During Disney’s live-action movie presentation at D23, president of production Sean Bailey revealed that Mena Massoud, Naomi Scott and Will Smith will star in Guy Ritchie’s Aladdin.
Earlier this week, reports surfaced that Disney was having a difficult time finding leads for the live-action remake of the 1992 animated classic, even pushing production back a month as a result, but seeing Disney’s confidence in announcing the cast at its annual expo, it’s hard not to wonder if those claims were slightly exaggerated.
Massoud is on board as the titular character, while Scott will play his love interest Jasmine. As expected, Smith is set to give his interpretation of the film’s most iconic character, the Genie, brought to life by Robin Williams in the animated film.
Massoud is relatively new to the film industry, having no major movie roles to his name, but he will appear on a number of episodes of the John Krasinski-led Amazon series Jack Ryan later this year. Scott, on the other hand, is best known for her role as Kimberly/the Pink Ranger in this year’s semi-successful Power Rangers reboot.
Dan Lin will produce the project under his Lin Pictures banner and Jonathan Eirich will executive produce. A release date is not currently set for the project but expect it to arrive in either 2018 or 2019. Shooting on the film will begin relatively soon (August) in London, so more casting announcements are bound to be made within the next few weeks.
