The Guys Who Gave You ‘Star Trek’ Want to Ride the Fairy Tale Gravy Train with a ‘Sleepy Hollow’ TV Series

According to Entertainment Weekly, Bob Orci and Alex Kurtzman, the prolific writing/producing duo who've typed up such films as Mission: Impossible 3, Transformers, Star Trek and Jack of All Trades (you're welcome), have signed a deal with Fox for a pilot based on the Washington Irving story, 'The Legend of Sleepy Hollow.' The story was most recently adapted as a film back in 1999 with Tim Burton's Sleepy Hollow, starring--you guessed it--Johnny Depp as Sleepy Hollow's newest resident, Ichabod Crane.

Details are still sparse, but the new version, to be directed by Underworld-director and luckiest man alive by being Kate Beckinsale's husband Len Wiseman, is being described as a 'modern-day supernatural thriller based on the legend of Sleepy Hollow.' Personally I was hoping this fairy tale adaptation craze would die down once Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters and Jack the Giant Slayer bomb at the box office later this year (please?), but Orci and Kurtzman have a pretty good track record that you have to respect, so I'm giving them the benefit of the doubt that it's not going to be about Ichabod Crane's long-lost great-great-grand niece (a 20-year-old ingenue of course) who returns to the emo town of Sleepy Hollow to learn if the headless horseman is real or not. Actually, that's not such a bad idea. Trademarked!

Love them or hate them, fairy tale adaptations have an all-over-the-place track record with critics and audiences. Check out the gallery for the best and worst of this fad.