Alan Menken doesn’t think ‘Pocahontas’ will ever be remade.
The 69-year-old composer – who has won Academy Awards for his scores on Disney films ‘The Little Mermaid’, ‘Beauty and the Beast’, ‘Aladdin’ and ‘Pocahontas’ – revealed that despite the string of live-action Disney reboots the 1995 animation probably won’t be remade.
The musician argued that due to "modern sensibilities" it would be difficult to do a retelling of the film, which gives a fictionalised account of a Native American woman of the same name and her historical encounter with Englishman John Smith and the Jamestown settlers that arrived from the Virginia Company, as it would be hard not to "offend somebody".
Speaking at an event to promote Guy Ritchie’s ‘Aladdin’ re-imagining, he said: "They all seem to be moving that way! The Little Mermaid’s next, with Rob Marshall directing and I’m going to be having lyrics by Lin Manuel Miranda – who I knew since he was a little kid!
"They’re developing ‘Hunchback [of Notre Dame]’, which will be complicated because there are dark aspects to that which we’re going to have to navigate.
"I don’t know if we’ll ever be able to do Pocahontas, I think that story is going to be difficult. With modern sensibilities, it’d be hard – you’re going to offend somebody – so I don’t know."
Alan is very happy to "add to" the classic films and says the new song he wrote for the live-action ‘Aladdin movie’, which is performed by Naomi Scott as Princess Jasmine, was a "surprising benefit" of working on the film.
He said: "But I’m happy to come back to these films and continue to add to them. Writing ‘Speechless’ was a surprising benefit, it was one of those songs that wouldn’t have existed otherwise."
Disney composer Alan Menken says Pocahontas won’t be remade
