A LONG TALE LED TO `HAPPILY N'EVER AFTER'.

Byline: Evan Henerson Staff Writer

The Wizard of Fairy Tale Land has gone on vacation, leaving control of the kingdom to his two less-than-reliable assistants. And when Cinderella's black-hearted stepmother, Frieda, gets hold of the the Wizard's magic staff, the outcome of Cinderella's tale and several other Grimms Brothers stories are thrown into jeopardy.

Lionsgate's animated ``Happily N'Ever After,'' which opens Friday, features the voices of Sarah Michelle Gellar, Freddie Prinze Jr., Andy Dick, Wallace Shawn, Patrick Warburton and Sigourney Weaver.

We checked in with the film's producer, John H. Williams, who, as the producer of the first two ``Shrek'' films, had some experience monkeying with fairy tales.

Q: How did you get to be the go-to producer when someone is looking to do a Grimm scramble?

A: Oddly we were approached about getting involved in this before the first ``Shrek'' even came out. The Berliner Film Co. had done a TV project, and they had some extra animation funds left over to do a film, and this is the one they were interested in. Knowing I was producing ``Shrek,'' they asked if I would get involved. They put together a cast that is still in it today. That was five years ago (when) we had that cast and the original recordings.

Q: Is five years fairly standard development time for an animated film?

A: This one took some twists -- and a lot of them do. ``Shrek'' took about six years from when it started. ``Happily N'Ever After'' originally was going to be a two-dimensional (film). Then there was enough interest from foreign markets that the movie definitively had to be computer animated. So there would be another threshold on how to get this movie done in that way. That required building out a new studio.

Q: Yet another Cinderella tale. The girl's got legs.

A: The next best thing to star casting is having something an audience already knows. These stories all came from the Grimms, which we used as sort of the building blocks. It's good to have characters that some people think they know what they're going to do and then be able to do something a little different and have some fun.

Q: Any theories as to why, of all the Grimm tales, Cinderella's is the one that seems to recur most frequently?

A: She's obviously a deserving character from the outset, so you kind of are rooting for her to get something. I guess it's more like Tiny Tim or Oliver Twist -- or even Harry Potter. You gain sympathy for the one being taken advantage of inappropriately or abusively. Cinderella is the quintessential female character who is being mishandled, mistreated from the beginning. You're hoping somehow she's going to get something better out of life.

Q: You must know the musical ``Into the Woods'' that has a bunch of Grimm fairy tales overlapping each other? Could that be a movie?

A: I know there have been a number of noble attempts. It certainly could be made. Maybe with movies like ``Chicago'' coming back, maybe this is the time ``Into the Woods'' will be re-explored. It's definitely a very unusual stage fantasy. A classic, I would say.

Evan Henerson, [phone]

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(1 -- 2) Ella (voiced by Sarah Michelle Gellar), top, battles her evil stepmother, Frieda (Sigourney Weaver), above, to ensure a proper ending in ``Happily N'ever After.''