Aside from some issues with the casting, the production on the live-action remake of Aladdin has been rather quiet. Yesterday, the official Disney social media channels put out a rather bare looking poster. Now, we’re getting a few more details with the very first teaser trailer for the film:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9g5knnlF7Zo
It seems like the strategy of keeping things on the down-low is still in effect because this teaser trailer doesn’t show us too much. We see Agrabah in distance as we soar through a desert. The scene turns to night as we see a parrot, most likely Iago, flying towards the Cave of Wonders, which speaks the edict that the only one who may enter is a diamond in the rough. Then, for a brief moment, we see Mena Massoud as Aladdin reaching the lamp and…that’s it.
Many fans were hoping we would get to see the big star casting of this movie, Will Smith as the Genie, a role made iconic by the late Robin Williams. We also don’t get any looks at Naomi Scott as Jasmine or Marwan Kenzari as Jafar, the other two big parts of the film. It’s not surprising that we’re not getting a lot of plot details in the trailer, since it’s not likely to deviate much from the original animated film, but it would have been nice to see a little more action.
One has to wonder if Disney’s big plan is to keep the film’s look as under wraps as possible in order to surprise audiences, or because they know that fans are going to get mad about something. In terms of the overall look, the CG animated portions look great, the settings feel real, and the music feels both nostalgic and epic.
Aladdin is set to premiere in theaters on May 24th, 2019.
