Even while Beauty And The Beast is warming up the shelves in Sainsbury and Aladdin is filling up the UK's sound stages (while Mulan pre-production continues in parallel with the complex VFX work needed for The Lion King), Disney continues to pillage its attic full of toys even further. Another 'brand deposit' movie seems to be on the way, once again taking an older, already-loved property and finding new ways to sell it to us, even as our nostalgia for the original is being simultaneously rekindled. This time it's The Hunchback Of Notre Dame, previously realised as Kirk Wise and Gary Trousdale's undervalued, overlooked, again-topical animated musical, and then adapted for the stage. Composer Alan Menken has been interviewed by the NME and while he couldn't come out and confirm the existence of the project he did the very next best thing. The Hunchback Of Notre Dame: Disney looking at live action remake
This one is actually one that would be a very good idea, provided that they do it correctly, using the stage production as the basis. It would also need to be a PG-13 film.
Hunchback is one of my favorite films, and I enjoyed the stage production even more (I saw it at La Jolla and Papermill). That said, I'm not sure it really fits the mold of the live action remakes so far; it has a cult following, but isn't exactly a beloved classic with general audiences, and it deals with a lot of themes that don't really make for a fun family event, especially the stage version and original novel They'd also have to be careful about the casting, which could be tricky these days. I know there have been some well received productions of the stage show using deaf actors in the lead (Quasimodo was mostly-deaf in the novel, due to the bells) supplemented by a hearing actor for the songs; I'm not sure if a similar approach would work on film, but it's a great solution that adds depth to the story That said, I'm all for it! It's got an incredible score, interesting characters and locations, and deals with themes that are always important. It just doesn't seem like something that the current happiness-and-sunshine all the time Disney would go for. Even when they produced the stage show, they kept their name off of all its publicity
The stage show has been fairly popular with regional productions and the cast album reportedly sold well. I think what Disney should really consider is doing something similar to what they did with Newsies. They should re-assemble as much of the La Jolla/Papermill cast as they can and put on a limited run or even a one-time performance somewhere and film it as an event presentation in movie theaters. I suspect it would do rather well and become a pretty strong asset for home viewing. Might also give them a good idea about whether there would be enough demand to justify a full film adaptation.
Not a bad idea. It would be cheap and easy to do. If sales of the dvd aren't good, they could give it away during pledge breaks on PBS.
Disney Rings ‘Hunchback’ Bell: David Henry Hwang To Script Live Action Musical, Alan Menken/Stephen Schwartz Writing Music Sounds like this is in the works again. I know nothing of David Henry Hwang's work, but it seems promising that they're using people with a stage background. The article says that it won't pull from the German production, but makes no mention of the US versions, which used some influences from that show as well as new material. I'll be curious to see how it turns out! The biggest drawback from this announcement seems to be Josh Gad's involvement. While he's a great comic actor who tons of people seem to enjoy, he seems like a significant tonal departure from the stage productions. They've all be very dark, and he's just so...silly. Perhaps if he's only involved in the production rather than onscreen it could work, but he seems like an odd fit. Between his age and his repertoire, I can't see the film being a success with him in the lead
It's already been done. The Pathe Brothers and Albert Capellani did it in 1911, with Henry Krauss, Stacia Napierkowska, Rene Alexandre, and Claude Garry. Carl Laemmle, Irving Thalberg, and Wallace Worsley did it in 1923, with Lon Chaney, Patsy Ruth Miller, Norman Kerry, Nigel De Brulier, and Brandon Hurst. That's the only one I've actually seen. Pandro Berman and William Dieterle did it in 1939, with Charles Laughton, Maureen O'Hara, Alan Marshal, Walter Hampden, and Sir Cedric Hardwicke. Raymond and Robert Hakim, and Jean Delannoy did it in 1956 (in CinemaScope), with Anthony Quinn, Gina Lollobrigida, Jean Danet, Alain Cuny, and Maurice Sarfati. Norman Rosemont, Malcolm J. Christopher, Michael Tuchner, and Alan Hume did it in 1982, with Anthony Hopkins, Lesley-Anne Down, Robert Powell, and Derek Jacobi. Personally, I don't care much for even the idea of Disney doing live-action remakes of properties it's already done in animation.
