The odds are still in favor of who they will someday be.
In a cover story with Variety, filmmakers and showrunners Joe and Anthony Russo opened up about their collaboration with Disney. Additionally, they unveiled a live-action adaptation of the 1997 animated story Hercules.
And apparently it’s based on the currently popular social media platform TikTok.
The new adaptation will be musical – not like the live-action version of Mulan. Don’t expect too much, as it won’t look and sound like the original animated film.
“There are questions about how you translate it as a musical,” Joe Russo stated.
“Audiences today have been trained by TikTok, right? What is their expectation of what that musical looks like and feels like? That can be a lot of fun and help us push the boundaries a little bit on how you execute a modern musical.”
But we don’t know what that looks like to the public.
However, some TikTok-inspired music concepts have been successful. Perhaps it will work as a fan-created, crowdsourced musical based on Pixar’s Ratatouille and Bridgerton’s award-winning unofficial musical.
The original film featured songs by Alan Menken and David Zippel – two longtime Disney collaborators. It almost appears from the Greek myth of Hercules (Tate Donovan). Additionally, the film chronicles the tale of the Greek hero as a skinny no-one who gains limelight after training with Phil (Danny DeVito) and his god-like strength.
As Meg (Susan Egan) wins his heart, his true divinity is tested. Hades (James Wood) then attempts to use Hercules as a puppet in his long-running schemes against Zeus (Rip Torn).
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Hercules Goes the Other Way
The Russos own an independent studio AGBO. Through the studio, they are producing Hercules for Disney with Guy Ritchie – filmmaker of Aladdin and Snatch – as director.
“We have an amazing relationship with them that we’ve built over a decade,” Russo stated regarding Disney. “I think we have a point of view on how they can stretch the limits of their IP moving forward rather than playing IP management.”
Russo referred to the approach as “a little bit more experimental in tone, a little bit more experimental in execution.”
Although several live-action Disney adaptations have received criticism due to their making too close to their source material, Hercules is paving a different path.
But the ‘shake things up’ didn’t work well for Mulan. Additionally, the film was weighed down by bad reviews and a pandemic release.
“I think they’re excited to see what we can all bring to it in a way that isn’t just a reinterpretation of the animated film,” Russo stressed. “Guy [Ritchie] is perfect for it because he has a penchant for experimentation.”
Ritchie and Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings writer David Callaham are now working closely to create a script.
Details on possible castings and more still need to be revealed. (Perhaps there’s a chance of a Marvel crossover? We never know.)
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