My two daughters have zero interest in this movie, they both loved Jungle Book and Beauty and the Beast. They are really looking forward to Lion King. But the trailers for this one are doing nothing for them. Mouse House may have a problem.

Bruce Almighty said:

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The more that's released from this movie, the worse it gets. Disney may have its biggest dud in a while. Does anyone actually want to see this?

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Disney already had its biggest dud in a while earlier this year. It was Dumbo.

policywonk98 said:

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My two daughters have zero interest in this movie, they both loved Jungle Book and Beauty and the Beast. They are really looking forward to Lion King. But the trailers for this one are doing nothing for them. Mouse House may have a problem.

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Mouse House prints its own money 24/7. I doubt the are going to shed a lot tears over a bomb here and there.

Early box office tracking has this movie making between $70M-$90M in opening weekend since it is on Memorial Day holiday weekend. It will definitely surpass Dumbo.

https://deadline.com/2019/05/aladdin-box-office-opening-weekend-projection-will-smith-1202606259/

You still gotta think that's hugely disappointing for Disney. Beauty and the Beast opened to $174M two years ago, and Aladdin is arguably just as popular a property.

Plus, they have much bigger star power behind Aladdin than they did for that.

Agreed. Plus, Disney haven't had any big success on Memorial Day holiday weekends as their opening weekend for the past few years recently,

Tomorrowland in 2015.
Alice Through the Looking Glass in 2016.
Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales in 2017.
Solo: A Star Wars Story in 2018.

I would feel bad for Aladdin if it doesn't make at least $70 million by the end of the opening weekend.

wangus12 said:

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policywonk98 said:

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My two daughters have zero interest in this movie, they both loved Jungle Book and Beauty and the Beast. They are really looking forward to Lion King. But the trailers for this one are doing nothing for them. Mouse House may have a problem.

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Mouse House prints its own money 24/7. I doubt the are going to shed a lot tears over a bomb here and there.

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I wasn't suggesting it would ruin a company that owns 50% of the summer line up of movies. I was just suggesting this particular movie wont do as well as its other live action adaptations.

Some early reviews are in already and they were very positive about the movie so far!

Brian Earl Spilner said:

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You still gotta think that's hugely disappointing for Disney. Beauty and the Beast opened to $174M two years ago, and Aladdin is arguably just as popular a property.

Plus, they have much bigger star power behind Aladdin than they did for that.

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Gotta disagree, Beauty and the Beast is a lot more popular. Way more girls identify with the bookish commoner from the village than the extremely well-off sultan's daughter.

Ditto on star power. Every girl in the world knows Hermione from Harry Potter, and here she is as Belle. That blows Will Smith out of the water.

MuckRaker96 said:

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Brian Earl Spilner said:

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You still gotta think that's hugely disappointing for Disney. Beauty and the Beast opened to $174M two years ago, and Aladdin is arguably just as popular a property.

Plus, they have much bigger star power behind Aladdin than they did for that.

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Gotta disagree, Beauty and the Beast is a lot more popular. Way more girls identify with the bookish commoner from the village than the extremely well-off sultan's daughter.

Ditto on star power. Every girl in the world knows Hermione from Harry Potter, and here she is as Belle. That blows Will Smith out of the water.

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Agreed here. What star power does Aladdin have? Will Smith and a bunch of people nobody has heard of. B&B has Watson, Ewan McGregor, Ian McKellan, Emma Thompson, Stanley Tucci, and Kevin Kline.

I don't think Will Smith has a lot of star power with the movie's target audience.

Pretty interesting watch.

Bruce Almighty said:

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I don't think Will Smith has a lot of star power with the movie's target audience.

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Gonna disagree there. He's a pretty big movie star regardless of the duds he's had, and he has the added benefit of a pretty popular YouTube channel, which nobody else had from the B&B cast.

Brian Earl Spilner said:

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Starting to sound like this was a case of bad marketing for a good movie.

Pretty much all the reviews I've seen on YouTube so far have been positive. Some even glowing.

Huge relief, and my excitement level is definitely higher for tomorrow.

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It is sitting at 60% on Rottentomatoes. More like bad marketing for a mediocre movie which is what I imagined most expected out of this.

Brian Earl Spilner said:

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Bruce Almighty said:

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I don't think Will Smith has a lot of star power with the movie's target audience.

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Gonna disagree there. He's a pretty big movie star regardless of the duds he's had, and he has the added benefit of a pretty popular YouTube channel, which nobody else had from the B&B cast.

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Do you know many kids?

They don't really know who he is.

Teens do

Brian Earl Spilner said:

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Teens do

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And you think this is a teen movie?

Okay...

If Leonardo DiCaprio is in a movie, it's probably really good.

If Brad Pitt is in a movie, he's really good so if nothing else you'll enjoy when he's on screen.

If The Rock is in a movie, you know what you're getting.

If Will Smith is in a movie, __________________.


Is Will Smith a bankable star or just a talented guy whose choice of roles is all over the map?

Tanya 93 said:

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Brian Earl Spilner said:

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Teens do

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And you think this is a teen movie?

Okay...

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The teen demographic is a lot more vital to this movie's success than children.

A lot of kids will be taken by their parents who saw / are fans of the original.

MuckRaker96 said:

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Brian Earl Spilner said:

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You still gotta think that's hugely disappointing for Disney. Beauty and the Beast opened to $174M two years ago, and Aladdin is arguably just as popular a property.

Plus, they have much bigger star power behind Aladdin than they did for that.

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Gotta disagree, Beauty and the Beast is a lot more popular. Way more girls identify with the bookish commoner from the village than the extremely well-off sultan's daughter.

Ditto on star power. Every girl in the world knows Hermione from Harry Potter, and here she is as Belle. That blows Will Smith out of the water.

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I don't know that Beauty and the Beast is more popular, I just think this movie has some fundamental problems in comparison to the live action Beauty and the Beast. As a kid I couldn't have cared less about Beauty and the Beast, but I loved Aladdin. As a kid Aladdin was every bit as big if not bigger than Beauty and the Beast, because it had fun characters and was appealing to both boys and girls (I was 5 and 6 years old when they came out, prime age for these movies).

The problem with Aladdin is that people can see any bookish looking woman playing Belle, especially Hermione, but no one can see anyone other than Robin Williams playing the genie. With B&B you have little kids wanting to go see Hermione and adults thinking they could see Hermione as Belle, but they're definitely thinking I don't want to see this legitimate loony person playing a blue loony genie when it comes to Aladdin.

Will Smith has lost a TON of star power by being public personally and extra odd between his wife and kids. He broke 100 million box office with every project he did for a decade, but the last two movies to do that for him were Suicide Squad and MIBIII, you have to go back to I Am Legend in 2007 to find a movie that was well reviewed, that he was the central character of, that wasn't a sequel (MIBIII being the one sequel that was both well reviewed and a box office hit).

The one thing he had going for him in his career was that he was likable and he torpedoed that by being unrelatable. He is the antithesis of Robin Williams. At the end of animated Aladdin everyone wanted the genie to be set free, at the end of this movie I can see a lot of people asking for him to be locked up and to throw away the key.

Anyway, Lion King is going to absolutely dominate the box office. I won't be surprised if it's the top grossing film of the year. Disney will probably have the top 3 for the year, so they won't care that Aladdin didn't match B&B or Jungle Book. It'll probably land 3rd or 4th behind those already released of the live action films (distant 3rd, close 4th if it falls that far), which is surprising given its had worse publicity than any of the others I can remember.

C@LAg said:

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hph6203 said:

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Anyway, Lion King is going to absolutely dominate the box office. I won't be surprised if it's the top grossing film of the year.

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Not sure I agree with you there.

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This. Avengers and Star Wars say hello. Lion King is going to be up there though.

Brian Earl Spilner said:

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Tanya 93 said:

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Brian Earl Spilner said:

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Teens do

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And you think this is a teen movie?

Okay...

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The teen demographic is a lot more vital to this movie's success than children.

A lot of kids will be taken by their parents who saw / are fans of the original.

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The parents were fans because of Robin Williams.

Will Smith, while kinda likeable, isn't the same.

As the mom of a tween, kids simply don't care about Will Smith. I don't know any kid who has to see this movie. They aren't interested

There are much more interesting movies coming out over the next few months.

Tanya 93 said:

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Brian Earl Spilner said:

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Tanya 93 said:

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Brian Earl Spilner said:

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Teens do

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And you think this is a teen movie?

Okay...

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The teen demographic is a lot more vital to this movie's success than children.

A lot of kids will be taken by their parents who saw / are fans of the original.

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The parents were fans because of Robin Williams.

Will Smith, while kinda likeable, isn't the same.

As the mom of a tween, kids simply don't care about Will Smith. I don't know any kid who has to see this movie. They aren't interested

There are much more interesting movies coming out over the next few months.

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This. Loved the original when it came out(3rd or 4th grade, so prime age range for the nostalgia), no interest at all to see this. Robin Williams carried the original and made it good. Just don't see a blue Will Smith coming anywhere close. This looks like one of the straight to video sequels Disney used to crank out.

Cstrickland05 said:

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C@LAg said:

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hph6203 said:

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Anyway, Lion King is going to absolutely dominate the box office. I won't be surprised if it's the top grossing film of the year.

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Not sure I agree with you there.

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This. Avengers and Star Wars say hello. Lion King is going to be up there though.

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Last time I saw, Endgame was on the verge of overtaking Avatar. Lion King is going to do great, I suspect, but it won't do that kind of business.

My kid, who is 13, has little interest in this movie.

When the original came out, I was 2 years out of A&M, so I wasn't the target audience, but I saw it anyway. I thought the animated version was a lot of fun, but it didn't hit me in an emotional way like Beauty and the Beast did. I remember it described as a Raiders of the Lost Ark for kids.

I am interested in seeing this movie, which I probably will early next week. I will be dragging the kid along.

This was always going to be a tough one to bring to live action. Everyone knows that the Genie was the great Robin Williams. Will Smith is not going to top that. But I think he will do fine in his own right. Disney might have done better by doing an animated Genie that looks like the original, and just have Will Smith voice the character, but even that probably comes up short since it won't be Williams' voice.

I'm actually more concerned with Jafar, who doesn't appear threatening at all.

Seeing this at 6:00 tonight. Looking forward to either reconnecting or ruining my childhood.

Going by myself because I will probably be crying at some point, out of either nostalgia or exasperation.

Will Smith was good.

My favorite musical scene was actually the one after "The End".

Surprised my wife by taking her to see it tonight. Loved it. It was fun and entertaining. Will Smith was good. He was not Robin Williams but I enjoyed his take on it.

My gf and I went to see it last night and it was definitely way better than we both expected. Aladdin is her favorite Disney movie so she was really hoping it would be good. She was dancing in her chair during a good chunk of the movie.
There were some parts (as mentioned above) that were filmed in a weird stop-motioning-fast-forward style which seemed out of place.
The "Prince Ali" number and the follow scene were great imo.
Some great little Disney callouts in this too!
There are people that aren't going to like it because it's not the original and because RW is not in this. Will Smith does a good job, but sometimes does fall a little flat. I would imagine it's easier to be over the top and out there in an animated film as opposed to a live version.
We listened to the soundtrack before we saw the movie and were not impressed, but the music felt more like it fit when watching the movie.
I liked this better than Beauty & the Beast.