Disney’s Live-Action Hercules To Be A ‘TikTok Inspired Musical’?

Disney’s recent output of L.A.R.s (Live Action Remake) have been met with negative reception from both critics and audiences.

The most recent being the Pinocchio remake that released exclusively on Disney Plus in September. The film scored a 27% on Rotten Tomatoes from critics and 29% from audiences. 

Not to mention the negative reaction to the upcoming 2023 L.A.R. of The Little Mermaid (which currently sits at 3.2 Million Dislikes versus 1.2 Million Likes on YouTube).

Now we have news coming from the producer of the L.A.R. of 1997’s Hercules. Joe Russo (known for co-directing multiple Marvel films such as the second and third Captain America movies and both Avengers 3 & 4) will be serving as the film’s producer with Guy Ritchie (Director of the 2019 Aladdin L.A.R.) sitting in the director’s chair.



The original film was a retelling of the Classical Greek myth of a hero proving his worth and ascending to Olympus to live with the gods. Despite being toned down from its original source material the film is considered a classic from the Disney Renaissance era.



When the remake was announced earlier this year Joe Russo had said that the film would be “a little bit more experimental in tone, a little bit more experimental in execution.” But little did we know how ‘experimental’ this new direction would be.

In a recent interview the producer gave us some insight about the direction the film will be taking:

“There are questions about how you translate it as a musical. Audiences today have been trained by TikTok, right? What is their expectation of what that musical looks like and feels like? That can be a lot of fun and help us push the boundaries a little bit on how you execute a modern musical.“

Not quite what people may have been expecting to hear. While the original did have a few pop culture references it still kept the ‘Ancient Greece’ setting and aesthetic as the base.

With the direction now being inspired by a highly controversial social media platform (which has faced a potential ban in the U.S.) it makes you wonder how they would even try to execute this idea.

We don’t currently have a release date for the Hercules remake, but with the current track record of Disney L.A.R.s it probably won’t be received the way Disney is hoping.

Source: Variety