Wednesday, December 6, 2017

Strip Mining The Catalogue

Disney is still busy monetizing animated titles, because it CAN.

Disney has made Rob Marshall the top choice to direct The Little Mermaid, the live action adaptation of the animated classic musical that will have new songs by Hamilton‘s Lin-Manuel Miranda and Alan Menken, sources said. ...

I remember when Little Mermaid was pitched at the first "gong show" that Michael Eisner and Jeffrey Katzenberg held for the animation department. It was the summer of '85 and we were all seated around a long table in a back room of the Disney cafeteria. Ron Clements made the pitch, and Mr. Eisner and Mr. Katzenberg said "Too much like Splash. Don't think so."

Ron, however, doesn't take rejection sitting down. He sent his treatment to Jeffrey K. and Katzenberg (wisely) changed his mind. Eisner also changed his initial opinion.

And now, TLM is being reworked to live-action specifications, but the bones and spine of Ron Clements' and John Musker's original creation will undoubtedly be there, and if there is justice in the universe, they will be well compensated for the redo.

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