Logline Central is an irregular segment that takes a deeper look at loglines of scripts or projects that have just been purchased, as listed on DoneDealPro.
This was logged earlier this week:
Title: Wicked Lovely
Logline: A 17-year-old girl, who can see fairies, must fend off the advances of a fairy king determined to marry her to save the planet from his vengeful mother.
Writer: Caroline Thompson
More: To be adapted from the first book in Melissa Marr's series. CAA brokered the book deal with Writers House.
Maybe it's just me, but the first time I read the above, I dismissed it. Fairies. Meh. Not that I have anything against fairies and unicorns and the like, but they're just not my thing. Next.
Then, just now, I re-read it. What interests me isn't so much the mystical element, but this: "must fend off the advances of a fairy king determined to marry her to save the planet from his vengeful mother." Does this mean what I interpret it to mean? Our dear little protagonist is rejecting the (assumingly) unwanted advances of a fairy king, but he mainly wants to marry her, because doing so would save the Earth? So... he's not a bad guy? Rather, he's actually trying to do something heroic?
It's clear that the "vengeful mother" is the antagonist, but not immediately so. When I first skimmed this - and yes, I skim a lot of loglines, which is probably not too different from how most people in the industry "read" them - it seemed that this fairy king was the antagonist. Closer inspection, though, paints him in a different light. No, it's still not positive, per se, but he's nowhere near as villainous. In fact, he's probably just as good or bad as the 17 year-old he's trying to marry (he should probably wait until she's 18 to avoid winding up on To Catch A Predator).
There seem to be three major characters in play here, though my guess is that the vengeful mother is more an off-screen presence than an on-screen one. Again, I'm not so interested in the idea behind this adaptation, but more so the mechanics of who is represented in what sort of light on screen. The line between the "good guys" and the "bad guys" is less clear in this logline than I initially believed. And that, just for the record, is not necessarily a good thing. Loglines should be pretty clear about who is who. I'm not sure I have the right impression from this, though I am curious to know more. In that way, I suppose this worked.
If I were an Exec at League Productions, I'd most likely request coverage on this.
