NYCC: Once Upon a Time Brings Fairy Tales to Life

At New York Comic Con today, attendees had the chance to see the premiere episode of ABC's new series, Once Upon a Time, followed by a Q&A; with creators Edward Kitsis and Adam Horowitz.

Once Upon a Time tells the story of what happens when some very familiar fairy tale characters become trapped in our world, with no prior knowledge of their earlier lives, thanks to a vengeful spell by the Evil Queen (Lana Parilla). But a new arrival in the town, Emma Swan (Jennifer Morrison), may be the key to restorting everyone to their rightful identity.

Kitsis and Horowitz -- who wrote for Lost for all six years of that series -- noted they first came up with this idea about eight years ago, due to their love of fairy tales, where Kitsis noted, "You can go anywhere and there's a promise of hope." But they then ended up musing what it must be like to be the Evil Queen and, "Everything you did failed. Where's the place you'd go where you could win?"

The pilot episode includes many flashbacks to the fairy tale world, which will continue in future episodes. Said Kitsis, "Similar to Lost, we'll focus on one character," noting that the second episode is about the Evil Queen and the third about Snow White (Gennifer Goodwin) and Prince Charming (Josh Dallas). The plan is to explore a lot about the inner workings of these characters, with Kitsis cracking, "Why is Grumpy grumpy?" and Horowitz saying in the new case of the Evil Queen, "What would make a person do something so horrible?"

Jane Espenson (Buffy, Battlestar Galactica) is also writing for the show and was in the audience. Horowitz said two episodes she'd written so far would explore, "How Jiminy Cricket (Raphael Sbarge) becomes a cricket. How Rumpelstiltskin (Robert Carlyle) became what he became."

Once Upon a Time kicks off a number of fairy tale themed TV series and movies in the next year. Asked about this, Kitsis remarked that Disney's Snow White film opened in 1937 during the depression. He noted that he felt that with this being a rather uncertain time for people, "It's no coincidence you're seeing all these fairy tales come out, because there's something comforting about these stories."

Once Upon a Time coming from Disney means the producers have access to a lot of Disney-specific characters, such as Jiminy Cricket and Maleficent (played by True Blood's Kristen Bauer). Horowitz said Disney had been, "really open to us playing with a lot of their biggest characters."

Also look for Jessy Schram (Falling Skies) as Cinderella, Emma Caulfield (Buffy) as the Blind Witch from Hansel & Gretel and Giancarlo Esposito (Breaking Bad) as the Magic Mirror.

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Once Upon a Time premieres Sunday, October 23rd on ABC.

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