If this were a traditional fairy tale, it could be written that once upon a time, producer Kevin Williamson ("Dawson's Creek") decided to adapt an Argentinian television series that looks at what would happen if "The Three Little Pigs," "Little Red Riding Hood" and "Hansel and Gretel" were written today. Those beloved fairy tales would be reimagined as the dark and twisted psychological thriller "Tell Me a Story" that debuts on streaming service CBS All Access on Halloween.
This would not be a way of thinking that Williamson would have to huff and puff to understand as he has already shown his skill at being able to put new spins on old genres. His screenplay for "Scream" spun the living daylights out of the horror-movie world. Toss in work on "The Following," "Stalker," "The Vampire Diaries" and "I Know What You Did Last Summer" and Williamson has built up a reputation for creating works that scare. It's a reputation he wasn't trying to earn.
"When I'm sitting down and writing, I'm always writing for the tears. I'm always writing to the tears. I'm always writing the emotional part. I like emotional storytelling, and so I'm always writing for the moment before the scary beat or the moment after it," Williamson said.
Getting to adapting classic fairy tales has been a long journey for Williamson. It started when he got the inspiration for the structure of "Scream" from the 87 times he saw the stage production of "Into the Woods" performed. He thought that if that musical could deconstruct and subvert fairy tales, the same could be done with horror films. Now, Williamson is offering his own spin on the fairy-tale world.
"Tell Me a Story " is a 10-episode series set in modern-day New York City where the modernized versions of "The Three Little Pigs," "Little Red Riding Hood" and "Hansel and Gretel" have been intertwined. The cast of includes James Wolk, Billy Magnussen, Dania Ramirez, Danielle Campbell, Dorian Missick, Michael Raymond-James, Davi Santos, Sam Jaeger, Zabryna Guevara, Paul Wesley and Kim Cattrall.
All the episodes will have a fairy-tale element but the stories will be deeply rooted in the real world. In the case of "The Three Little Pigs," the story is built around a police brutality protest where things go terribly wrong.
Danielle Campbell ("The Originals") likes that the new version of "Little Red Riding Hood" has gotten away from the sweet girl depicted in the original fairy tale.
Campbell said, "I think our adaption _ which is making it really fun for me to play at least _ she's troubled. She's going through loss. She's just trying to distract herself and party and drink and go out. And she's kind of this really troubled kid. That's been a lot of fun."
That kind of approach is why Williamson describes "Tell Me a Story" as being like nothing else on TV at the moment. He is certain that viewers will enjoy getting to live in the world of characters where there will be some very dramatic moments and also time for comedy. The test will be to decide how the characters from the original fairy tales are presented in the streaming show.
The biggest difference between Williamson's new offering and the Argentine series is that "Tell Me a Story" blends three tales into one season while the original series retold each fairy tale in one episode. Being able to tell stories over multiple episodes is why Williamson continues to produce programming for television and having "Tell Me a Story" on a streaming service has given him even more leeway.
"As a writer it allowed me to sort of expand, to try to grow as a storyteller. Expand upon some of the things I've done in the past, and take the best to me and expand and grow and try to do it differently,' Williamson said. "It's not so much about, for me, pushing the envelope. It's about being able to dive into a character and just show the messiness of life.
"Sometimes in network television, you have to have that beginning, middle, and end with the character's drive, where it goes wrong, what they learn, and wrap it up by the end of the hour; and with this type of storytelling, I've been able to sort of get a little messier in exploring a lot of the characters and their relationships.
