When I heard that Woke Disney was going to remake one of my favorite-ever movies, I was immediately overcome by a Black Mood. What foul atrocities, I asked myself, are they going to inflict upon this jewel?
Disney fans are breathing a sigh of relief after it was reported that a live-action remake of The Aristocats has been quietly cancelled.
Plans for the new movie, based on the 1970’s classic, were initially announced in 2022 with Questlove attached to the project.
But, speaking on the August 20 episode of Score: The Podcast, the director – real name Ahmir K. Thompson – claimed that the film has been shelved.
Addressing the project’s demise, Questlove told the podcast: ‘A new administration came in, and then I was like, “Okay, well, this is what I plan to do, and dadada, do the song and dance, and here’s some of the music examples and there’s some team I’m working with dadada.”
‘And then they had another administration shuffle, and it was like, “Okay well. All right.” And by the third time I was just like, “Maybe this isn’t meant for me, because there’s also, at least, like right now, there’s so many options I have in pickings.”‘
Questlove said that The Aristocats live-action make could be revived years down the line.
‘Maybe it’ll happen in the future,’ he added.
I bloody well hope not.
Of all the old Disney movies (The Aristocats was made in 1970), this one represented all the good things about the classic animated Disney movies: funny, satirical, heartbreaking, full of suspense, lovely musical numbers (Maurice Chevalier!), with wonderful supporting characters (e.g. Madame’s ancient lawyer and the gaggle of elderly English geese) and the most villainous of villains, Edgar the butler.
It is an example of the perfect movie — and, it should be said, the last okayed by Walt and made under Roy Disney’s supervision before their respective deaths. (Since then…)
There is no doubt that any “new” take on this classic would only be foul, wrong and at the end, a commercial failure. And making it “live-action” (i.e. mostly CGI) would add to the cataclysm.
Some movies — especially the perfect ones — never have to be remade. And The Aristocats most certainly belongs in that category.
Hell, I always thought (and still do) that Duchess was just about the perfect woman: gorgeous, unwittingly sexy, loved her family… the list is endless. And as voiced by Eva Gabor… rowrrr.
And one last thought:
I’d like to see a remake of “Starship Troopers.” Great book, putrid movie.
At a guess, someone watched the movie Cats and realised how awful it would be.
In Murphy’s World, we have one hard and fast rule: “Just because you can, doesn’t mean you should.”
I could see someone making an animated feature from a live-action movie, but I’ve never seen the benefit of going from a cartoon to a movie with live actors. For instance, how do you go from Bugs Bunny and Donald Duck to (insert names of actors here).
To me, this is just one more example of how Hollywood has run out of original ideas and the creative well has run dry.
Now that Disney has managed to ruin just about everything they could touch, the only reason I keep my subscription to their streaming service is for my wife. These days she lives a lot in her past so older movies are a comfort for her.
Thank you for reminding me of The Aristocats.
Even as recent as 8 years ago we my wife subscribed to Disney+ and I cannot tell you the joy of re-living with my daughter some of the animated classics, as well as some of the good live-action Disney shows (Treasure Island, Scarecrow of Romney Marsh, etc.) Then Disney decided to become the flagship of Woke Inc., I sat through one of their Marvel movies (It was sponsored by a vendor as a family activity, so at least I didn’t pay for it), and it was genuinely awful. I haven’t watched a Disney property since. I’m 56 now and I’m not spending 2+ hours of what’s left of my life taking a chance on that dreck.
In fact since the abovementioned incident, I have not been to the theater since, and that was a good 6+ years ago.
I like the idea of taking old, bad movies and trying to re-make them better. _Plan 9 from Outer Space_ maybe?
Don’t forget these cinematic masterpieces
Attack of the Killer Tomatoes
Killer Clowns from Outer Space
I’m trying to think why any of the above four can be classified as having “good stories”…
Besides, Mystery Science Theater already made good movies out of them.
Killer Klownz is already perfection, so any re-make would be a downgrade. Attack of the Killer Tomatoes could do with some improvement.
Disney has been a gutter corporation for decades. They can rot