Disney head talks Star Wars, animated remakes, and the studio’s future

Disney is the biggest studio in Hollywood right now, and with its recent acquisition of Fox, it’s only going to keep growing. Managing it all is 75-year-old Alan Horn. He recently sat down with The Hollywood Reporter to discuss all things Disney Studios, including Star Wars, all those live-action remakes of animated Disney classics, streaming service Disney+, and more.

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Let’s start with Disney+, Disney’s foray into the exciting world of streaming content, a world currently dominated by the likes of Netflix, Hulu and Netflix. Disney is taking this push very seriously — it’s apparently the “No. 1 priority” of Disney CEO Bob Iger — and every studio in Horn’s ambit is pitching in. “Netflix and companies like Amazon represent the great disruption in our business and a seismic shift in consumer offerings and viewing patterns,” Horn said. “The interesting thing, which is not resolved yet, is how big is the consumer appetite for these incremental services? I like our chances.”

How will they get you to watch? There are lots of shows in the pipeline, including a bunch based on Marvel properties, but the first wave of attack will be led by The Mandalorian, a live-action set in the Star Wars universe with Game of Thrones star Pedro Pascal in the lead role. According to Horn, The Mandalorian was the brainchild of Lucasfilm and its president, Kathleen Kennedy. It’s all hands on deck over there.

Speaking of Star Wars, Horn was tight-lipped about the studio’s plans for the movie franchise after Episode IX drops this December (“It’s all in discussion”), but did say he’s pleased with how Episode IX itself is shaping up. “I just got back from the United Kingdom, which is not so united,” he joked; everyone laugh. “I went to the set, and was with J.J. [Abrams], Kathy and the cast. I watched a couple of scenes being shot and then we all had dinner. I have not seen a cut of it yet, but I watch dailies every weekend and send J.J. and Kathy a note every weekend. It’s a big deal, and it’s going to be terrific.”

But Disney draws has more than just Star Wars movies to prop up its empire. Captain Marvel is out in March, then Avengers: Endgame in April, that live-action Aladdin remake in May…the studio is a tentpole movie machine. How does Horn manage expectations when the studio is putting out so many big-budget, big-buzz films?

"It’s always a challenge because — and I say this with love and respect for media — the thing about these big movies is they get a lot of attention, whether positive or negative. So when they don’t work, like Solo, the media says it’s a failure. I think it was a pretty good movie. It didn’t resonate as much as we’d hoped it would, but the press writes it up in a more negative way than I would. These are very high-profile movies. If Aladdin, which I happen to think is a terrific film, doesn’t work somehow, that’s big news and much bigger news than if a movie somewhere else, like The Kid Who Would Be King [at Fox,] doesn’t work."

It’s true that the media loves a good tear-down. Just lately, there was a big brouhaha over Will Smith’s weird looking blue face in the Aladdin remake. Will that all make sense when the movie comes out later this year? Either way, the internet will be talking about it.

After Aladdin comes The Lion King remake in July. How many cuts of that movie has Horn seen so far? “Four. Bring a handkerchief.”

"It’s so emotional. But it’s a remake of an animated film, so there must be some percentage of the audience who will say, “Well, I saw the first picture.” All I can say for sure is you cannot tell these animals aren’t real."

But is it a good thing we can’t tell they’re real? Is realism what we demand of The Lion King? Feel free to discuss that amongst yourselves.

A little closer in time, Disney’s Black Panther is the first superhero movie to be nominated for a Best Picture Academy Award. Could it win at the Oscars this Sunday? Once again, Horn takes a wider perspective:

"I think Black Panther was included despite the fact that it was a blockbuster. I’m eager to see the audience respond to the [Oscar] show, which is, among other things, directly proportional to the audience that has actually seen the movies. Why should they turn on the telecast with bated breath when they don’t have an investment in the movies?"

I think saying that whether Black Panther wins or not, Disney wins, because this is going to draw more attention to the movie. It’ll also draw more attention to the Oscars, which sometimes honor films not a lot of people actually see. Even if Black Panther loses, everybody wins.

Finally, Horn addressed Disney’s family-friendly image and acquiring Fox could allow them to have a hand in racier content:

"With Fox, we can make movies that right now I say no to. Take Bohemian Rhapsody, which is PG-13. It’s a hit movie and very, very good. But there’s no way we could make it under the Disney label because the characters smoke cigarettes and other content. Nor could we have made [Warner Bros.’ R-rated] Oscar-winning Argo because the characters smoke and use the F-word. We always have to think about the smoking policy. The audience for a Disney movie may not know what they are going to see, but they know what they aren’t going to see. There are certain things we just can’t include because we’ll get letters."

Indeed, Disney is very protective of its image. Just recently, it pulled advertising dollars from YouTube after learning that Disney ads were running on videos that were part of a “soft-core pedophilia ring,” which is a whole other story you can read about here. YouTube is acting quickly to address the problem — deleting videos, banning commenters, refunding ad dollars, updating content strike policies — but for an image-conscious company like Disney, that may not be enough.

Disney was also thinking of its image when it fired Guardians of the Galaxy director James Gunn for offensive tweets he made years before Disney hired him. Is the company thinking more about looking at social media before it hires people after that?

"I would say no. I don’t think we do extensive background checks to see what a person has said. I feel sad for some of the people ensnared in all of this. And sometimes I feel like, “Wow, what they said is so outrageous that it must have occurred to them that it would have repercussions.” It’s a very open world now, and this stuff is a matter of record. The admonition is: Be careful."

Again, Alan Horn is in charge of arguably the most powerful movie studio in the world, so he’ll probably be in our lives for a while. You can read more of his thoughts here.

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h/t Bloomberg, The A.V. Club