Posted in: Disney, Movies | Tagged: disney, jennifer lee, wish

Wish and the "Expansive Journey" We Go On With the Villain

Jennifer Lee teases that we'll be going on an "expansive journey" in Wish regarding the villain, King Magnifico, voiced by Chris Pine.

When it comes to Disney, most eyes will be on The Marvels, set to come out early next month, but they do have another movie set to be released just two weeks later. Wish is a film that, when announced, didn't exactly draw a positive reaction from the internet, and that mostly came down to Disney trying to overexplain what the plot of this film actually is. That ended up working poorly for Lightyear, so in the last couple of months, Disney has stopped trying to say that this is the star that everyone in the Disney universe wishes on, and instead, it leans into the plot of the film, which is pretty conventional. What isn't conventional, at least not in the classic Disney sense we have seen with modern Disney films, is that our villain starts out looking like our hero, and that is King Magnifico, voiced by everyone's favorite Chris, Chris Pine. Disney Animation chief creative officer Jennifer Lee recently had a spotlight conversation with Tricia Tuttle, head of directing fiction at the National Film and Television School, during the BFI London Film Festival (via Variety), and she teases the moment we learn Magnifico isn't a good guy.

"From the first image of the film, he's portrayed like a hero — and he may very well be at that moment," Lee said, adding: "There's a moment in the film, and there's a song Julia [Michaels] wrote that's incredible, where Asha and Magnifico are completely philosophically aligned. And that's been a dream of mine to get to do, having the protagonist and villain completely aligned. And then the minute they learn more, you see that change, and each makes different choices."

In previous interviews with the creative team behind Wish, they have spoken about being inspired by Sleeping Beauty and, when it comes to villains, Maleficent specifically. However, as much as we all love Maleficent, we don't see much of her from a character point of view in the original film, nor do we learn that much about her motivations. She's just evil and spiteful because she is. Lee explained that this is not the case for Wish and explained that we are going on a "whole journey" with this villain.

"We've never done this expansive of a whole journey of the villain. And Chris Pine also brought that to it because that's what he needs to get inside the meat of the character emotionally. So he was such an incredible partner to do that. He's so smart,t and he can sing, so he just kept coming alive more and more every day."

Disney animation, both from Walt Disney and Pixar, have been on weird journies since the pandemic and haven't really found their footing again. Encanto was a smash hit and became a massive cultural touchstone…after it hit Disney+, but it didn't make much at the box office. Elemental did pretty well at the worldwide box office but needed weeks to get there and was slow to start. A lot is going on in the winter, so Wish has an uphill battle in front of it.

Wish: Summary, Cast List, Release Date

Walt Disney Animation Studios' Wish is an all-new musical-comedy welcoming audiences to the magical kingdom of Rosas, where Asha, a sharp-witted idealist, makes a wish so powerful that it is answered by a cosmic force—a little ball of boundless energy called Star. Together, Asha and Star confront a most formidable foe—the ruler of Rosas, King Magnifico—to save her community and prove that when the will of one courageous human connects with the magic of the stars, wondrous things can happen.

Featuring the voices of Academy Award®-winning actor Ariana DeBose as Asha, Chris Pine as Magnifico, and Alan Tudyk as Asha's favorite goat, Valentino, the film is helmed by Oscar®-winning director Chris Buck (Frozen, Frozen 2) and Fawn Veerasunthorn (Raya and the Last Dragon), and produced by Peter Del Vecho (Frozen, Frozen 2) and Juan Pablo Reyes Lancaster Jones (Encanto). Jennifer Lee (Frozen, Frozen 2) executive produces—Lee and Allison Moore (Night Sky, Manhunt) are writers on the project. With original songs by Grammy®-nominated singer/songwriter Julia Michaels and Grammy-winning producer/songwriter/musician Benjamin Rice, plus score by composer Dave Metzger, Wish opens only in theaters on November 22, 2023.

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