Once upon a pitch

Brand recognition is everything these days, so it’s no surprise that Hollywood is turning public-domain fairy tales into youth-demographic-friendly fodder. After all, adapting unlicensed stories like “Little Red Riding Hood” (Red Riding Hood) or “Beauty and the Beast” (Beastly) is like finding a free lottery ticket.

The recipe is simple: Take a story with universal recognition extending all the way to toddlers, cast some young stars with alluring picnic baskets, and sprinkle liberally with sex and violence while tempering the brew with a Twilight-esque quasi-endorsement of celibacy.

If it doesn’t work, you paid nothing for the rights; if it does work, you copyright the shit out of your version and make sequels, prequels, reboots and pre-boots until the end of time. It’s such a can’t-miss formula that I’d like to make my own pitches for fairy-tale adaptations:

Jack and Jill: By day, he’s Jack Simpson (Michael Cera), a nerdy teen virgin; by night, he’s Jill Simms (Taylor Momsen), a bloodthirsty and sexually insatiable vampire. When water fetchers start to go missing, fingers point to Jack and Jill—but what’s really happening on top of the hill?

Three Crazy Pigs: Shia LaBeouf stars as “The Bricklayer” in Michael Bay’s high-octane fairy tale. Don’t miss the eye-popping scene in which the house of straw is destroyed, a CGI action sequence that cost more than $85 million to produce.

Behind the Cupboard Door: What does “old” Mother Hubbard (Helen Mirren) see when she looks inside her cupboard? This cougar on the prowl only finds two “bones,” but they belong to young hunks Robert Pattinson and Cam Gigandet. Based on the shocking nursery rhyme.

Someone’s Been Sleeping in My Head: Revenge of Goldilocks: After getting murdered in a savage bear attack, Goldilocks (Dakota Fanning) takes revenge the only way she can: by invading their dreams!