EPIC FAILURE: Disney's The Sorcerer's Apprentice Live Action Film

If anyone has not heard lately, Disney has started production on their live action take of The Sorcerer's Apprentice from Fantasia featuring Nicholas Cage as Yen Sid.

According to Ace Showbiz the movie "will tell the story of an apprentice, played by Jay Baruchel, who is left to tend to a magic workshop when his sorcerer master, portrayed by Cage, leaves it in his hands. Trying to make his job easier he gets a broomstick to do the chores for him, but he finds himself in trouble when the broom develops a mind of its own." The movie would be set in a New York-set modernization of the tale -- a big-budget family-friendly adventure epic in which Cage would play a sorcerer who needs, you guessed it, an apprentice.

No director is connected to the project just yet, but we're told the screenplay comes from the writing team of Lawrence Konner and Mark Rosenthal -- also known as the guys who wrote "The Jewel of the Nile," "Superman 4: The Quest for Peace," "The Beverly Hillbillies," "Mighty Joe Young," and "Planet of the Apes." (Rotten Tomatoes)
The movie is set for a 2010 release with other Disney Films Prince of Persia: Sands of Time and Toy Story 3. **UPDATE: The movie is scheduled to release July 16th, 2010**

Here's why I give this idea an EPIC FAIL.

1. The Sorcerer's Apprentice is not only a classic itself, but was originated from a classic Fantasia. To mess with its origin and meaning is not a good thing. It ruins the classic auroa of the film. Take a look at the original film for example:
   
   



2. You don't mess with this. This is pure art. I understand that Disney is trying to reach a new target audience and everything with re-emphasizing the classic fairy tales and stories a la Enchanted, I just feel that this could tank.



3. Nicholas Cage may have been good in the National Treasure films, but this is something out of his character. I cannot see him playing a Yen Sid -type character, especially in the setting they're talking about.

This is like taking something like Lilo and Stitch and making it live action where instead of aliens, you have foreigners who become best friends and instead of being set in Hawaii, it'd be set in Suburban Rhode Island. You don't reconstruct something like The Sorcerer's Apprentice to your own bidding.

EPIC FAILURE