As Disney goes through its entire library of animated classics to turn them into live action feature adaptations, one title remains curiously amiss. Yes, we are talking about the 2001 cult classic Atlantis: The Lost Empire, an animated science fantasy action-adventure film with the voice talents of Michael J. Fox and James Garner. Since it's release back in 2001, fans have been calling our for a live action Atlantis movie adaptation, so is it about to happen?
Directed by Gary Trousdale and Kirk Wise and written by Tab Murphy, Atlantis: The Lost Empire takes place in 1914 and follows a young man, Milo, who comes into possession of a sacred book. Joining a crew of free-spirited souls, Milo and his friends set their course to find the lost city of Atlantis, a mythical utopia with untold treasures and technology that baffles the human mind. Little do they know that they are about to embark on one of the greatest adventures of all time.
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Atlantis: The Lost Empire is a fantastic film by all accounts. The characters are memorable, the voice talents are awesome, and the story has plenty of twists and turns to keep us all engaged. Equally impressive is the film’s technical side, with top-notch visuals and sound design that beat many of the animated films of this day and age. It is, therefore, baffling as to why the initial reception to the film was as muted as it was.
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Disney released Atlantis during a creative peak, producing a wide range of both computer-generated and hand-drawn films with bold, original stories. The studio had put out Fantasia 2000, Dinosaur, and The Emperor’s New Groove in the past couple of years and fully expected Atlantis to do well, owing to its fascinating visuals and an emotionally resonant story. However, this is where it all went wrong.
Live Action Atlantis Movie
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Made on a budget of around 100 million dollars, Atlantis did not turn out to be the slam dunk Disney was expecting it to be (when compared to other Disney features released around the same time). By various calculations, the film actually lost money as it only grossed 186 million dollars worldwide and was not well-received by critics as well. But, sometimes, what fails at the box office manages to find new life on home video, and this is exactly what transpired here. As time went on, the film became a cult classic, selling millions of dollars worth of DVDs and later Blu-rays. Critics later shifted their stance, praising the film as genuinely great and urging audiences to see it as a “misunderstood classic.”
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Disney was already working on a sequel before Atlantis bombed. This was a theatrical feature titled Atlantis: Shards of Chaos, but it was quickly abandoned when The Lost Empire did not make the money Disney wanted it to make. The renewed interest in the film through home video would lead to Disney shifting gears towards releasing a direct-to-video sequel, titled Atlantis: Milo’s Return.
To call Milo’s Return unconventional is an understatement. Disney was developing an animated series called Team Atlantis, based on The Lost Empire, but they quickly repurposed three episodes—“Kraken,” “Spirit of the West,” and “Spear of Destiny”—into Milo’s Return. Some of the voice cast returned to the sequel, while some did not, and the haphazard nature of Milo’s Return meant that critics were not too kind on this one as well.
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Owing to pressure from shareholders and the top brass, the last two decades have seen Disney aggressively mining its animated feature collection to turn them into live-action films. Some have been incredibly successful (Alice in Wonderland, The Lion King, and The Jungle Book) while others (Snow White, Pinocchio) have outright bombed. With more than a dozen live-action Disney remakes already released in theatres in the recent decade, Atlantis should undoubtedly be next on the list. The concept is great, the characters lovable, and the adventure unforgettable. Maybe Disney is quietly developing the film, or maybe they are being too selective about what they put out (they did just cancel the Tangled live-action film). Considering the fact that Tangled is one of the most beloved Disney animations of all time, this spells trouble for all future live-action releases.
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It’s also worth noting that Disney already has a blueprint for its Atlantis adaptation in DC’s 2018 superhero adventure Aquaman. That film also features Atlantis as a technologically advanced underwater kingdom that sends its saviour across the seas in search of a mythical trident to save the planet. Aquaman netted over a billion dollars, and Disney’s Atlantis could achieve results in the same vicinity if done right.
The fact that there is no Atlantis adaptation yet can be seen in two ways. Maybe Disney has been quietly figuring out how to make it work and will only announce it once they have cracked the formula. Or two, they already considered it and decided not to move forward based on a variety of factors. These factors might be related to the absolute monster budget required to bring the story to life, a fact that the challenging box office climate of today makes it even more difficult to accomplish.
Live Action Atlantis Movie
So will we see a live-action Atlantis adaptation any time soon? Chances are slim, but Disney has been known to surprise audiences over the years. Nobody expected the Alice in Wonderland redux to make a billion dollars, but with Johnny Depp and Anne Hathaway, the film absolutely did go bonkers around the globe. In the hands of a competent filmmaker, an Atlantis live-action film would thus go incredibly well. With millions of fans of the animation waiting with bated breath for this film, Disney would be incredibly hard-pressed to let this idea die.
Live Action Atlantis Movie
So, would you like to see a live-action Atlantis: The Lost Empire, and who would you want to direct it? Let us know in the comments below!
