Disney to remake "Dumbo" in live-action with script by "Transformers" writer

James Gunn tweeting jokes about rape and pedophilia is not remotely the same thing as Eva Green taking a role in a violent R-rated film that was intended for and marketed toward adult audiences. Sin City is not controversial in that respect.

 

Cool. You've convinced me that the Hollywood machine is completely non-judgemental and its executives are fair and open minded.

 

Eva Green's role in 2003's "The Dreamers" is much more potentially controversial than Sin City. Not that it should matter though. I haven't watched this new trailer yet, but if there's any movie we may go see as a family before the end of the year it'll be Mary Poppins Returns, and I'm sure this Dumbo trailer will play with that film. Still really looking forward to this, both because it's Dumbo, my favorite Disney movie, and because of Burton.

 

Looking forward to this.

 

New character posters from Disney's social media accounts:






Since none of the human characters appear to have have equivalents in the original film, I'm not sure what to make of this. Well, I guess Danny DeVito is the ringmaster, but that character isn't really a focal point in the original, so I'm guessing they're probably giving him substantially more to do. At least the film will be different. And I gotta admit Dumbo looks cute.

 

Are we going to be hearing Danny DeVito yell "CLIMAX" in his sleep? That would be worth the price of admission alone.

 

If only Tim Burton had nabbed Michelle Pfeiffer too.

 

I think she was busy playing Janet Janet Van Dyne for another Disney subsidiary.

 

Saw the trailer for this before 'Mary Poppins Returns' today. My wife and I agreed we think we are going to really like Disney's remake of 'Dumbo'.

Pretty much every live-action remake Disney has done has been a home run as far as I'm concerned.

Mark

 

There's a new poster today from Disney's social media pages which is apparently for international markets:

 

Disney UK put up a new new international trailer:

 

So what's left for Disney to make into a live-action film from their animated library?
Lady and the Tramp (isn't this one in pre-production?)
Bambi?
Ichabod and/or Mr Toad?
Peter Pan?
Sword in the Stone (I could swear I read about plans for this)
Hercules, Tarzan, The Princess and the Frog?
Lilo and Stitch (also in pre-production?)

Two I'd like to see happen:
Robin Hood, so we'd finally get a fun, swashbuckling Robin Hood tale, instead of the dark and grim takes we've gotten from Ridley Scott and last year's movie with Taron Egerton and Jamie Foxx.

The Black Cauldron. The time is right for this, with public interest in medieval tales at an all-time high because of Game of Thrones.

I hope we do not ever see a live-action Toy Story.

 

From what I’ve heard, there is a live-action Sword in the Stone in the works, but it will supposedly be limited to that new streaming service Disney is planning on setting up. I don’t know if there will be a live-action Hercules, but I’ve heard there’s a stage production of that in the works.

As for The Black Cauldron (the one film in their animated canon I want to see them remake due to how far it strayed from the books), a few years ago, there was an article stating that Disney had rebought the rights to The Chronicles of Prydain books (on which Black Cauldron is loosely based), so I would assume they have something planned for that one.

 

How about a full CGI version of 'That Darn Cat!', 'The Cat from Outer Space' and 'The Computer Wore Tennis Shoes'?

 

Peter Pan is in development and has David Lowry attached to direct. For Disney, he previously made the 2016 Pete's Dragon remake, which didn't have much of anything to do with the original Pete's Dragon but was excellent on its own terms.

Lady and the Tramp and The Sword and the Stone are both reportedly headed for Disney+ as streaming exclusives. They've also got a new Cruella prequel movie in development with Emma Stone to star. And as Jack noted, Disney did lock down the rights to the book series The Black Cauldron was based on a couple years ago, but they haven't done anything with it. The Hunchback of Notre Dame got a remake reported a few weeks ago, and Hercules is being adapted for the stage this summer. That makes me think they probably won't do Hercules on screen again for a while, but they'll probably get around to it after they've run through the other obvious ones. And then there is Pocahontas, which everybody seems to forget about but was the #4 film of the year in 1995. They'd have to do this one in a very specific way, casting-wise, in order not to offend anyone, but if they could figure that out, it's a property they haven't used yet onstage or in a live-action film setting.

And The Jungle Book is supposed to get a sequel at some point, although Disney wanted Jon Favreau to do The Lion King first. Favreau's original Jungle Book did not catch up to the ending of the 1967 film, which I love, so I think there is more creative runway for them to do this.

As for Toy Story, I'm not even sure what that would look like in live-action and I agree with you I don't want to find out. Fortunately, that's Pixar, so I don't think Disney has any plans to touch that. There was an article a while back in one of the trades where I recall the president of Disney's live-action division saying something about Pixar being off limits to them, though I don't have the article offhand so can't quote it.

And you're forgetting the obvious. At some point, they'll do Tangled, Frozen and Moana. They can't do that in the immediate future because the animated versions are too new, and Frozen would need to have run its course in animation first -- I'm sure they'll try for at least one more sequel after Frozen 2 -- but eventually, when the animated version has been over for a long time, I fully expect them to try this.

 

Why is it does this look better than the latest Aladdin TV spot? Like...how is that even possible? But here we are.

 

They both look like failures to me. But Dumbo at least looks like a far more interesting, unexpected failure. It looks like a new experience instead of a live-action rehash of what the animated film already did masterfully.

And so far, I haven't seen any evidence that the animals talk, which would be a massive and creatively-challenging change to this story.

 

Another new poster from Disney's social media.



Is it just me or does Dumbo's face look creepy in this particular picture?

 

That is an excellent point and is probably why they've removed Timothy Mouse, who I always liked very much.

I think the original Dumbo is a perfect little film, and it is meaningful to me and remains one of my favorites from Walt's era. I don't think it needs a remake. However, the fact that they're doing something that appears to be genuinely different here makes me more interested in it than I would be if they were hewing closely to the animated version. I expect to see this unless the reviews are Alice-level bad.