Happily N'Ever After

Happily N'Ever After (2007)

Fairy Tale Endings Aren't What They Used To Be.

An alliance of evil-doers, led by Frieda, looks to take over Fairy Tale Land. But when Ella realizes her stepmother is out to ruin her storybook existence, she takes a dramatic turn and blossoms into the leader of the resistance effort.

Date of release
2007-01-05
TMDB
5.1 / 10 (458)
Runtime
1h 27m
Genres
Adventure, Animation, Comedy, Family, Fantasy
Director
Paul Bolger
Collection
Happily N'Ever After Collection

Casting

Interesting facts

  • Budget: $47M

Happily N'Ever After is a 2006 animated fantasy adventure comedy film directed by Paul J. Bolger, produced by John H. Williams, and written by Rob Moreland. It is inspired by fairy tales of the Brothers Grimm and Hans Christian Andersen and loosely based on the 1999 animated German television series Simsala Grimm. The title is the opposite of a stock phrase, happily ever after; the name is contracted with an apostrophe between the N and the E. The film stars the voices of Sarah Michelle Gellar, Freddie Prinze, Jr., Andy Dick, Wallace Shawn, Patrick Warburton, George Carlin, and Sigourney Weaver. The film was one of Carlin's final works before his death in 2008.

Production

In 2000, Berlin Animation Film (a subsidiary of Dresdner Bank) wanted to invest their funds (allocating at $100,000,000) in animated projects, and were interested in using the funds on a film adaptation of Simsala Grimm. Greenlight Media was looking to sell the series to the United States, so they partnered with Berlin Animation Film and John H. Williams of Vanguard Animation to produce the film.

The film was to be produced in traditional animation like the series, only with the art style and backgrounds based on the art of Dutch painters to give it a storybook feel. Hahn Film AG, which helped produce the animation for the first season of Simsala Grimm, was set to provide lead animation production. Animators and concept artists were hired in early 2001.

Simsala Grimm creators André Sikojev, Stefan Beiten and Claus Clausen wrote the first draft for the script, which had a darker tone in contrast to the series' light-hearted tone. The draft was rejected by Williams and co-producer Michael Hefferon, and Vanguard commissioned a new comedic draft, written by Moreland.

Several actors signed on to provide voices for the film. The cast included Andy Dick as Yoyo, Wallace Shawn as Doc Croc, Freddie Prinze Jr. as Rick, Sarah Michelle Gellar as Ella, Patrick Warburton as the Prince, George Carlin as the Wizard, and Sigourney Weaver as Frieda. Gellar and Prinze Jr. recorded some of their scenes together.

In October 2002, Greenlight was affected by the early 2000s recession, causing financial issues and disruptions to their projects. They were looking for other companies (such as Millimages and Magma Films Ltd) to produce Simsala Grimm's second season at the time, so they decided to back out of producing the film, and sold the rights and interest of the film to Dresdner Bank, although they would still hold back-end participation.

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