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AverageJoeArtwork — Future Live-Action Remakes

#adaptations #aladdin #chernabog #d23 #disney #dumbo #fairies #future #genies #littlemermaid #liveaction #mulan #nightonbaldmountain #peterpan #pinocchio #princes #tinkerbell #beautyandthebeast #cruelladevil #winniethepooh #theswordinthestone
Published: 2016-07-15 02:45:46 +0000 UTC; Views: 13672; Favourites: 40; Downloads: 17
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Description DAY 195


This year's D23 Expo begins today and you'd probably guess that's what I'll be covering... but that'd be too predictable. Instead, I'm gonna do this. One of the main things D23 does is reveal what the company will be doing for the future and one of the BIGGEST things Disney has planned is live-action remakes of their animated films, which is our subject (heck, a lot of these movies are bound to have a lot more information spewed). I've heard 2 reasons for why Disney is doing this: they're updating them for a new generation (and reanimating their films again in any form of animation would be kinda pointless) and that Disney won't have that many owning rights to stories they adapt so might as well use as much time left as they can. Either one I can totally understand. Disney's has a rough start with these remakes, but only in these last 2 years have they been getting progressivly better and better. Since these are currently in-development and being made as we speak, all of my critiques will be nothing more than mere speculation; I'm just creating MY OWN version of what might be happening based off what I've read off multiple websites. Same applies for the drawing theirselves (and some elements might look similar to other people's artwork). If any of these films actually end up looking a bit like these, it's just a once-in-a-lifetime coincidence; also, this drawing in no way interferes with my separate L.A.D. drawings. You guys are probably thinking that I should save this for December, but it's more fun to get my current thoughts out now before any other updates come about. Feel free to express YOUR personal thoughts of these future films.
Beauty & the Beast is all finished and set for a Saint Patrick's Day release next year. The first I heard of it mentioned prominently at the end of Brows Held High Beauty & the Beast pt 3 . I was aware of Cinderella and Jungle Book getting the l.a. treatment and I was a bit worried about how their treatments would end up (mostly because of how both Maleficent and other fairytale movies were getting the unnecessary darker action route and sucked because of that) When B&TB was instantly brought up on Jerk's phone, I was like "OK, why's that so bad?", 'cause Jerk's voice was filled with horror. Then when he said "the director of Twilight: Breaking Dawn" I felt exactly like Kyle "WHY ARE YOU LETTING THIS HAPPEN?! HOW COULD YOU HAVE SUCH... BLIND DEVOTION TO A MOUSE?!" But actually, turns out a live-action adaptation dates further back than that. Apparently this started out as an adaptation of just the Broadway musical, but according to Alan Menken, it was canned. Speaking of Alan, aside from the controversial director choice, Alan is worth bringing up. This film is ACTUALLY GOING TO BE A MUSICAL! That's always been one of the biggest issue I've had with these new adaptations. Why aren't they using songs (aside from credits covers)? The songs are just as important since they move the story along! At least they're fixing that now and not only that, Alan and Tim Rice are writing NEW songs for the film (but no songs from the musical will be featured sadly)! As for the cast, they seem half-&-half. Luke Evans as Gaston seems right, Josh Gad as LeFou is perfect, Emma Thompson I can see as Mrs. Potts and the same goes for Kelvin Kline as Maurice. There's no word about who Chip will be and it worries me that his role will be diminished. Ian McKellen being Cogsworth would be better suited if Cogsworth was still a grandfather clock (that deep regal voice seems a bit off coming from a small tightly wound table clock with a John Cleese personality). Was Neil Patrick Harris unavailable for Lumiere; why have Obi Wan Kenobi from the Star Wars prequels? Stanley Tucci as a grand piano? Not gonna rework the Tim Curry pipe organ from the Christmas movie? Dan Stevens I hadn't really heard of. Isn't he a Game of Thrones actor? Audra MacDonald is a phenomenal actresses, but why give her the bit role of the Wardrobe? Will she still be a former opera diva like the B'way show or have a completely different backstory? Finally for Emma Watson as Belle, I didn't have too many clear thoughts either way. I know she's done other stuff aside from Hermione, but none of those roles really stick out as much (that and I sort of stopped with the Potter films after 3). Apparently, Paige O'Hara thinks she's a "perfect" choice; she even assisted Emma with singing lessons. The script writer went from the person who wrote a lot of the direct-to-video sequels to the person who wrote a Divergent film and the film adaptation of RENT. I wasn't exactly pissed off with all these decisions, it was just a real mixed bag (even though I was still interested). Then came pictures; and no, I don't mean those fake posters that keeps getting shared (the one with either Emma standing in a standard yellow dress or a tan-filtered one that has Beast from the X-Men movies ), I mean ACTUAL pictures. Josh Gad's Instagram posted a few scenes on the set, such as the human cast together , him recording "Gaston" in the recording studio and him and Luke Evans on the castle set . Right at the last picture, that's when I saw how this movie... might actually be good. There was also a special message by Emma that was shown at last year's D23 . Filming started May 18th last year and wrapped up principal filming August 27th. Then all my worries were wiped away even MORE with the teaser trailer that came out this May . The massive ACTUAL set, the iconic music that plays the prologue, that shot of Belle looking at the rose! Man... this is gonna be awesome. And just a few weeks ago, the first teaser poster came out  and even though it's just the rose, just... look at it! Even though it's another "Disney doing poor timing either a year before/after historical anniversary event" thing, I'm definitely gonna be looking forward to seeing it Saint Patrick's Day last year.
Even though Disney already made 2 live-action 101 Dalmatians movies, doesn't stop them from going back for a 3rd attempt. In this rebooting case, a prequel showing how Cruella de Vil herself came to be. Right from that description, I'm sort of edgy. That's the exact same basic description that Maleficent had and we know how well THAT turned out. They better not go that direction because how can be sympathetic of a woman who wants to murder puppies? That's not gonna fly, even parodies get that! It'll be written by the same person who wrote Saving Mr. Banks and the original live Cruella, Glenn Close, is a producer. Those are good qualities and here's another: Emma Stone as Miss de Vil herself. That could work, both 'cause she's a good actress and she does have the cheekbones and icy-stare-like eyes. And since she can sing (as proven by Cabaret and "Knock on Wood" ), maybe she could sing Cruella's title song for the credits.
Peter Pan I don't think should be made, only because there's already been loads of adaptations. A silent film from the 20s, the straightforward version from 2003, the prequel Pan from last year, the sequel film Hook, the many Broadway revivals, even the B'way show about JM Barrie still has the same faith, trust and pixie dust! It'll have the same director as this year's Pete's Dragon. I'm just not entirely sure what would be different than what we've already seen. Maybe thoughts will lighten up as more news comes about, but for the time being, I'm just not sure.
Pinocchio, however, has sort of the opposite problem. There's been a lot of adaptations of little wooden head, but none of them have been that memorable or good compared to the 1940s film. The 1996 film with Jonathan Taylor Thomas, the horrible Italian film from 2002, a couple stop-motion TV specials, even Drew Carey's Geppetto is more mocked than appreciated. It'd be great to see another good film version of the story so I'm interested. It'll be written by the writer and director of TImothy Green and I hope he does a better job with this "boy brought to life with tree elements" plot. There's been 2 rumored actors that might have lead roles in this. Robert Downey Jr. as Geppetto and Dan Aykroyd as Jiminy. RDJ is a great actor, but the role of Geppetto seems better suited for an older actor. I know there's makeup and prosthetics, but Tom Hanks or Steve Martin seem better. And as for Dan, there's equal good and bad qualities. He's great with exposition and often plays the lecturing sort of character (makes sense with Jiminy since he's the conscience). The negative is the singing. Dan's a great singer thanks to Blues Brothers, but that base voice singing "When You Wish Upon a Star"? Awkward. They can keep in some of the darker elements from the novels, but only if they also keep it as colorful and fantastic to look at like the original.
Dumbo will be handled by Tim Burton and I'm pretty excited for this one. Most of Burton's movies are "underdog who makes it to the top" stories and that's exactly what Dumbo is! Also, I don't think Burton's done a circus before. Clowns plenty of times, but a direct circus. Think how cool that'd look! Even better, you think Pink Elephants is trippy as is? Just add Burton stop motion on top of that! Nothing's been said that Pink Elephants will be in stop-motion, but it certainly should be! And to triple out-do that, Elfman's score doing the circus music! There's been some of the circus-like organs and sort of rhythms in past scores, but making a real circus music is even better! There's also been 2 big changes. One is the crows being removed. I get the racist to black people argument but even if they weren't "racist", they're a major part of the story! They're the ones who discover Dumbo up in a tree and give him the magic feather! How can the story go on without them since they contribute that much? Second is organizations have been asking for the ending to be changed. This one seems overprotective, because they're worried about if the film will be an accurate portrayal of how actual circuses treat their animals. First off, it's a fantasy film and Disney wouldn't really show that sort of abusive attitude. Second, Dumbo doesn't really have an antagonist and even if it's supposed to be real life, Dumbo reuniting with Mrs. Jumbo is perfect enough instead of PETA asking the ending to be "Dumbo and his mother end up in an animal sanctuary". I'll be exciting for more news on this.
The legend of King Arthur has plenty of variations here and there, so reimagining of the Sword in the Stone could have nice elements. One of the film's main issues is how the actual king aspects just come at the very end. This one has Game of Thrones writers behind it so they're perfectly in their element. I just hope they don't make it completely serious and have the fun aspects of Merlin, the wizard's duel and other things like that. I feel I might be wrong and it'll just have the serious stuff.
Mulan I think could succeed where lots of the early fairytale films have failed. So many of said films took children's stories and turned them into overly dark, colorless and action film. Because they did that, all the fun of the original story was just sucked out and had nothing left of substance. Mulan, however, takes place during a war! Being a serious drama I have no objections to. I don't have the comedy, lighthearted moments and songs or the animated film, but this serious Chinese story should be taken in a more serious manner. There's been some outcries about the cast being whitewashed, but unlike PETA with Dumbo, this one I DO agree with.
The story behind a Winnie the Pooh movie sounds very promising. The plot is that Christopher Robin has grown up and goes back to the Hundred Acre Wood one last time. What's it called? Goodbye Christopher Robin. Yeah, I feel sad and mushy already. Christopher Robin growing up IS a subject matter than's been mentioned various times at different Pooh movies. The end of the 1977 movie, lots of Christopher's moments in Pooh's Most Grand Adventure and an episode of the New Adventures of talked about that. True, this might have some brave Little Toaster or Toy Story 3 vibes, but seeing the Pooh characters go through this would be an interesting character study and journey for Christopher's childhood memories. The only thing that'd be more complete is for "Back to the House at Pooh Corner" to play at the opening and/or ending credits. There's already been major castings a few weeks ago (which is also where the title's been announced); General Huxx will be playing the adult CR and Harley Quinn from Suicide Squad (not said who she'll play). The effects are said to CGI (much like Paddington), but I feel that's a terrible misdirection. The Pooh characters are STUFFED ANIMALS! The best idea would be to use puppets! And I'm not saying that as a puppet fan or the "we should cut back on CGI", it just seems like the only logical step! Just do Book of Pooh again but with more advanced puppets! Well, even with that issue, Goodbye CR sounds like the pitch-perfect final chapter for the Pooh series.
Fairies and Genies have the same premise for 2 different films; the origin stories of Tinkerbell from Peter Pan and Genie from Aladdin. For Fairies, I'm guessing it'll be a retelling of the first Tinkerbell movie? Either that or it'll be the l.a. Peter film I discussed earlier but from Tink's perspective. Could go either way. It has Reese Witherspoon set as Tink and she probably seems a little too old (not grandma old but you know what I mean). With Genies, I first thought it was stupid because I just kept saying to myself "but he's already a mythical creature born like that", but then I started thinking again. Then I started thinking about Jafar's genie situation and my mind changed. What if Genie WAS a human who ended up cursed in the whole genie gig. What was he like as a human? How'd he get tangled up in this situation? And it started to make more and more logical sense. Genies is another interesting one I'm looking forward to.
Red Rose is apparently a character from Snow White. Not doing a regular Snow White film makes sense since there's been a lot of l.a. SW films recently, so we might as well focus on... a character not that familiar to us all. Have to wait for more stuff to come out.
Princes will be centered around the premise of the princes roles. Yeah, it does make sense since most of the princes are undefined... at least the Walt-era ones were. The strange thing is it'll be focused specifically on Cinderella's prince. Didn't we go through that in last year's Cinderella? Kit was the best part! So this'll be from his perspective?
The Little Mermaid has had a lot of different planned and/or canceled opportunities. There was a planned adaptation with Sofia Coppola to direct, but she dropped out. There's a Universal film with Chole Moretz that'll be closer to the HCA book. There's rumors that Emma Watson will play Ariel, which seems... wrong since she's already Belle. Official word by Disney has been released this May and nothing else. I have SOME ideas...
Finally, A Night on Bald Mountain. Not much said about this one, but... what story can you tell about Satan? You can't do a misunderstood/how he came to be story because he's been evil from the start! Will it touch on more religious aspects? The set-up just seems more confusing and would be a really hard subject to tackle.


DAY 197

Comment & enjoy!
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Comments: 16

Magnetoon-Studios [2021-05-18 03:26:15 +0000 UTC]

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kingofswing617 [2018-12-14 03:30:15 +0000 UTC]

Its kid of hard to read

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AverageJoeArtwork In reply to kingofswing617 [2018-12-14 03:47:27 +0000 UTC]

Sorry. If it helps, you can highlight the specific paragraph you wanna read for an easier focus.

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tcr11050 [2017-07-23 22:33:27 +0000 UTC]

Well at least your not complaining. Well probably why they are getting remade is well sometimes well the originals as good as they are, have some things that kind of don't age well to today's standards. Not just visuals, but mostly in how they tell the story and character quality.

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sirjosh9 [2017-06-24 07:00:38 +0000 UTC]

They've made the new version of "Beauty and the Beast".

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MagicMovieNerd In reply to sirjosh9 [2017-07-23 04:00:54 +0000 UTC]

Yeah, it was AWESOME. I would also LOVE to see a live action Mulan, Lion King, Pinocchio, Sword in the Stone, Aladdin, Little Mermaid, Snow White, and Winnie the Pooh!

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WCLyon [2017-03-02 12:59:23 +0000 UTC]

I have my bouts that the Peter Pan remake is going to be allot similar to the 2003 version

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JWAPPEL [2016-07-18 01:55:38 +0000 UTC]

Genie and Tinkerbell deserve their own films. Tink got her  shot it's true, and while I loved both the first one and the Pirate fairy, the rest were ho-hum and we never got her meeting with Peter.

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AverageJoeArtwork In reply to JWAPPEL [2016-07-18 02:36:30 +0000 UTC]

The other Tink movies I'm really interested in seeing is the Pirate Fairy (like you said) & Secret of the Wings.

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brazilianferalcat [2016-07-15 16:21:53 +0000 UTC]

I know the cartoons that turned into live action are Popeye, The Flintstones, Casper, Mr. Magoo, Inspector Gadget, Scooby Doo, Garfield, Alvin and the Chipmunks, and The Smurfs.

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AverageJoeArtwork In reply to brazilianferalcat [2016-07-15 17:40:47 +0000 UTC]

Yes... but that's another story

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brazilianferalcat In reply to AverageJoeArtwork [2016-07-15 19:58:27 +0000 UTC]

I know.

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Disneyfan95 [2016-07-15 14:59:36 +0000 UTC]

These hypothetical live-action renditions of the Disney characters you've designed all look gorgeous! Kudos to keeping true to their animated counterparts, but still modernizing the costumes to intricately detailed versions actually set in the time periods of their movies.

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AverageJoeArtwork In reply to Disneyfan95 [2016-07-15 19:19:42 +0000 UTC]

That's exactly the point & the human charatcers are actually based off actual actors (the ones that AREN'T cast yet). More detailed/better drawings will be posted to my account at a different time (as will recast memes). Most of these costumes are based off already existing costumes, such as Broadway shows, Once Upon a Time &, like the description says, other deviantART drawings. Not trying to cause copyright infringements, it's just a tight schedule with this project.

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Disneyfan95 In reply to AverageJoeArtwork [2016-07-15 23:43:34 +0000 UTC]

I see. I was giving you a positive compliment, not a criticism for copyright infringement or bad artwork. I like it just the way it is.

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AverageJoeArtwork In reply to Disneyfan95 [2016-07-16 01:14:45 +0000 UTC]

Oh, I already knew that & thanks. I was expressing something I didn't bring up in the description. PS, if you haven't seen my OTHER L.A.D.s (Live-Action Disneys), just click this: averagejoeartwork.deviantart.c…

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