First Live-Action 'Aladdin' Remake Photos Reveal Will Smith's Genie
It really is a whole new world.
The first photos from Disney's live-action remake of "Aladdin" have been unveiled by Entertainment Weekly, featuring Mena Massoud as the titular Agrabah thief, Naomi Scott as Princess Jasmine, and Will Smith as the Genie.
Immediately, Twitter users jumped on the fact that the Genie was not blue, like in the 1992 animated classic. But Smith himself reassured fans that he, will, in fact appear blue in much of the movie. "And yes, I'm gonna be BLUE!" he wrote in a caption on his Instagram post of EW's cover photo.
And as a follow-up, he clarified to one commenter: "This is how the Genie is in Human / Disguise Form. My character will be CGI most of the movie."
EW's cover story also notes that director Guy Ritchie has not yet completed the final CGI version of Smith's blue Genie. Ritchie did tease that the Genie would look like " “a muscular 1970s dad. He was big enough to feel like a force — not so muscular that he looked like he was counting his calories, but formidable enough to look like you knew when he was in the room.”
As for playing the iconic role, which the late Robin Williams voiced in the original, Smith said it was initially a "terrifying" idea.
But he added, "I started to feel confident that I could deliver something that was an homage to Robin Williams but was musically different. Just the flavor of the character would be different enough and unique enough that it would be in a different lane, versus trying to compete.”
Here are a couple of first look images from the movie, which opens May 24, 2019: