Walt Disney Animation is celebrating Disney at 100 this fall with the release of "Wish." The next of the upcoming Disney movies draws inspiration from the House of Mouse’s century of beloved animated titles, including building upon the components for which the studio is most famous. Between fun music numbers, magical happenings, talking animals and memorable villains, "Wish" has all those Disney trademarks. And it almost had another, but the filmmakers decided to leave it as a rough sketch.
When I spoke to "Wish" producers Peter Del Vecho and Juan Pablo Reyes Lancaster Jones on behalf of CinemaBlend, I asked them why Chris Pine’s King Magnifico doesn’t get an animal sidekick like many classic Disney villains before him have had. I’m talking about the Iago to Jafar, the Flotsam and Jetsam to Ursula and so forth.
When I spoke to "Wish" producers Peter Del Vecho and Juan Pablo Reyes Lancaster Jones on behalf of CinemaBlend, I asked them why Chris Pine’s King Magnifico doesn’t get an animal sidekick like many classic Disney villains before him have had. I’m talking about the Iago to Jafar, the Flotsam and Jetsam to Ursula and so forth.
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00:00 But I wanted to ask if King Magnifico ever had a sidekick in the production process.
00:07 There was a very early version where they had a cat, if I remember correctly.
00:12 Because cats are evil in Disney movies.
00:14 Yes, but we lost that for various story point reasons.
00:18 It became superfluous, so currently no.
00:23 Did it call back to Cinderella? I'm getting those vibes perhaps.
00:28 I mean, definitely Lucifer is such a staple character, right?
00:32 But yeah, it was a little bit of that, of celebrating all of the animal sidekicks.
00:38 But it just didn't make sense because Magnifico has Maya, who is a pivotal character in the movie.
00:44 And a lot of the interactions happened with her.
00:47 I don't remember a cat sidekick at all.
00:52 I do remember going back in and it was really important for them to get that arc of Magnifico where in the beginning you think he's benign and then he turns bad.
01:04 They really wanted to see that turn to bad.
01:06 So I do remember coming back in and doing a couple of sessions of really hammering down his evilness.
01:12 [BLANK_AUDIO]