Here we go again. Disney wants to turn the famous “Night On Bald Mountain” segment from Fantasia into a movie. Because that seems easier to do than trying to make a new Tron movie.
According to The Hollywood Reporter, Matt Sazama and Burk Sharpless are writing the script and producing.
They know a thing or two about fantasy projects, since they wrote Universal/Legendary’s Dracula Untold and Summit’s upcoming The Last Witch Hunter. They are also working on another Summit movie, 2016’s Gods of Egypt.
In 1940, the Disney animators told the story of the demon Chernabog set to the 1867 “Night on Bald Mountain” piece by Modest Mussorgsky. Leopold Stokowski made an arrangement that faded into Franz Schubert’s “Ave Maria” to leave the Fantasia audience with a sense of hope as they left the theater.
Even though there really isn’t much of a story in the 10-minute segment, Disney hopes to make a full-length feature out of it that is similar to Maleficent. That film told the origin story of Sleeping Beauty’s villain.
Disney is moving full-steam ahead on these live action versions of animated stories. Just two weeks ago, development started on Tinker Bell with Reese Witherspoon. Other projects include Pinocchio, Winnie The Pooh, Mulan and even Dumbo. Jon Favreau’s The Jungle Book and Bill Condon’s Beauty and the Beast are already in production.
Of course, all these added projects do make it difficult for the studio to plan other projects. The packed schedule is likely one of the reasons why Tron 3 isn’t happening. And considering Tomorrowland’s lack of box office success, the studio is already wary about banking on original ideas.