• Hey Guest. Check out your NeoGAF Wrapped 2025 results here!

Disney is struggling to cast its live-action Aladdin.

This almost sounds like a convenient story to allow Disney to back away from Guy Richie. Put it in pre-production hell, everyone can part ways without losing face, 6 months later restart with a different director/team.

The moment King Arthur bombed (critically and financially), everyone was wondering....
 
Guys you have all missed the most obvious option, he was right under our noses

Zayn Malik

tumblr_static_tumblr_static__640.jpg


Half-pakistani and can sing and dance and speak fluent english. Fits the disney criteria since they don't seem to care that Alladin is Arabic.

Plus this will make the music marketing very easy for Disney.

tehehehe
 
Guys you have all missed the most obvious option, he was right under our noses

Zayn Malik

tumblr_static_tumblr_static__640.jpg


Half-pakistani and can sing and dance and speak fluent english. Fits the disney criteria since they don't seem to care that Alladin is Arabic.

Plus this will make the music marketing very easy for Disney.

tehehehe

I mean Nolan got Harry Styles to act so...it's not impossible
 
I don't think this is a bad thing really. To me, it shows Disney is committed to doing it right.

2000 actors and they can't find anyone decent looking who can sing as well as Hermoine or Bard?

Sounds like overkill, perhaps because they're looking for a newcomer with sequel potential. Reminds me of the Spiderman: Homecoming casting.
 
It's not like the Arab world has a thriving movie industry. Blame the Islamists.

I mean, hell, good luck finding a young Saudi actor who speaks fluent English to fill an American-targeted role in a Hollywood Movie. That's a country that only has one cinema, thanks to the Islamic religious conservatives who dominate society there since the 80s.

Here are two:

Barakah_1.jpg

(They film they were in, "Barakah yoqabil Barakah", is recommended)
 
Why are they casting Indians/South Asians as Middle Easterners though?

The Book of One Thousand and One Nights is all over the place with locations.
Aladdin is an impoverished young ne'er-do-well, dwelling in "one of the cities of China". He is recruited by a sorcerer from the Maghreb, who passes himself off as the brother of Aladdin's late father, Mustapha the tailor, convincing Aladdin and his mother of his good will by pretending to set up the lad as a wealthy merchant.

:shrugemoji:
 
This is like the one and only live-action Disney adaptation I'm looking forward to. But I'd much rather they find the right people, and not whitewash it, than pick a completely wrong cast.

Take your time, Disney. I want this done right.
 
This is like the one and only live-action Disney adaptation I'm looking forward to. But I'd much rather they find the right people, and not whitewash it, than pick a completely wrong cast.

Take your time, Disney. I want this done right.

Mulan is the only i want since the original was a giant waste of the premise.
 
There is some irony in that a large number of ME peoples are fair-skinned (being one of the more racially diverse areas in the world), but casting someone with that look would probably have push back because they wouldn't look stereo-typically middle-eastern.

Still, Disney should take its time to get this right.
 
I went to a university performance of Carmen and half the male cast was Chinese and there was one black guy. Spanish it was not. I've been to full pro operas with mostly white casts that take place in Egypt.

I think this is a little silly how far people are willing to take this. Yeah a big movie should be able to find people but barring people from roles because of their ethnicity not lining up exactly is purity test level nonsense. We wouldn't have gotten Ben Kingsley Ghandi with such exacting standards.

Gods of Egypt was silly as hell in the other direction and came off looking like a 2 hour long Iron Maiden album cover. There should be a balance to be found there somewhere.

With Will Smith it is 99% probably that the genie is a big blue CGI thing and he is just doing the mo-cap and VO.
 
I know Tom Hardy was originally Guy Ritchie's pick for Jafar but got pushback from the internet for it, and I think they backed down from that choice.

I went to a university performance of Carmen and half the male cast was Chinese and there was one black guy. Spanish it was not. I've been to full pro operas with mostly white casts that take place in Egypt.

I think this is a little silly how far people are willing to take this. Yeah a big movie should be able to find people but barring people from roles because of their ethnicity not lining up exactly is purity test level nonsense. We wouldn't have gotten Ben Kingsley Ghandi with such exacting standards.

Gods of Egypt was silly as hell in the other direction and came off looking like a 2 hour long Iron Maiden album cover. There should be a balance to be found there somewhere.

With Will Smith it is 99% probably that the genie is a big blue CGI thing and he is just doing the mo-cap and VO.

Theater is much different than Cinema. Theater plays to a small audience. Films play to a huge global audience and have far more impact in that regard.
 
I know Tom Hardy was originally Guy Ritchie's pick for Jafar but got pushback from the internet for it, and I think they backed down from that choice.

Tom Hardy? Why not Jason Statham? There's definitely going to be someone in here with a cockney accent, might as well go all the way.
 
The Book of One Thousand and One Nights is all over the place with locations.


:shrugemoji:
the story was set in a far away locale, not the characters. If you can't pronounce Arabic words without having a non middle eastern accent, you shouldn't be playing these roles. Otherwise what is the point? Just get Hispanic actors and be done with it. It would piss me off less that way, then for them to go, "well they look foreign, and they speak a foreign language too...ok close enough!"
 
Aladdin isn't Indian. You might as well cast a Mexican if the only qualification seems to be "is Brown".
Is the Middle Eastern TV/films like many latinamerica TV where many of the main actors are white/Caucasian and don't fit American expectations of brown and black Latinos?
 
After a cursory search, one of the casting directors on twitter responded to the backlash a few days ago.

EDIT: nvm, it was a fake account.
 
Top Bottom