So, Movie making is a long, strenuous process, and along the way, some things gotta get dropped. I'd like to share with you some of the more interesting details of what almost happened during the production of certain movies (Most of these are animated because that's something I have a speciality in)
-In Balto, Brendan Fraisier was originally the voice of Steele, the rival sled dog. He had all his lines recorded, but he didn't do well in test groups, so, Jim Cumminngs was hired to re-dub the voice close to release.
- There were originally ideas for a Jungle Book 3, One idea was about Baloo and Shere Khan getting captured by hunters and sent to a russian circus, and Mowgli and the gang went to go save Baloo, and Shere Khan would somehow get over his desire to kill Mowgli (Honestly really glad that movie didn't happen)
-In the Princess and The Frog's original draft, Dr. Facilier, the villain, was said to be Mama Odie's son and they'd have a magic duel at some point in the movie.
- Emperor's New Groove was an entirely different movie altoger. Originally, it was going to be a more traditional Disney epic called Kingdom of the Sun, with a typical Prince and the Pauper storyline. But at some point, they scrapped the idea of doing a serious epic, and the resultant film was...Well, The Emperor's New Groove (Which is still a really good disney movie)
-So, So many things got thrown out during the production of Aladdin that it requires multiple bullet points
- Aladdin's mother was originally going to be in the movie and Aladdin would have a song called "Proud of Your Boy" about how he would somehow, someday make his mother proud (Think 'Go the Distance' from Hercules but a million times more sad). You can find the song on Youtube, BTW.
-Jafar, over the course of production had 4 songs that ended up scrapped. "Humiliate The Boy", which was cut for due to it apparently ruining the feel of the movie, "Why Me", which Jafar sang while using the Genie's magic to become the Sultan and the most powerful Sorceror in the world. IIRC, the song was cut because it didn't advance the story, "My Time has Come", which was cut for being too slow and introspective, and Lastly, there was "My Finest Hour", in which Jafar apparently played baseball with planet earth. This was cut because the producers thought it was too late in the movie for a big showstopper for the villain. You can find Humiliate The Boy and Why Me on youtube, but for some reason My Finest Hour and My Time Has Come were never recorded. However, Why Me was added back in for the Broadway show.
- Aladdin originally had 3 friends who would help him out in the movie named Babkak, Omar, and Kassim, who were, along with their songs, cut due to there being too many supporting characters in the movie already. They were re-added in the Broadway show, though.
- Iago and Jafar's personalities were originally swapped; Jafar was loud and bombastic and Iago was more quiet and reserved.
-In Mulan, Shan Yu originally had the ability to see through the eyes of his pet hawk before he was re-tooled into a more realistic character. However, there was a deleted scene that showed this (I can't find it ATM). The same scene also featured him killing one of his own henchman who had saved a small bird.
-In Beauty and The Beast, Gaston originally had a more Scar-like death, where he survived the fall with a broken leg, but the wolves from earlier in the movie appeared and mauled him (Presumably offscreen).
That's all I can remember for now off the top of my head. I just wanted to share these because I found them interesting.
