Remember a while back when Disney was planning to produce a major live-action motion picture adaptation of Aida with Beyoncé Knowles as Aida and Christina Aguilera as Amneris? What does everybody think of Disney producing this in the next few years? What's the likelihood that this would happen?
In my opinion, I don't think this would happen as I don't feel that Aida is really a thing right now. But, I do see this project being revived since all three leads could be $$$ makers. Plus, I think Disney would be more interested to bring up the idea again if Into the Woods does well.
I remember discussing this project on the board ages ago. Obviously, it's never going to happen, or any time soon anyway (I never thought LES MIS would actually get made). After seeing Aguilera in BURLESQUE, it's pretty funny that any of us entertained the idea of her as Amneris. Beyonce can't act so she'd be a terrible lead but at least she has some presence. I'd love to see an animated feature as well, the ending might be a little too dark for children though. Disney and Pixar do dark but I can't think of an instance where they didn't have a happy ending (in terms of their recent batch of films).
"Some people can thrive and bloom living life in a living room, that's perfect for some people of one hundred and five. But I at least gotta try, when I think of all the sights that I gotta see, all the places I gotta play, all the things that I gotta be at"
I think Disney would be fine if it was a live action film and not an animated film. Pirates, John Carter, etc. all are pretty dark. If it was an animated film or Pixar handled it...yeah, not going to happen.
But if they did do it and it became popular..."Disney's Aida 2: THEY DIDN'T REALLY DIE".
Updated On: 4/5/13 at 07:44 PM
I don't think they would change THAT much- maybe just really push the "reincarnation miracle" element more than the musical does, and show some magical scene after the burial where they embrace and turn into lights, lights that travel across space and time until they meet the "modern lovers" in the museum, in front of the Tomb of Aida.
I actually just thought about that, as a scene in an animated feature, and didn't hate it. Though I think that idea would translate far better if it was animated, somehow thinking about it as live-action gives me some really cheesy images.
Kind of weird the things we'll accept in animation but not live-action.
I think Bey is just a tad too old to be playing a 16-ish year old Nubian princess. Though if she voiced her in an animated movie, I'd be totally okay with that.
Whoever says money can't buy happiness simply didn't know where to shop. - Bo Derek
I totally forgot about the reincarnation aspect, ha! I can definitely see that ending working on film. I'm with you, AEA, as an animated sequence it sounds like it could be great but it sounds super cheesy in terms of a live action ending. Maybe it could work. Oh, and I thought Disney was pretending JOHN CARTER never happened. Aguilera might be getting lots of film offers after BURLESQUE, just nothing Disney would be comfortable with kids watching
"Some people can thrive and bloom living life in a living room, that's perfect for some people of one hundred and five. But I at least gotta try, when I think of all the sights that I gotta see, all the places I gotta play, all the things that I gotta be at"
Maybe years ago Christina would've been a great Amneris but I just can't see it now. Lady Gaga should do it, My Stronget Suit feels like it was made for her.
Beyonce would be amazing, and she has great chemestry with Gaga. Nicole Scherzinger would be fabulous as well, but I imagine they would want a bigger name. I'd also love to see Naya Rivera or Jennifer Hudson.
Well, actually: In the 90s, Aida WAS going to be animated feature, but it was scrapped.
"These Aida designs have been surfacing around as development art for a scraped Disney Feature production of Aida but it aint so. This was nothing more than a class assignment given out by Frank Terry when I was at Cal Arts back in 1996. (A couple of the characters were redrawn a few years later but the basic designs remained the same.) Frank brought in a newspaper clipping that Disney and Elton John were going to do an animated musical of Aida and our assignment was to create a line up of the main characters and give them all Disney style sidekicks. We then had the great Chen-Yi Chang come to evaluate the work which was pretty cool. In any case I posted them on my on-line portfolio and somehow they were mistaken for actual Disney development art." http://benbalistreri.blogspot.com/2007_07_01_archive.html
LOL @ Beyonce being a much better actress than Jennifer Hudson. Yeah, she excels at playing singers in every movie. And who can forget that masterpiece "Obsessed."