Anne Rice’s Sleeping Beauty: New Book, TV Show
It’s old news from last September, but new to me: a television production company has acquired the rights to produce a television show based on Anne Rice’s Beauty books.
Televisa USA has acquired TV and digital rights to Anne Rice’s best-selling book series The Sleeping Beauty, with plans to produce the erotic BDSM trilogy as a TV series, The Hollywood Reporter has learned.
First published in 1983-85 as The Claiming of Sleeping Beauty, Beauty’s Punishment and Beauty’s Release, the series is set in a medieval fantasy world. The books center on a young princess who, like Sleeping Beauty, is awakened from her long sleep – only in a more provocative fashion than in the fairytale.
By fucking her. What the writer would have said if equipped with a spine is that Beauty’s prince woke her up by fucking her. And then, basically, he kept her as a pet — one of many! — as was his habit.
Obviously the intention is to cash in on the pop-BDSM craze currently under way thanks to the 50 Shades of Grey phenomenon. The article doesn’t say where this series would be broadcast, but unless it’s filmed in the same wall-to-wall soft-core 85%-porn style in which the books were written, it’s going to be a huge disappointment. Which pretty much means it will have to be on one of the premium cable channels, or it will suck. (Most likely, it will suck.) Visually it needs to be “Orgy Scenes From Caligula” meets “Game Of Thrones brothel”, and content-wise it needs to be wall-to-wall naked slaves of both genders, or it won’t capture the essential charm of the books. This would be expensive to produce and I have little faith that it will actually happen.
As a throwaway detail, the story also confirms the rumor from a year ago that Rice is writing a fourth Beauty book:
“I wrote this to be fun, in the belief that dominance and submission can be romantic and delightful as well as erotic,” said Rice, who noted in February that she’s prepping a fourth book in the series.
I guess she’s finally over the whole “I’m a Christian now and ashamed of my devil-friendly writings” deal, and is now ready to get back to the work she’s good at.
Update: I went a little nuts on Twitter trying to explain what a Beauty TV show ought to, but will not, look like.
A new TV show based on the Anne Rice series of Beauty books? That show is gonna suck so hard unless it's done right: http://t.co/HH6CsHhAzZ
— ErosBlog Bacchus (@ErosBlogBacchus) February 6, 2015
A TV show of the Beauty books will suck if the producers slack off on ANY aspect of the over-the-top BDSM sensuality of Rice's vision.
— ErosBlog Bacchus (@ErosBlogBacchus) February 6, 2015
"Beauty" TV done right needs female AND male slaves, all nude all the time, erections everywhere, rich sets, lots of non-stop kink going on.
— ErosBlog Bacchus (@ErosBlogBacchus) February 6, 2015
Think Bob Guccione's unrealized vision for Caligula, translated to BDSM, filmed for both male and female gaze, in Game Of Thrones style.
— ErosBlog Bacchus (@ErosBlogBacchus) February 6, 2015
THAT is what The Claiming Of Sleeping Beauty (et seq) would look like on a screen. But I really don't believe Televisa can or will go there.
— ErosBlog Bacchus (@ErosBlogBacchus) February 6, 2015
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[…] Word via ErosBlog is that Anne Rice (A. N. Roquelaure) is not only writing a fourth book in her Beauty series, but also she has sold the series rights to a TV producer. […]
I feel certain that you are correct about the Caligula/Game of Thrones advice. Some day, someone clever in Hollywood will make an extremely high budget movie along these lines, that is just as unexpurgated as literature can be, it will star A-list royalty like Brad and Angelina, and it will become an instant classic, and will reap more profits than any other movie ever produced.
Also, I might add, that I’m not so certain that Christianity’s primary governing tenet to “Do unto others, as you would have them do unto you”, excludes (or should exclude), a healthy BDSM lifestyle…
Dr. Whiplash, there are a lot of cultural things modern Christians embrace or avoid that are seemingly not consistent with the texts and principles they claim to follow. If you doubt me, look at the history of the temperance movement in the United States and its links to the Baptist church. Even today Baptist churches in much of America preach the evils of drinking even just one drop of alcohol. And then they preach the miracle of water-into-wine while seeming completely unbothered by the intellectual whiplash (if you will pardon the expression.)
While it’s niche, there is something called Christian Domestic Discipline, as explored in John Safran’s Race Relations Episode 7. He takes a former girlfriend along, presents her as his wife, and tries his hand at spanking her, as she asked for when they were dating (he was such a liberal modern man that he refused at the time). A hand doesn’t do much, neither does a belt, but once the paddle comes out and gets used she jumps and undergoes an amazing transformation, it’s really quite interesting.
The couple they visit seem regular enough, it’s the wife who’s quite into receiving the discipline and the husband wasn’t that hot on it at first, but he apparently got more interested when he saw the effect on his wife.