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JERRY BECK
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AMID AMIDI
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Disney to make live-action Sorcerer’s Apprentice
by amid
February 14, 2007 8:31 am


I doubt I could make up something as good as this even on April Fool’s. On Monday, Disney announced that they’re producing “The Sorcerer’s Apprentice” as a live-action feature starring Nicholas Cage as the Sorcerer. To be clear, the film is based on Johann Wolfgang Goethe’s original poem, not the Mickey Mouse sequence in Fantasia. From the Hollywood Reporter: “‘Sorcerer’ is being envisioned as a tentpole fantasy adventure set in contemporary New York, where a powerful sorcerer is in need of an apprentice. While not based on a ride like the ‘Pirates of the Caribbean’ films, the in-development project continues Disney’s trend of reimagining classic Disney titles as live-action, event pictures.”

02/14/07  8:46am
Corey says:

Disney is like the abusive stepfather some of us never had.

02/14/07  9:13am
Justin says:

Disney’s eventually going to run out of rides to base movies on…which is great..
because then they’ll REALLY be able to start cranking out original titles based on things that go down at Disney..

Things that matter, things that people wanna see!

like… “Bev, The Cafeteria Cashier” or “Paul the guy who fixes water fountains”

02/14/07  9:17am
Joe Apel says:

Now I do find it ridiculous that they have to make the poem now in “contemporary New York” and starring Nicolas Cage. Remind me how this is “reimagining” a classic Disney title? Is the live-action Jungle Book a reimagining of the animated Jungle Book? Is the Richard Donner Superman a reimagining of the Fleischer Superman?
If there’s a kid wearing Mickey ears leading a parade of dancing broomsticks, then I’d say Disney is out of control.

02/14/07  9:25am
Glenn says:

I heard about this through darkhorizons.com. It seems like Disney is almost tempting fate… Its like theyre saying “lets walk out there where the ice is just a little thinner and see if we dont fall through”. All around bad news:(

02/14/07  9:29am
Max Ward says:

Ahem. Umm..huh? This is shockingly stupid. When this fails they are going to blame the relation to Fantasia’s Sorcerer’s Apprentice and start to believe that consumers hate animation.

02/14/07  9:40am

It’ll be fine. You guys are forgetting that Disney was saved.

02/14/07  9:49am
Steve Wojcik says:

It will be along the lines of the style of storytelling that Freaky Friday was I bet. I’m really looking forward to seeing what Disney does with the John Carter of Mars titles…..and how they are gonna dumb that down.

02/14/07  10:05am
Glenn says:

Floyd,

You mean Lasseter right? I am still very hopeful about that, I think what we might seeing though is some of the remnants of the old regime. It might be that this whole idea had been floating around for a while. Even if it wasnt, I am sure SOMEBODY was thinking about it after Pirates.

02/14/07  10:13am

Disney should just quit the shuffling and go straight for a Disney version of “Faust.” While the adaption of “The Sorcerer’s Apprentice” is intriguing, my faith that Disney’s the company to take us there is less than assured. It may not be a re-imagining but it sure is a recipe for disaster.

02/14/07  10:21am
Paul says:

Is their no aspect of their history that current Disney management isn’t willing to defile? Sheesh…

02/14/07  10:25am
MitchK says:

How can such uncreative people make the visionary decisions in a supposedly creative company? This sounds like an average person’s ‘good idea’ which no one else, besides the original person, would like. Perhaps if this was set in period it would have some merit, but putting the events in a modern time for the sake of it being relatable just makes it cheesier than the grilled cheese sandwich I had for breakfast.

This offers nothing new to people. My hard-earned and hard-to-come-by money is certainly going somewhere else.

These ‘idea-people’ should really be looking ahead if they can’t look back properly. Bad idea. Bad bad idea.

02/14/07  10:49am

My comment was more of a comment on people’s blind faith in the Disney company than in the company itself. When a studio puts out the amount of projects they do, you’re bound to get some less than stellar projects. They can’t all be “Snow White”. Sometimes, bad decisions get through and turned into bad cartoons, tv shows, or films. If the public doesn’t like it, the best thing to do would be to voite with your movie tickets and DVD purchases. After one or two bombs, they’ll move on to something else. I didn’t think that the restructuring (Lasseter and all that) would mean an immediate end to such projects, but maybe if Disney now sees some leadership by example, the overall catelog of Disney output will improve. Maybe it has really been saved afterall, and the just need to get some of this stuff out of their system first? It’s like detox.

02/14/07  11:07am

What’s the big deal? A movie studio making a film based on a 200-year-old German poem? (”To be clear, the film is based on Johann Wolfgang Goethe’s original poem, not the Mickey Mouse sequence in Fantasia.”) The Hollywood Reporter claims it’s “Disney’s trend of reimagining classic Disney titles as live-action, event pictures”, Disney doesn’t.

02/14/07  11:45am
Jeff Kurtti says:

I’m not sure what the beef is about. A modern-day adventure-fantasy based on Goethe? Sounds kind of intriguing. Cage and Bruckheimer have been successful with this kind of thing in National Treasure, why is this wigging people out so much? Disney is quite clear it’s not a remake, or even remotely based on the Fantasia sequence–that’s the reporter’s peculiar speculative notion. I doubt if the apprentice will don a red robe and blue peaked cap and conduct the oceans, then shake hands with Stoki.

02/14/07  12:06pm
Paul says:

Disney already has a property called “The Sorcerer’s Apprentice” that they have been leveraging heavily for many years, if not decades. To think that they haven’t chosen this project and given it this name because of that pre-existing property is naive. Are they within their rights to do so? - absolutely. Just be up front about it is all.

I do like “National Treasure a lot…

02/14/07  12:10pm
Floyd Norman says:

Disney is a marketing and distribution company.

Hasn’t anybody noticed? They haven’t been creative in years.

02/14/07  1:08pm
Adam says:

No worries, Nic Cage has been cranking out unintentionally hilarious MST3K-worthy films for years. Ghost Rider alone looks to be a laugh riot.

02/14/07  1:18pm

I think Nick Cage would make an excellent tentpole!

02/14/07  3:08pm

[...] Disney plans live action Sorcerer’s Apprentice. With Nicholas Cage as the Sorcerer[...] Seriously, could they not think of a worse idea?

02/15/07  4:32am
The Lurking Fear says:

So why did they even bother to get rid of Michael Eisner? Remaking the classic Disney films in CGI (and live action) was his idea.
What’s the difference between the old bad decision and the new one?
PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN at least made sense as a live action flm. This one has no reason to exist.

02/15/07  5:19am
Richard says:

I don’t see the problem with this. I remember some news articles a few years ago about Disney doing a live-action samurai version of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. Could have been genius, could have been awful. People seem to have an opinion about a movie without even having seen one single frame of it. (OK, anything with Nicolas Cage is a bad idea.)

A hillbilly version of Homer’s Odyssey sounds like an April’s Fool joke, but “O Brother, Where Art Thou?” turned out to be quite a delightful film.

02/15/07  8:58pm
toonamir says:

Will Nicholas Cage be wearing the same facial expression for this movie too?

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