Adrian Ventura For those of us on the more animated side of life, we’ve long known that Disney’s current trend of reimagining their classic films in live action is going to continue into next year couple of years with such remastered classics as Mulan, The Lion King, Lilo and Stitch and – yes – the classic Thousand and One Nights-adjacent folktale Aladdin.
With most of the big news from that direction in the last few months coming from their adaptation of Mulan – about casting and story changes and what have you – Aladdin has quietly set in some magic of its own. We know the cast: Robin Williams’ iconic character – the Genie – will be played by Will Smith, heroes Aladdin and Jasmine played by Mena Massoud and Naomi Scott, and villain Jafar played by Marwan Kenzari. But other than that, little story wise has been shared, so it was something of a surprise when a double dose of wish fulfillment dropped into our hands today: the film’s first poster – itself a perfect recreation of the original poster, and a first official teaser trailer.
Unlike the trailer for the recent Beauty and the Beast, which attempted to emulate the trailer for the original animated film as closely as possible, this time we get something more akin to the trailer for The Jungle Book: brief glimpses of some of the story well-known characters and locations set to epic versions of its classic tracks, but with only a bit to whet our palate. A brief snippet of a scene that could either be the original film’s prologue, or a adaptation of a scene from the stageplay version – complete with Frank Welker’s dark tones as the Cave of Wonders – blips by, as do shots of the Cave’s marvelous treasure troves. And finally, a shot of our star: Mena Massoud’s Aladdin. But beyond that, only an Oracle could tell.
The film is set to release May 24th, and if this early look is indication, our return to the land where enchantment runs rampant should prove to be a magical one.
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