The short film produced for the 100th anniversary of the Disney studios features 554 emblematic characters, including the Genie, once again played by Robin Williams.
It’s a gift to all fans of Disney magic that has arrived in the form of a short film. The film Once Upon a Studio, made for the centenary of the company founded by Walt Disney, is now available on Disney+!
This ten-minute film retraces the entire history of the studio, featuring no less than 554 characters from the 150 feature films produced between 1937 and today: Peter Pan, Snow White, Beauty and the Beast , Pocahontas, Mowgli, Rapunzel, Cinderella, Kuzco without forgetting of course Mickey and Minnie Mouse are there!
The particularity of this short film is to have brought back all the vocal performers of these emblematic characters. However, for deceased actors, the decision was made not to use artificial intelligence to reproduce their voices.
Thus archive images made it possible to reuse dialogues from the films for the needs of this short film mixing animation and live shots. But the case of the Genie from Aladdin was an exception, since his lines of dialogue are completely new.
If in the French version, it was the iconic Richard Darbois who once again lent his voice to the character, the original version was unable to bring back the late Robin Williams who played the Genie in the feature film Aladdin and its sequel Aladdin and the King of Thieves.
PODCAST: meeting Richard Darbois, the voice of Harrison Ford and Buzz Lightyear:
In order not to use an AI against the wishes of his family, and to offer a tribute worthy of the memory left by the immense actor, the two directors of the film Dan Abraham and Trent Correy decided to use previously unseen recorded dialogues. by the actor but which were not preserved in the 1992 film.
“We listened to the soundtracks of voice recordings from the time, and we detected a few pieces that we could reuse”explained Dan Abraham to our colleagues at Variety. “We therefore asked Eric Goldbergwho animated the Genie in the animated film, to take care of it, and the result is magical.”
The short film Once Upon a Time is available now on Disney+.
Discover the list of films currently available on the platform!