Disney once made an animated remake of “Aladdin,” a classic Arabian Nights tale featuring a petty thief finding a magic lamp with a genie on it that granted him three life-changing wishes.
The animated movie was so successful that it resulted to two straight-to-home video sequels.
As far as Hollywood remembers, that was the last rendition of the story on the big screen. It seems that there will be another one this year and it is going to be a subversive remake of the classic tale.
Titled “Adam Green’s Aladdin,” the movie is written and directed by New York musician Adam Green and as the title implies, will also have him in the titular role.
Though it is not an animated film like the last one from Disney, “Adam Green’s Aladdin” will be a hyper-sensory and shall feature physical paper mache sets that look as though they were lifted straight from a cartoon.
If viewers have been joining their kids in watching children TV shows like “Blue’s Clues” or “Wonder Pets,” “Adam Green’s Aladdin” is very much like those, or at least its background sets.
Aladdin’s dysfunctional family
In the movie, Aladdin’s symbolic imagination shall make the famous genie lamp a 3-D printer. The princess is a socialite and the planet gets a sex change. The movie also follows Aladdin and his dysfunctional family who lives in a city ruled by a corrupt Sultan.
Interestingly, Macaulay Culkin will be part of the movie and he will play the role of Ralph the Rebel, notes NME.
Culkin will be acting alongside Adam Green, Natasha Lyonne of “Orange is the New Black” fame, and comedian Zoe Kravits. Lyonne will play Aladdin’s mother, and Kravitz will play the Old Miner.
It seems that the inclusion of Macaulay Culkin also has something to do with Jack Dishel who shall also be appearing in the independent film along with Alia Shawkat, Bip Ling, Francesco Clemente, Devendra Banhart, and Har Mar Superstar.
The brand new soundtrack album for “Adam Green’s Aladdin” was also composed and recorded by Green and will be released on April 29. The musician and his band will then perform songs from “Adam Green’s Aladdin” on its UK tour beginning in May where actors in the film, including Macaulay Culkin, are expected to make surprise appearances throughout the one-month tour.
A scarily messed up man
Meanwhile, exactly 25 years from the time he broke into the big screen as Kevin McCallister in the very successful Christmas movie “Home Alone” shown in 1990, Macaulay Culkin is reprising his role but no longer as a kid but a grown up man in a new web series called “Dryvrs.”
Macaulay took on the role of Kevin as an Uber driver. In a 311-second video clip of episode 1 of “Dryvrs,” he portrayed McCallister as a scarily messed up man picking up an Uber passenger.
From a young boy left alone at home in Christmas and single-handedly fending off burglars, McCallister’s grown-up life appears to have taken a turn for the worse.
The web series “Dryvrs” is created by Jack Dishel and the clip of the first episode showed McCallister already married and driving an Uber. It seems however that he is a bit on the deranged side.
After picking up a passenger, who was played by Jack Dishel himself, McCallister recounted his horrific experience of being left alone as a child and the traumatic effects it has had on his life. The first episode is aptly-titled “Just Me in the House by Myself.”
In fact, the Uber passenger and McCallister even switched places as the latter focuses on telling his story instead of driving.
But when a man tries to hijack his Uber car, McCallister resorts to his craftiness that he showed in “Home Alone” and “Home Alone 2.”
Adam Green is the kind of off-kilter music. Cannot wait to see what he come up with this time