Movie Spotlight: Big Bad Wolf Fairytales

The wolf in this story isn’t hiding in the woods waiting to huff and puff. He’s out front, mugging for the camera, getting himself into trouble he could have avoided if he weren’t so desperate for attention. That’s the version of the Big Bad Wolf leading a 45-minute animated collection built from fairytales everyone already knows, plus a few he seems to have invented himself along the way.

Jena Rundus wrote and directed Big Bad Wolf Fairytales for her family's studio, Wolfy World, with her husband Vince composing the music, and the whole project runs on one question: what if the villain wasn't actually that bad? “He’s definitely a villain, but the way we portray him, he’s not really scary,” Rundus says. “He has a tenderness about him and a silliness that’s hard not to love. He craves attention, gets himself into trouble, and often tries to be much badder than he really is at heart.”

Two passions that had nothing to do with each other

Rundus traces the idea back to reading fairytales to her kids, who are grown now, when they were small. That habit ran parallel to another life entirely. She and Vince are professional musicians and BMI songwriters who have spent years writing and performing together. “A great song can help bring a character to life, create emotion, and make a story even more memorable,” she says. The film is what happens when those two things finally collide, storybook adventure fused to original songs, in a project she describes simply as a natural fit.

Villains are more fun to write

Ask Rundus why the wolf gets to lead instead of, say, Red Riding Hood, and the answer comes fast. “Our kids, and honestly me too, were always excited when the bad guy showed up,” she says. Villains bring tension, and this one is built for lovable chaos rather than anything that would actually scare a kid off. In one scene the wolf gets smacked in the nose by a forest ranger while wearing Grandma’s pink nightgown and bonnet. “Just typing that makes me laugh,” Rundus admits. “I think animated characters are at their funniest when their plans go completely wrong.”

Extra sauce on familiar stories

The collection folds in The Three Little Pigs and Little Red Riding Hood alongside stories built entirely from scratch. Rundus wasn’t interested in a straight retelling of anything. “There are so many creators putting out the same versions of these stories,” she says. “We weren’t interested in simply retelling the stories word for word. That’s where the chaos comes in.” She calls it putting a little extra sauce into the mix. One original entry, Three Little Wolves and the Big Sneezy Pig, flips the formula so a pig’s enormous sneezes do the damage instead of a wolf’s huffing and puffing. The brick house still wins in the end, just for different reasons.

Songs that write themselves

Music isn’t decoration here. Rundus says a line of a story would sometimes turn into a melody before she noticed it happening, the same way it did years ago when she'd catch herself singing parts of a bedtime story instead of reading them. Vince composed the score and songs for the whole collection, and the two of them have built a career on animated projects packed with original music, because, as she puts it, that's simply how they think and create. The 45-minute runtime, short enough for younger attention spans and long enough to fit a handful of stories and songs, was built around that same instinct for pacing.

What to know before you press play

Rundus wants one thing understood going in. “He may look intimidating, and sometimes his judgment is a little questionable, but there’s more to him than meets the eye,” she says of the wolf. “Don’t judge a book by its cover, I think the same idea applies to our little movie.” Her hope for anyone watching is straightforward. “My hope is that when the movie is over, you'll have laughed a little, sung along to a few songs, and maybe even walked away with a gentle reminder or two about kindness, helping others, and being the best version of yourself.”

Animation

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Streaming now on Relay.