Disney has several top-tier licenses at their disposal, including Star Wars and Marvel Studios, but they haven’t forgotten that their own brand is valuable as well. The studio had an enormous hit on their hands with Maleficent earlier this year. The modern reworking of the classic Sleeping Beauty tale has made over $215 million dollars domestically and continues to add to its total.
Disney had it’s initial success in 2010, when the Johnny Depp led Alice in Wonderland made over $1 billion dollars at the worldwide box office. The blockbuster sparked the current remake revolution and has resulted in an impressive slate of movies in development currently. Next year audiences will get a modernization of Cinderella starring Cate Blanchett. The Jungle Book is currently prepping to shoot and will be directed by Jon Favreau (Iron Man), featuring the voices of Lupita Nyong’o (12 Years a Slave), Ben Kingsley (Iron Man 3), Scarlett Johansson (Lucy, Her) and Idris Elba (Thor, Prometheus). Beauty and the Beast is getting a remake as well. And now we are seeing how deep the rabbit hole goes with The Hollywood Reporter’s story that a live-action remake of Dumbo is in the works.
The original film was about a baby elephant who was born into a circus family. Dumbo had extremely large ears which was the main source of his insecurities. A series of mishaps finds him on the road, where he befriends a mouse who teaches him to use his ears to fly and ultimately gain self-confidence. Disney has hired Ehren Kruger (Transformers: Age of Extinction, The Ring) to write the screenplay. Most of Kruger’s work, Transformers aside, has had a darker tone. It will be interesting to see the spin he puts on the story, THR reports:
The new take involves the adaptation of the original movie while adding a unique family story that parallels Dumbo’s story. Also, the studio believes that because of the current state of CG technology, live-action movies featuring a soaring pachyderm (or any animal for that matter) are viable.
So expect a touching story of a kid who doesn’t fit in at school and befriends a flying elephant. Sounds like a safe bet and the spectacle combined with the nostalgia is sure to draw people into movie theaters. It has yet to be revealed how other elements of the story will be handled, such as if the animals will talk and how they will handle the black crows sequence, which has long been a subject of racial debate. In any case, this trend of modernizing classic Disney properties is fascinating. It would seem that we can’t be to far away from seeing a live-action Mickey Mouse movie. What an age to go to the movies…
How do you think they will handle the remake? Overly family-friendly or are they going to get dark like Maleficent and take Dumbo’s ears from him? Let us know what you think!
Sources: The Hollywood Reporter, AICN