Get ready to visit a whole same world, as Disney is developing a sequel to last year’s billion-dollar hit ‘Aladdin’. Director Guy Ritchie and the entire cast are expected to return. It’s not clear how the story will play out, considering (SPOILER ALERT) that the Genie (Will Smith) was no longer a genie at the end of the first movie, and had settled down with former handmaiden Dalia (Nasim Pedrad).
Disney apparently held a writers room last summer to cook up ideas for a sequel. From that, John Gatins (‘Flight’, ‘Real Steel’) and Andrea Berloff (‘Straight Outta Compton’, ‘The Kitchen’) selected to pen the screenplay. It is believed that the sequel will borrow from ‘One Thousand and One Nights’, the collection of Middle Eastern folklore that includes the original tale of ‘Aladdin’, as well as ‘Ali Baba and the 40 Thieves’ and ‘Sinbad the Sailor’.
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The new movie will NOT be influenced by the subpar animated sequels that Disney crafted for the original 1992 animated movie– the straight-to-video ‘The Return of Jafar’ (1994) and ‘Aladdin and the King of Thieves’ (1996). There was also an animated TV series that kicked off in 1994 and was set between the two animated sequel movies.
The announcement of a proper sequel to ‘Aladdin’ follows the announcement in December that a spin-off movie was being crafted around Billy Magnussen’s bit character Prince Anders for Disney+. This poorly timed announcement came just as Mena Massoud, who played Aladdin himself, declared that the success of ‘Aladdin’ had not led to his getting offers for other movies or even the chance to audition.
Back in 2015, plans were underway to craft a film called ‘Genie’ or ‘Genies’ which would effectively serve as a prequel to ‘Aladdin’. Damian Shannon and Mark Swift were attached to write and Tripp Vinson was to produce, but there has been no news of this picture since that time.
Did you enjoy the live-action ‘Aladdin’? Is the announcement of a sequel the answer to your wish?
Source: The Hollywood Reporter
