Disney + Pratchett?!

[Riv]

A film version of Mort, having been in development hell for over years before being cancelled, is rumoured to be the next hand-drawn film from Disney after Winnie the Pooh??

http://blueskydisney.blogspot.com/2010/ ... gress.html

To be directed by Ron Clements/John Musker for a 2013/2014 release.

Holy smokes!

[EricJ]

According to the TAG, they had been putting out in-studio teases of "The next one's going to be a little different, folks!", and well...this would qualify.

(Thing is, even if Musker & Clements could do Robin Williams humor in Aladdin and borscht-sitcom humor in Hercules, Discworld is more in the Douglas Adams category--And we've seen what live-action Disney did with "Hitchhiker's Guide".
The last time Terry Pratchett was animated, the Danger Mouse writers were tackling it, and you wouldn't trust anybody else to it.
I don't think M&C couldn't do it, but even giving "Tangled"'s humor the benefit of the doubt, Disney tends to pitch their spoofs toward the mainstream.)

[Ben]

The three previous Pratchett animated adaptations have been awful, so hopefully the bigger budget will mean decent visuals. The script could be a painful translation, though, but it'll certainly be something different!

[Dusterian]

Doesn't anyone here think Discworld is too adult for Disney? Or even, dare I say it, un-Disney?

[Ben]

Doesn't anyone here think The Black Hole, Tron, The Watcher In The Woods, Country, Down And Out In Beverly Hills, Ruthless People, etc, were too adult for Disney? Or even, dare I say it, un-Disney?

Okay, I'm obviously being obnoxious and stretching the point with some of those, but come on Dusty. Many could say the same thing about any of the true classics: Alice In Wonderland, for a start what with kooky old Carroll's psychedelic mumblings. And Lady And The Tramp, albeit an original story, wasn't really one for the kids: for all the fluffy dogs it's really an animated kitchen sink melodrama along the lines of a glossy, 1950s Douglas Sirk picture, complete with CinemaScope sheen, relationship break-ups and themes of death.

Anything is potentially "un-Disney", until Disney comes along and Disneyfies it.

[EricJ]

The three previous Pratchett animated adaptations have been awful, so hopefully the bigger budget will mean decent visuals. The script could be a painful translation, though, but it'll certainly be something different!

Thought the big-budget live-action Halmi-miniseries version of "Color of Magic" and "Hogfather" were...okay for the mainstream (if a little cuted-up so that regular folks would get the gags).

Of course, Halmi already had a tendency to be rib-nudgingly precious when they did humor, so it was an easy adjustment--Not as easy jumping from "Tangled".

[Riv]

The three previous Pratchett animated adaptations have been awful, so hopefully the bigger budget will mean decent visuals. The script could be a painful translation, though, but it'll certainly be something different!

Haven't seen Truckers, but I quite liked Wyrd Sisters and Soul Music, especially the music sequences in the latter. I feel they captured the Discworld tone better than the recent live-action adaptations.

I wonder how they will deal with Death being a main character? Should make for some interesting advertising:)

[Dusterian]

Ben, you listed live-action features, which are quite different from Disney animated classics, which this is supposed to be. I'm not even sure which one of those films is under the Disney banner or one of their other banners, but I also disagree with their decisions to do some of those films, as well.

Alice and Lady make perfect sense for me for Disney. And death was in Snow White, Pinocchio, Fantasia, Bambi.

And I am not saying Disney is just for the kids, in fact I believe there's so much to them that can only be appreciated by adults.

It's just...they have decided to take one book out of a whole series, and not the first book, planned for a series (like The Black Cauldron) and this whole series aims to be very adult and even go against many of the things Disney stands for.

[EricJ]

Although CtToI, the Wiki/back-cover description of Mort's plot does read an awful lot like a fantasy-transported version of "Hercules"...

Judging from the character-subplots M&C usually indulge in (they're the only Disney directors who can properly handle struggling-for-greatness male heroes like Aladdin and Jim Hawkins), I see a few auto-pilots they can switch on--And there's no guarantee it's going to be a musical either, as Treasure Planet managed nicely without it.

[Darkblade]

Hate to be a breaker of bad news, but...Its canceled.