DC Comic 'Fables' Targeted for Film Adaptation With 'Royal Affair' Director (Exclusive)

David Heyman, who produced the "Harry Potter" movies," is developing the fantasy project.

Nikolaj Arcel

Fables, DC/Vertigo’s long-running and acclaimed comic book series, is being targeted for the big screen.

Nikolaj Arcel, who directed the well-received Danish film A Royal Affair, is attached to direct the fantasy adaptation, which will be written by Jeremy Slater. David Heyman and Jeffrey Clifford of Heyday Films, the shingle behind the Harry Potter movies, are on board to produce.
Fables, created in 2002 by Bill Willingham, centers on fairy- and folktale characters ranging from Snow White and Cinderella to the Big Bad Wolf and Little Boy Blue, who are kicked out of their world and now live in a secret pocket of New York City. The series has won 14 Eisner awards for its storytelling and art.

In 2004, Warner Bros. tried to develop a movie with the Jim Henson Company but didn’t get to the writing stage.
In late 2008, the comic was getting the TV treatment via ABC and was going be written by Six Degrees scribes Stu Zicherman and Raven Metzner and directed by David Semel (American Horror Story). That too didn’t take, although ABC went on to air the viewer favorite Once Upon a Time, also about fairy tale characters in the real world.
Slater worked on a draft of the Fox Fantastic Four reboot and is repped by UTA and Kaplan/Perrone Entertainment.
Arcel’s Affair was a period drama which starred Alicia Vikander and Mads Mikkelsen and was nominated for an Oscar in the best foreign film category. The filmmaker, who also co-wrote the screenplay to the Swedish version of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, is repped by WME and U.K.’s United Agents.