By Jonathan Klotz
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Disney is working its way through their entire roster of animated classics, giving us live-action versions of Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin, The Little Mermaid, and even Moana, but all of those films were record-setting hits. If Disney had any guts, they’d go the opposite direction and create a live-action remake of The Black Cauldron. The 1985 film is horrible, but the source material, The Chronicles of Prydain by Lloyd Alexander, is filled with untapped potential, and the five-book series should have been adapted years ago.
The Chronicles Of Prydain
During the 60s, Lloyd Alexander was able to release an entire pentalogy in five years, between The Book of Three in 1964 and The High King in 1968. Joined by The Black Cauldron (1965), The Castle Llyr (1966), and Taran Wanderer (1967), the saga tells the story of Taran, the Assistant Pig-Keeper in charge of Hen-Wen, a pig that can tell the future, on his journey to save the land from the Death-Lord and his right hand, The Horned King. Because it was written for children, The Chronicles of Prydain is one of the best entry points to high fantasy, which is why it’s a shame that Disney butchered it so badly.
The Black Cauldron adapts the first two novels, but calling it a loose adaptation is going too far, it’s more like a hatchet job. Though the film includes most of the same characters, the delicate but fierce Eilonwy, the bard Fflewddur Fflam, and Gurgi, the strange monkey-like human/animal hybrid, it also adds in The Horned King, while omitting the villain of the novel, Morgant the Dark Warrior. Worse is the ending, which avoids the novel’s theme of sacrifice for a more upbeat victory.
The Movie That Almost Killed Disney
Despite the change from the novel, The Black Cauldron was considered to be too dark for a children’s movie, especially an animated one from Disney. The first PG cartoon from Disney and the first to include CGI, it was also the most expensive animated film ever made, at $44 million. Of course, it was also a failure at the box office, losing the company so much money that it almost destroyed Disney before The Little Mermaid kicked off the Disney Renaissance and saved the company.
Ambitious but flawed, The Black Cauldron may have failed as a movie, but the richness of Lloyd Alexander’s worldbuilding manages to peak out around the edges. If each book was adapted as a live-action film, then the rise of Taran would be a hit, from exploring the world in The Book of Three to exploring his past in Taran Wanderer, the makings of the next big fantasy franchise are right there. Yet, following Disney’s failure, no one has touched the property in nearly 40 years.
That’s not fair, especially not in a world with multiple adaptations of The Chronicles of Narnia, another series Hollywood can never seem to get right, so why not give The Chronicles of Prydain a second chance? No one ever asked for a Lion King prequel about Mufasa or a live-action Moana, but a new fantasy franchise suitable for all ages bringing some of the most underrated novels to life, why not? The Black Cauldron was a historic failure, but The Chronicles of Prydain is a hit just waiting to be discovered.
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