Open letter to creators of Charlotte's Web (2006)

Dear Gary Winick, Paramount Pictures and other art haters.

I know you like money. But please, pretty please, do not crush my childhood memories like this. It may seem to you that it is a good idea to make a live-action movie of Charlotte's Web, but it just doesn't work. It was so heart warming movie as a cartoon. From my childhood I can remember few good movies. Charlotte's Web, The Snowman, Ronja Rövarsdottir, Pelle Svanslös, to name but few. Ronja I can imagine as a remake, but those other movies you just can't do remakes of.

Who would like to se The Snowman as a live-action movie? What, put John Goodman as the Snowman, Haley Osment as the kid and expect a good movie out of it? (This is not a tip for you guys, I'm serious!)

The younger generation might not know Charlotte's Web, but there's already Babe, Babe II and what have you. The kids are gonna watch this blasphemy of a movie and compaire it to the Babe movies. They already saw the talking pig movies, so it's nothing new in that, but then you have a spider as the other main character. Babe with spiders? They are not going to give the respect the original movie deserves. Like the Garfield movie... Only saw a trailer of that one and that was enough.

Some things you just can't transfer to other format. Who would like to see a tubby kid play Charlie Brown? Danny DeVito as Winnie The Pooh? Wind In The Willow I can forgive, since I know Monty Python guys won't do such a vulgar thing to a masterpiece like Gary Winick is doing. (Pee Wee Herman could be funny Bugs Bunny... Naw, kidding...)

Not to sound too much like raving "don't touch the old stuff" -freak, I have to admit, lots of my childhood comic books have been transferred to big screen succesfully. Spider-Man is one of my all-time favourites and those movies were brilliant. Can't wait for the next one. (Like, Venom's gonna be there: Spidey lost his powers about the same time as John Jameson came from his space mission... He's infected! And Harry's gonna be the new Green Goblin.. And maybe, if we're lucky, even Dr. Curt Connors (Peter's teacher in SM2) as The Lizzard!) And I just can't wait for the Transformers movie to come out! X-Men were brilliant, Batman Begins I can understand. But please, please, please, no more live-action films of Charlotte's Web, The Snowman, Pelle Svanslös, Charlie Brown, Winnie The Pooh or such. They don't do anyone else any good, except the wallets of those who make them. Let something be sacred.

Re-issue the old Charlotte's Web on DVD, and you guys can be sure that people who were kids in the '70s and '80s will buy that film "for their kids". Pay your villa and your Ferrari with some other stuff, say, like with an original idea. Have you tried that?


May the ticket sales be slow,

Sami Rautiainen