writing is amazing.
  • Chad Davis
    I agree!
    i've always thought similarly.
    and if we're wrong, I'll help you eat your hands... we can split them while we watch. like a TV dinner.
  • Chad Davis said it all. Damn i'm too fucking slow.
  • Greggory Basore
    Well here's hoping the trend of Fables jumping from company to company continues for a while... at least once more. While ABC can do some hard edged stuff (like Lost) Fables is just too much for them to handle. It'd probably end up being tamed and watered down and still be seen as way too much for general TV audiences. At the very least they'd need to run a disclaimer at the beginning of each episode telling parents not to let their kids watch.
  • YES! I love that comic!
  • JAmes
    There was a show a while whos name i forget which was very fable/fae fantasy, can anyone remember the name of it. Set in new york I think
  • James
    got it 10th kingdom check it out if you haven't already,
  • right. it won't be the same story on network television.
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