<
https://www.vulture.com/article/an-oral-history-of-disney-the-emperors-new-groove.html>
"The story of the making of the 2000 movie
The Emperor’s New Groove is
actually the story of the making of three movies, only one of which can
be legally seen today. First, there is
The Kingdom of the Sun, an epic
tale incorporating Inca myths, which was to be directed by
The Lion
King’s Roger Allers and would have starred Owen Wilson as a lowly llama
herder bound to switch lives with a selfish, vain prince voiced by David
Spade. The soundtrack was set to feature a whole series of songs written
by Sting. The legendary Eartha Kitt would be the voice of a villainous
sorceress determined to blot out the sun.
But after years of production snafus — of doubt-filled meetings and
catastrophic screenings and arguments —
Kingdom of the Sun was, in a
stunning move, shelved. In its place came
The Emperor’s New Groove, a
raucous comedy directed by Mark Dindal, starring Spade as a selfish,
vain
emperor who involuntarily transforms into a llama and winds up
befriending a kindly peasant, this one played by John Goodman. Eartha
Kitt remained as the villain, now joined by a delightfully conflicted
henchman voiced by
Seinfeld’s Patrick Warburton.
New Groove would
ultimately feature only two songs written by Sting — one, a Vegas-style
number performed by Tom Jones, and the other, a closing credits song
performed by Sting himself (for which he was nominated for an Oscar).
Racing against an impossible deadline rumored to be imposed by an
impending Happy Meal deal, the final film was, in the words of one its
co-creators, the result of the “funniest writers’ room you could
possibly have. A table of people who had nothing to lose.”
While all this was going on, however, there was a
third movie — a
behind-the-scenes documentary called
The Sweatbox, directed by Sting’s
wife, Trudie Styler, and John Paul Davidson, which over the course of
production went from being an informative making-of to a riveting,
no-holds-barred, occasionally funny, often heartbreaking look at how the
Disney sausage is made, and sometimes unmade. Premiering at festivals in
2002,
The Sweatbox ultimately proved so awkwardly truthful that Disney
has refused to release it, though the film does occasionally pop up on
YouTube and torrent sites.
So, uh, how — and why — did all of this happen? Here is the oral history
of
The Emperor’s New Groove, an irreverent, pratfall-heavy, non
sequitur of an animated movie that so defied Disney’s painstakingly
deliberate traditions, it’s hard to believe it actually exists today."
Via Epbot:
https://www.epbot.com/2021/02/witcher-lightsabers-macrame-droid.html
Share and enjoy,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
