The Hunchback of Notre Dame - Disney live-action remake (1 Viewer)

[Jake Lipson]

In news that shouldn't surprise anyone, The Hunchback of Notre Dame has come up for its turn as Disney is systematically going down their spreadsheet looking for everything they can possibly remake.

Josh Gad is producing. Maybe he'll play one of the wisecracking gargoyles?

https://deadline.com/2019/01/hunchb...-gad-alan-menken-stephen-schwartz-1202536031/

The article says Alan Menken and Stephen Schwartz are back to handle music, which means it's going to keep the songs from the original film, but that they are not drawing on their expanded score from the stage musical. I think that's a mistake, since the stage score is fantastic, although it's also not much of a surprise because the stage version is much more adult than Disney would allow them to get away with in a major film release which will be targeted to families.

 

[Sam Favate]

I always enjoyed the animated film tremendously. I was disappointed it never found a bigger audience, like Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin, Lion King, etc. I think it's that good. I hope the new film will hold to the beautiful colors the original had. With this source material, it's easy to make a dark and brooding film. Let's hope they steer away from that.

BTW, completely unrelated, but I'm a big fan of Little Steven Van Zandt of the E Street Band, the Sopranos, Lilyhammer, his own Underground Garage radio show and Sirius channels, and his great Disciples of Soul band (currently putting on the best show on the road). Anyway, he stayed out of the public spotlight for quite a while in the 90s. He said he was walking his dog. But one of the things he worked on in that time (which never saw the light of day) was a rock and roll musical of the Hunchback of Notre Dame. I'd love to hear that someday.

 

[benbess]

The songs for this one were hit and miss for me. But the animation was beautiful! I miss hand-drawn Disney animation, which was emphasized by seeing some great animation for 10 minutes or so in Mary Poppins Returns.

 

[Lord Dalek]

Ummm, why? Hunchback is probably one of/if not the least popular Renaissance-era films amongst mainstream audiences.

 

[Jake Lipson]

Ummm, why?

Hunchback has its fans. It's not on the level of Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin or The Lion King. But it has its devotees for sure, and is a recognizable title.

Plus, they've already remade the three I just mentioned -- Aladdin and The Lion King are both due this summer -- so they can't do them again, and Mulan and The Little Mermaid are on the way too. It was only a matter of time until Hunchback got its number called.

 

[Lord Dalek]

Hunchback has its fans.

Which does not constitute:

mainstream audiences.

 

[Jake Lipson]

Sure it does. It's not quite as big as the others, but mainstream audiences will still turn up for the remake. The animated film was #15 for the year in 1996 and made $100m. It wasn't huge, but it wasn't insignificant.

Plus, as I said, they've already burned through the ones that were substantially bigger than it. They're obviously trying to remake everything in their catalog that they think will make any money, so they were going to get to it sooner or later. There's a reason they got to it after doing the bigger ones first, but I still think they'll be able to make money on this.

 

[Chris Will]

It’s a shame that they are not using any of the stage musical songs. Some of the new material is fantastic.

 

[Jake Lipson]

I agree, but it makes sense to me. Not only does that follow the pattern they've established with the previous remakes not using songs from their stage counterparts, but also, the Hunchback musical in particular got quite a bit darker and more adult in tone and content than a family-oriented film would be allowed to, and i'm sure Disney will want this to be able to be marketed to the broadest possible audience. So I expect it to hue closer to the animated film than anything else.

 

[Alex...]

Film has been scrapped

Disney Moving Forward With Live-Action TANGLED Movie But Josh Gad's HUNCHBACK OF NOTRE DAME Has Been Scrapped

There's good and bad news for Disney fans today as a new report claims that while Disney is forging ahead with a live-action take on Tangled, Bob Iger has pulled the plug on Hunchback of Notre Dame...

comicbookmovie.com

 

[Jake Lipson]

Respectfully, I'm skeptical of those sources.

That being said, after seeing The Little Mermaid, Aladdin, The Lion King and Mulan done badly in live action, I'm not sure Hunchback would be a big loss if they did cancel it.