Vince Gilligan has given us a different look at meth cooks with Breaking Bad, and a new perspective on sketchy lawyers with Better Call Saul. Now he’s doing something very different, with a revamping of Jack and the Beanstalk, because of course.
Deadline reports that Disney has acquired Gilligan’s Beanstalk, which is being described as a "revisionist take" on the classic legend that involves magic beans and a goose that lays golden eggs. It’s certainly a departure subject matter wise for Gilligan, whose current projects include Saul on AMC and the cop comedy/drama Battle Creek on CBS, but it’s one of those pairings that sounds so crazy and off-the-wall that it just might work.
The studio picked up Beanstalk based on a detailed outline from Gilligan, who also reportedly has his eye on the director’s chair, even though it’s still very early in the process. He’s helmed a few episodes of The X-Files and Breaking Bad, and one of Better Call Saul, but this would be his feature-length film debut in that role. But even though the idea is all his, he won’t be doing the writing, as the Emmy-winning writer Thomas Schnauz has been selected to handle the scripting duties.
Granted it’s Disney, and they can do damn near whatever they want, but this comes not too long after Bryan Singer’s 2013 stab at similar material, Jack the Giant Slayer, which was also fairly revisionist. That film wasn’t particularly well received by either audiences or critics, and struggled to even gross what it initially cost (it made $197 million globally and cost a reported $195 million).
There aren’t any more details about Beanstalk available at the present time, but it will be interesting to see what exactly makes this a "revisionist" approach to the story. Are they going funny, serious, maybe even gritty? This is just so unlike anything else Gilligan has done before you can’t help but wonder. About the closest he’s ever come to this is writing Hancock, the 2008 movie that cast Will Smith as a drunken superhero, but even that is still a way, way different ballgame than Jack and the Beanstalk.
It’s hard to imagine any take on this tale that isn’t a big, special effects heavy affair. You have a massive beanstalk growing into the sky and a giant wandering around the joint after all. You also have to wonder if Disney would be willing to give Gilligan the reins for a project like this, one that seems like it will require a particular set of skills he may not have. Then again, perhaps he has such a strong, specific vision for Beanstalk that he’ll ultimately be able to convince the studio. He certainly has a unique perspective, and stranger things have happened. If nothing else, this should be a sight to behold.
