Live action remakes of fairy tales are pretty big business right now. After Disney hit it big with Maleficent, they’ve moved to turn most of their animated stories into live-action films. A number of other studios have also followed suit, since the stories are all public domain, anybody can make a live action Pinocchio if they want to. So it won’t come as a surprise to anybody to know that live action Aladdin is on it’s way, as well. However, not only is this not Disney or Warner Brothers, this is barely coherent. Nothing about the movie looks real, except the cast.
According to The Wrap, the movie was filmed using sets made entirely by hand out of paper-mache. Seriously, the sets are made of newspaper, phone books and paint. It’s the strangest looking film ever. Simultaneously looking cheap, but then, not. It’s like they spent all the money in the world on the cheapest materials imaginable. Adam Green’s Aladdin, which is the actual full title of the film, is the brainchild of the indie singer/songwriter and was funded via Kickstarter in 2014.
Now the movie is in production, and, to say the least, it’s weird. In addition to Green himself, the film includes quality stars like Natasha Lyonne and Zoe Kravitz. Strangest of all, however, the movie will also star Macaulay Culkin, who hasn’t had a part in a film since 2009. Culkin's character is Ralph the Rebel Leader, who has some sort of Che Guevara thing going on. How exactly that fits into an Aladdin story is difficult to understand, but, honestly, it may be the least strange thing about this production. It really can’t be explained. Just watch the trailer to see what I mean.
Since the trailer is full of Adam Green’s music we have nothing to go on as far as the performances. They give the impression, especially what little we see of Culkin’s character, of being cartoonishly over-the-top, which might be intentional, based on the other design choices, but who knows. The actors are certainly capable of playing it entirely straight, but doing so might make the movie even more bizarre.
If the goal of this idea was to make us curious to see what happened next, they’ve officially succeeded. We have no idea what this is, but we really want to find out. What do you think?
