With songs like “Arabian Nights,” “Friend Like Me,” “Prince Ali,” and “A Whole New World,” it would have been very surprising if the upcoming live-action Aladdin film wasn’t a musical. But just in case, the director has officially ended any doubt.
“It’d be tough not to make [Aladdin] a musical,” Guy Ritchie told Nerdist in a new interview. He wouldn’t say more than that because he’s “really just immersed [himself] into that project” but did add that “we still haven’t found exactly which direction we’re going in. I’m confident that at some stage it will reveal itself to me, but right now it’s just a bit too premature.”
That’s both encouraging and discouraging at the same time. The encouraging part is that Ritchie knows a Disney Aladdin movie has to have the songs in it. Those songs are the lifeblood of Disney’s version of that story and without them, fans would certainly feel cheated. The nearly $1.2 billion the live-action musical version of Beauty and the Beast has grossed certainly must’ve made that decision easy as well.
However, it’s disappointing to hear that, even in these very, very early stages, he’s not quite sure what the movie is going to be. Then again, that’s not an easy problem to solve. Ritchie obviously wants to do something close to the animated film but also give it his own unique take. We just hope he doesn’t go too far out of the Cave of Wonders. He has to fit those songs in, after all.
Ritchie’s next film, King Arthur, is out this week and he’s likely to make the Aladdin remake his next film after that, but nothing is set.
[Nerdist]