Facts You May Not Know About Aladdin Part1!
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| By
Harriet Hards
Disney’s Aladdin is flying into the West End via magic carpet, ready to show audiences a whole new world! It has wowed audiences across the pond and soon the British public will be able to enjoy the timeless story and show stopping musical numbers. To prepare for this highly anticipated arrival, we’ve assembled 20 facts you might not know about Aladdin and the film that inspired it. Here's Part 1 with the first 10!
1) Disney’s Aladdin was the highest grossing film of 1992.
2) It was also the first ever animated film to gross more than $200 million!
3) The animated drawing of Aladdin was modelled after Tom Cruise and Jasmine was based on Oscar winner, Jennifer Connelly.
4) Jafar, the villain in Aladdin, was voiced by Jonathan Freeman who also played the character as part of the Aladdin original Broadway cast.
5) There were many characters that never made it into the final film, Aladdin originally had a mother and there were two Genies!
6) Aladdin’s sidekick in the movie, Abu the monkey, does not feature in the cast of the Aladdin musical characters.
7) The Aladdin story was originally set in China but Disney moved the setting to the fictional city of Agrabah.
8) The creators had issues with Aladdin as a character at first. They had initially seen him as a boy as young as 12 but they realised that it wasn’t plausible that Jasmine would fall for him so made him older.
9) Robin Williams ad-libbed so much of his part as the Genie that the script was disqualified for a Best Adapted Screenplay Academy Award nomination. In all he improvised over 16 hours of dialogue which had to be cut down to fit the 90 minutes of the movie.
10) Williams’ amazing talent for mimicry was shown by his impersonations of Arnold Schwarzenegger, Robert De Niro, Groucho Marx and Ethel Merman amongst many others while playing the Genie.
Keep an eye out for Part 2 with the next 10 Facts You May Not Know About Aladdin!