Ritchie’s fresh off the production of Operation Fortune: Ruse de Guerre, starring Jason Statham and Cary Elwes. Though, while he is in the works of other films, he’s also a bit of a notable figure in theDisneyworld. If you’ve watched the live-actionAladdinstarring Will Smith and Mena Massoud, that’s probably where you know his name as he served as the film’s director.
As reported byDeadline, Disney’s wanting to potentially capture that same live-action hype by bringing the director back to the sea of their past IPs and making a live-action adaptation out of it. In this case, it seems Hercules is up next. While Ritchie’s the director, it is also reported that AGBO, the studio run by Joe and Anthony Russo, best-known as the directors ofAvengers: Endgame, is producing the film.
The Hercules adaptation is also still in the process of finding a proper writer or team of writers after Dave Callaham penned the first draft. This means that it’s not gonna be out for a while nor will it even have a proper cast revealed until the film finds a bit more footing.
The fact Disney’s keeping to their guns and making more live-action adaptations shouldn’t shock anyone, it’s clear Disney wants to keep a majority of its IPs relevant and some of its earlier stuff is starting to wane just a tad, but just releasing another animated film will only do so much. Besides, it isn’t like the live-action route isn’t going anywhere, Ritchie’s Aladdin managed to net them a cool billion, after all, according toVariety.
Looking at other live-action adaptations, Bill Condon’s 2017 Beauty and the Beast flick made similar figures, according toBox Office Mojo, and so did the “live-action” The Lion King, perBox Office Mojo. Sure, these are Disney movies, so they’re bound to draw a crowd, but still, there isn’t a reason Disney has to stop making live-action content and we certainly won’t scoff at a live-action Hercules.
