Fairy Tale remakes seem to be the hot trend in Hollywood now, so it comes as no surprised that Sony Pictures is planning to produce a new film based off the re-telling of Christian Andersen’s classic fairy tale, “The Little Mermaid.” The new film will be nothing like the popular Disney version and will actually be an adaptation of Carolyn Turgeon book “Mermaid: A Twist on the Classic Tale.”

Shana Feste (Country Strong) has been hired to write and direct the project, while Tobey Maguire and Jenno Topping will produce.

Here’s the description of Turgeon’s book:
When Lenia, a young mermaid princess, rescues a man from a shipwreck and carries him to shore, her selfless act is witnessed by Princess Margrethe, who is staying in a convent nearby for protection from the war her father is fighting against another kingdom. The shipwrecked young man’s name is Christopher, and in the weeks that he’s nursed back to health at the convent, he and Margrethe fall in love—but it’s not until after he leaves that Margrethe discovers he’s the prince from the kingdom her family is at war with.

Meanwhile, in the sea Lenia is suffering; she fell in love with Christopher in the moments she carried him to shore, so she makes a deal with the sea witch: in exchange for her voice and tongue she receives a potion that changes her into human form. Margrethe comes up with a plan of her own: she’ll be offered in marriage to Christopher, thus uniting the kingdoms and putting an end to the years of conflict between the two lands. But when Margrethe arrives, ready to win and wed her prince, she finds him enraptured with a beautiful woman who looks very familiar. Margrethe is sure she’s seen her before…

Source: Variety