Aladdin (1992)
4K Ultra HD | Blu-ray
Director: Ron Clements, John Musker
Writer: Ron Clements, John Musker, Ted Elliott, Terry Rossio
Cast: Scott Weinger, Robin Williams, Linda Larkin, Jonathan Freeman, Frank Welker, Gilbert Gottfried, Douglas Seale
Distributor: Walt Disney Studios
Rated G | 90 Minutes
Release date: September 10, 2019

Disney adapting their animated classics into live-action films are sometimes predicated on the critical and commercial success of the predecessor, though the studio’s recent wave of live-action adaptations has been met with varying degrees of success. But what matters most is how these films perform at the box office, and as long as they at a hit, the studio will come out with more and more. And, of course, none of these live-action films would be here without their animated origins.

Take, for instance, 1992’s Aladdin, before we can get into reviewing the live-action film from Guy Ritchie (to come soon), we must look back at the animated film by Ron Clements and John Musker. Considered to be one of the best from the Disney film era known as the Disney Renaissance, Aladdin is a beautifully animated musical that continues to hold up well. But with new technologies and televisions bringing us higher definition and better picture quality, it was only a matter of time before Disney started to go back in their vaults to release upgraded versions of their greatest hits.

The Lone Ranger
Director: Gore Verbinski
Screenwriter(s): Justin Haythe, Ted Elliott, Terry Rossio
Cast: Johnny Depp, Armie Hammer, Helena Bonham Carter, Tom Wilkinson, William Fichtner, Barry Pepper
Walt Disney Pictures
Rated PG-13 | 149 Minutes
Release Date: June 28, 2013

Directed by Gore Verbinski (Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl), The Lone Ranger stars Armie Hammer (The Social Network) as a masked man of the law who, with Native American spirit warrior Tonto (Johnny Depp), fights greed and corruption in the American Old West.

Produced by Walt Disney Pictures and Jerry Bruckheimer Films, and based on the 1930s radio serial, Verbinski’s adaptation of The Lone Ranger marks the first theatrical film featuring the character in over 30 years. Written by Justin Haythe (Revolutionary Road) and Ted Elliott and Terry Rossio, the duo behind the Pirates of the Caribbean series, The Lone Ranger is a big-budget ($250 million) western that serves as an origin story to one of America’s classic pop culture icons.

The release last month of the first image of Johnny Depp and Armie Hammer in character from next summer’s big-budget western adventure The Lone Ranger didn’t particularly set the world on fire. One of the major question marks surrounding the troubled production was how Depp would look as the Ranger’s faithful Indian companion Tonto. In the months before the release of the first Pirates of the Caribbean, images of Depp in character as Captain Jack Sparrow led skeptics to believe the eclectic actor had gone off the deep end and the movie would be an epic bomb for Disney.

Instead Pirates was a blockbuster smash that finally made Depp a bona fide movie star and spawned a billion-dollar franchise for the Mouse House. It also established the quirky and roguish Captain Jack as the first iconic movie hero of the 21st century. Pretty soon the stylish swashbuckler would become a popular Halloween costume as well. Depp had taken an unusual approach in his ideas for the character’s look, much to the consternation of studio executives already sweating over the movie’s gargantuan (for 2002/3) budget and the nagging uncertainty of a pirate movie, much less one based on one of their famous theme park rides, but the gamble paid off handsomely.

The first official image from next summer’s The Lone Ranger has been released, featuring stars Armie Hammer and Johnny Depp as the classic re-imagined western heroes the Lone Ranger and Tonto.

You can check out the image here below.

The Lone Ranger reunites Depp with the Pirates of the Caribbean team of director Gore Verbinski, writers Ted Elliott and Terry Rossio, and producer Jerry Bruckheimer.

Earlier today, mega-producer Jerry Bruckheimer shared an early gift on Twitter: a new teaser poster for Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides.

The movie, which is the fourth in the juggernaut Pirates of the Caribbean franchise, is set for release on May 20, 2011. It reunites Jack Sparrow (Johnny Depp) and Captain Hector Barbossa (Geoffrey Rush) as they attempt to find the fabled Fountain of Youth that was teased at the end of Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End.

They’ll be joined by newcomer Penelope Cruz, who plays a woman from Sparrow’s past who might just be trying to use him to get to the Fountain. Eventually she forces him onto the Queen Anne’s Revenge, a ship Captained by the infamous Blackbeard (Ian McShane), putting Sparrow yet again into a tricky and dangerous situation.

Be sure to head on over to the other side to check out the curious new teaser poster now!