Disney Developing ‘Sword In The Stone’ Live-Action Movie With ‘Game Of Thrones’ Writer
Thathelpful guide to Disney’s animated remakes, spin-offs and sequelswe reblogged over this weekend is already outdated. Walt Disney Pictures is developing a live-action feature film remake of their 1963 animated fantasy filmSword in the StonewithGame of Throneswriter/producerBrian Cogmanworking on the screenplay.
Sword in the Stonewill be produced by former Disney development executiveBrigham Taylor(Tron Legacy, The Sorcerer’s Apprentice, Tomorrowland), who has more recently moved on to producing upcoming Disney features like Jon Favreau’sThe Jungle Bookand Guerillmo Del Toro’sThe Haunted Mansion.The Hollywood Reporterbroke the news, but there aren’t many more details to share at this time.
Brian Cogman’s work onGame of Throneshas earned him four WGA Award nominations. Cogman’s episodes ofThronesare revered. He wrote the episode “The Laws of Gods and Men” which ended with that stellar Tyrion Lannaster speech. /Film even interviewed him about it andyou can listen to that here. He is also currentlydeveloping an adaptation of the fantasy card gameMagic: The Gatheringfor Fox.
The core of the story is about a wizard named Merlin who teaches a young boy who is destined to be King Arthur. The setting is the dark ages, after the King of England died leaving no heir to the royal throne. A sword appears inside an anvil bearing an inscription proclaiming that whoever removes it will be the new king. As a kid, I was taken by the film’s characters and imagery but not so much the fantasy story at its foundation.
The 1963 animated classicThe Sword in the Stoneis loosely based on theT.H. White’s 1938 novel of the same name which later became part of the Arthurian fantasy seriesThe Once & Future King. The movie is the 18th film in the Walt Disney Animated Classics series, released on December 25th, 1963. It was the final Disney animated film released beforeWalt Disney’s death. The movie is also notable for having songs written and composed bythe Sherman Brothers, who of course wrote music for other Disney classics likeMary PoppinsandThe Jungle Book.
The Sword in the Stone was a financial success at the box office, grossing $22,182,353 to become the sixth highest grossing film of 1963. The film received mixed reviews from critics, who were not taken with the over-stuffed comedy and the story’s “thin narrative”. The film received an Academy Award nomination for Best Score—Adaptation or Treatment in 1963, but lost against Irma La Douce. The American Film Institute later nominated The Sword in the Stone for its Top 10 Animated Films list.
Here is an old trailer for Disney’s The Sword in the Stone:
And just for fun, here is a modernized Inception-styled trailer for The Sword in the Stone:
