It appears that Disney has yet another live-action remake of an old animated movie in the pipeline: The Aristocats, originally the 1970 animated feature about a bunch of Parisian kitties voiced by the likes of Phil Harris and Eva Gabor. It also appears that an interesting filmmaker has signed on to direct: Ahmir “Questlove” Thompson, who in addition to being the drummer for The Roots has moved into documentary filmmaking in recent years; his movie, Summer of Soul won Best Documentary at the Oscars last year.
Now Questlove’s going to try his hand at fiction — and cats, with The Hollywood Reporter, saying the musician and filmmaker will not only direct the project, he will “oversee the music for the film as well.”
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When word of a potential Aristocats movie first got around Hollywood in January of 2022, the writers involved at that time were Peter Rabbit’s Will Gluck and Onward’s Keith Bunin.
If you’re wondering why Disney is remaking The Aristocats, which has never been one of the company’s more beloved titles, it could simply be a matter of reaching the point where there’s not much else to remake. Since the company launched the trend toward live-action updates of classic animated features with 2010’s Alice in Wonderland, they’ve already burned through Maleficent, Cinderella, The Jungle Book, Beauty and the Beast, Dumbo, Aladdin, The Lion King, Lady and the Tramp, Mulan, 101 Dalmatians (for the second time in company history), and Pinocchio, with Peter Pan, The Little Mermaid, Snow White, Lilo & Stitch and Hercules all in the works for the years ahead. What else is left? Are they really going to make a live-action version of The Hunchback of Notre Dame. I wouldn’t bet on it.
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