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.
“I can’t say anything yet,” Menken said, “but I think Hunchback would make an amazing live action musical.”
It’s maybe not news to know that Disney is in the business of doing this stuff and won’t stop, maybe ever; it’s great news, however, they they seem to be keeping Menken involved.
Expect Hunchback… oh, years from now, sometime after Dumbo, The Little Mermaid and all of the others we discussed above. Whenever it is, however, I’m already cautiously looking forward to it.