Shakespeare Plays That Could Have Been Adapted as Disney Animated Films

[Farerb]

Which Shakespeare plays do you think could have worked as Disney animated films and how do you think they should change in order to fit?

[Disney Duster]

Hamlet. What to change to make it fit Disney? African animals.


Ok ok enough kidding. I think Romeo and Juliet would be perfect if they just took out any curses, made the murders less bloody, and no overt sexual suggestion. They can keep all the rest, even the original dialogue, that isn't cut for curses or sexual suggestion. And they should animate it like Sleeping Beauty, but in 1500s Verona. Maybe even use the famous Romeo and Juliet opera music.

[DisneyFan09]

Hamlet. What to change to make it fit Disney? African animals.


Ok ok enough kidding. I think Romeo and Juliet would be perfect if they just took out any curses, made the murders less bloody, and no overt sexual suggestion. They can keep all the rest, even the original dialogue, that isn't cut for curses or sexual suggestion. And they should animate it like Sleeping Beauty, but in 1500s Verona. Maybe even use the famous Romeo and Juliet opera music.

Well, if you`re going to be technical, Disney has already adapted a Romeo and Juliet-story before. After all, Pocahontas is easily perceivable as one and was deliberately chosen to serve as such a premise, as Disney were looking to adapt one (and Disney were even bold enough to make one without the happy ending). Otherwise, to answer the question to the OP, I wouldn`t mind if Disney adapted A Midsummers Night`s Dream. Due to it`s fantastical creatures and setting.

[Disney Duster]

I don't consider doing a Romeo and Juliet-like story actually doing Romeo and Juliet.

[PatchofBlue]

I agree that something like "Romeo & Juliet" exists almost more as an archetype than a specific story, which can make it difficult to classify. A lot of stories owe something to "Romeo & Juliet," including something like Pocahontas, but I think the closest Disney has really gotten to literally adapting that story would be "The Lion King II: Simba's Pride."

My favorite Shakespeare play is probably "Othello," but where "Hamlet" or "Romeo & Juliet" have a fascinating premise that can be corrected into something like a happy ending at the last minute, to me "Othello" is one of those stories where, at least in a literal adaptation, the tragedy is a non-negotiable part of the experience. Like, that's just the life source of the piece. So I think by the time you watered it down for something like a Disney musical, it'd be more "inspired by" than truly adapted, even compared to something like "The Lion King."

I also have special fondness for "A Winter's Tale." I had to see it during college for my humanities class when my university was putting it on, and I really liked getting to study one of his less famous plays. But I think it has a lot of fun elements that actually translate well into the Disney mythos. The biggest changes would probably be not killing the son midway through and making the bear attack a little less fatal.

I also second "A Midsummer Night's Dream".

[DisneyFan09]

I agree that something like "Romeo & Juliet" exists almost more as an archetype than a specific story, which can make it difficult to classify. A lot of stories owe something to "Romeo & Juliet," including something like Pocahontas, but I think the closest Disney has really gotten to literally adapting that story would be "The Lion King II: Simba's Pride."

True, Simba`s Pride is comparable to Romeo & Juliet, too. The only difference is that unlike Pocahontas, it actually had a happy ending.

[UmbrellaFish]

Hmm…

Animation is such a wonderfully limitless medium, I don’t think I’d be interested in any adaptations that used Elizabethan costumes or setting. So that makes it a lot harder to say what I’d like to see! After all, if we were having this conversation in the late 80’s or very early 90’s there’s no way I could have predicted what Disney would make out of Hamlet!

I really like The Tempest a lot. Magic is also an integral part of the story, which is something that feels distinctly Disney, too. The plot centers around a father/daughter conflict which actually may be too Disney right now— I know I’ve complained about Disney overusing generational trauma plots and The Tempest might just be the OG version of that story.

I agree with others, A Midsummer Night’s Dream seems like a fine story for Disney to adapt. Does anybody else remember the Mickey Mouse Works adaptation that was also in House of Mouse?

I wish I knew the comedies better! I’ve read more of the tragedies, but I bet a lot more of the comedies have plots that would translate well to Disney movies.

[Disney Duster]

But Disney has not ever done an animated classic in Elizabethan times, right? So why not do them?

[UmbrellaFish]

True, they haven’t explored this era in a DAC, however it has been explored in other Disney animations: Shakespeare actually has a cameo in Pocahontas II: Journey to a New World and the “Mary, Mary Quite Contrary” segment of The Truth About Mother Goose dramatizes the life of Mary, Queen of Scots who was Elizabeth I’s great rival. Elizabethan-style productions of Shakespeare plays are very common— at the Globe in London, some movie versions, at your local community or college theatre. So it would be much more exciting to me to see animation do something unique with a Shakespearean play that can’t and isn’t being done already at playhouses around the world.

Not saying there’s anything wrong with feeling differently than I do, though. Different strokes and all that.