Aladdin Added To Disney's Live-Action List

Aladdin Added To Disney's Live-Action List
A Genie-centric prequel is in the works

15 July 2015 | Written by James White | Source: The Hollywood Reporter



The march to make every Disney animated film into a live-action movie continues. Next on the studio’s list? Aladdin, which is receiving the Maleficent treatment with a prequel that looks to tell the Genie's story called, to almost no one’s surprise, Genies.

According to The Hollywood Reporter, Disney has Damien Shannon and Mark Swift in the early stages of writing a film that shows how the Genie – famously voiced in the 1992 ‘toon by Robin Williams – got into the lamp in the first place.

We’re promised a voyage into the realm of the magical beings and an explanation for the character’s circumstances, which given that he ends up enslaved and squished into a lamp, probably aren’t all that great to begin with. And, per the trade paper, if Genies works, it’ll be the prelude to an Aladdin live-action film, though trying to recapture that particular magic seems like a much riskier proposition.

This is just the latest in the Mouse House’s attempts to re-engineer all of its animated fare into updated interpretations including relatively straightforward efforts such as Cinderella and the upcoming Beauty And The Beast and films that want to explore a different aspect of the story, including Maleficent and the recently-revealed Prince Charming, which will apparently look at the character’s less fortunate brother.