After waiting 15 years for a sequel, Enchanted fans finally got their wish in the form of Disenchanted, which recently arrived on Disney+ with original stars Amy Adams, Patrick Dempsey, and James Marsden reprising their roles. However, the sequel has been met with tepid reviews as it failed to capture the magic of the original film where Adams delivered a knockout performance as Gisele, a cartoon Disney princess who’s banished to the live-action real world of New York City by an evil queen.
As for what went wrong? Well, for starters, original Enchanted director Kevin Lima wasn’t brought back for the sequel. The director, who cut his teeth as a Disney animator, had been a fierce champion for the first film that almost died several times in pre-production over concerns from Disney marketing.
“They didn’t think boys would go to see this movie,” Lima told The Hollywood Reporter. However, Enchanted went on to a solid box office performance and three original song Oscar nominations. But despite that success, Lima was never even asked to return for the sequel:
“A perfect storm of a change of executives and Hollywood politics made it so that I was uninvited to the party, unfortunately,” he says of Disenchanted. “It was a very, very sad turn. I haven’t seen the movie; I haven’t read the script. So I’m going to experience the characters that I helped create, grow and live on as the audience does.”
Disney might come to regret that move. While the original Enchanted has a 93 percent on Rotten Tomatoes (it really is a delightful movie), Disenchanted is sitting at 40 percent as of this writing. That’s a pretty far drop.
(Via The Hollywood Reporter)