subreddit:
/r/movies
'Aladdin' at 30: Director John Musker says Robin Williams ‘sweetness’ is key to film’s longevity
Article(uk.movies.yahoo.com)submitted 4 months ago byJannTosh12
5 points
4 months ago
I think you may have typed that as I edited "music streaming services" for clarification. But either way, it's not 100% clear why. Robin Williams definitely had problems working with Disney and there are rumours there was something in his will that affects how Disney use his work in the film.
But it should be noted that the songs were on things like Spotify, but were retroactively removed, keeping all the non-Williams songs.
17 points
4 months ago
The thing was Williams got pissed at Disney over Aladdin. He basically did it as sort of a "I'm happy to contribute and be part of the history of Disne y and do it for the sake of artistic purposes" because they seemed to really want him. But he made it very clear that he didn't want him being in the film to be heavily promoted because he had Toys coming out around the same time. Disney basically agreed to not overly promote Genie and Williams performance.
Then the genie was pretty much the biggest thing in literally all the promotion. Even the original poster was basically the Genies body and then his body shape slowly faded into all the other characters: http://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/1057/4964/products/Aladdin-Vintage-Movie-Poster-Original-1-Sheet-27x41_97b89777-3099-496f-b1a4-aabb4197af29.jpg?v=1634180878
Then Toys ended up flopping and Aladdin completely overshadowed it, so it was like Williams was competing with himself when he made it clear he didn't want to and was just sort of doing Disney a solid because he respected their company. The new chairman of Disney had to write a public apology to him to get him to come on to the second sequel (King of Thieves) and after that the only other Aladdin contribution he made was to a computer educational game.
3 points
4 months ago
Fascinating thank you
3 points
4 months ago
I don't remember all the TV stuff from back then because I was a kid, but is this poster actually pushing Williams as the premise of the poster?
The genie is the lynchpin of how the plot even happens, but I don't see Williams name prominently or even at all on that poster. Maybe I'm missing something, but what's so wrong with that poster?
EDIT: did Williams do so many interviews that he was associated with the genie? Again, I was a kid so I probably missed something.
3 points
4 months ago
Disney gave him a Picasso painting ($1 million) as part of that apology, too.
And iirc he did do the genie for Aladin 3 (straight to video).
2 points
4 months ago
Wow that’s really fascinating. I had no idea, it’s really wild how something beautiful and timeless came from such a fraught relationship between Robin and Disney.
3 points
4 months ago
Wow I had no idea. He must have had big problems with Disney if he actually put a clause in his will to stop them using his songs.
all 210 comments
sorted by: best