Epic Mickey

Epic Mickey would be a 2023 American animated buddy fantasy adventure film directed by Phil Johnston and produced by Walt Disney Animation Studios. It would be based on the Disney video game of the same name, making it the first animated Disney film to be based on a video game. Johnston would also write the film alongside Pamela Ribon, from an story by Johnston, Ribon, and Epic Mickey creator Warren Spector, while Clark Spencer would produce the film. The film would star the voices of Chris Diamantopoulos, Frank Welker, Bob Joles, Jason Alexander, Charles Kimbrough, Jane Withers, and Dave Wittenberg. The film would be the first WDAS-developed film to feature Mickey Mouse in an starring role since Fantasia 2000, the first film to star Mickey since Disneytoon Studos' Mickey, Donald, and Goofy: The Three Musketers, and the first feature length film to star Oswald the Lucky Rabbit.

Disney would first announce plans to adapt the Epic Mickey video game in the D23 2020, with Johnston being set to direct the film. While the film would be based on Epic Mickey, the studio would take many liberties with the source material in order for the story work as a film, while also ressurrecting a few deleted concepts from the video game, althougth the studio would try to be as faithful as possible to the video game. The filmmakers would also feature a few elements from the video game's sequel, Epick Mickey 2: The Power of Two, mainly Mickey and Oswald teaming-up. The film, unlike the video game, would be set in modern times, in order to allow more cameo appearances in both the Wasteland and the Cartoon World. Epic Mickey would be the first Disney film since 2011's Winnie the Pooh to be animated mostly using hand-drawn animation.

The film would be released on May 22, 2023, and would became a critical and commercial success, grossing 712 million dollars over a budget of 177 millions, and being praised for its direction, screenplay, animation, humor, vocal performances (particularly Diamantopoulos, Welker, Alexander, and Lentz's), and Alan Menken's score, with many critics praising it as one of the best films based on an video game of all time.

Synopsis
Good old Disney star Mickey Mouse finds himself in a big problem when he is suddenly transported to the "Wasteland", a land inhabited by forgotten toons, forcing Mickey to join forces with its ruler, Oswald the Lucky Rabbit, who resents Mickey because he was forgotten when he appeared, to return home. The two, along with the gremlin Gus and Oswald's friends, gargoyles Victor, Hugo, and Laverne, soon discovers that Mickey's appearance in the Wasteland is part of a bigger plot by the dangerous Shadow Blot to conquer both the Wasteland and the Cartoon World. Now, the two must find a way to work together before its too late!

Voice cast
Additonally, Tony Anselmo, Tress MacNeille, and Bill Farmer would voice animtronic versions of Donald Duck, Daisy Duck, and Goofy, respectively. Grey DeLisle would voice Minnie Mouse, Mickey's girlfirend. Corey Burton would reprise his roles as Yen Sid, a powerful sorcerer and creator of the Wasteland, and Ludwig Von Drake, a brilliant-but-eccentric scientist who is the real Donald's paternal uncle. Brenda Song and Amanda Leighton would reprise their roles as Anne and Polly from the animated Disney TV series Amphibia. Tom Hanks would briefly potray Walt Disney in a live-action sequence at the start of the film, reprising his role form the film Saving Mr. Banks (2013).
 * Chris Diamantopoulos as Mickey Mouse, an anthropomorphic mouse who is the biggest star in the Cartoon World, only to find himself in the Wasteland. According to director Phil Johnston, Mickey's arc in the film would be inspired by the character's lack of relevance in pop culture in comparation to earlier decades.
 * Frank Welker as:
 * Oswald the Lucky Rabbit, an anthrpomorphic rabbit and the deeply insecure former ruler of the Wasteland, who hates Mickey for being the reason he was forgotten in the first place. Accoridng to Welker, the film would focus more in Oswald after he was forgotten
 * The Shadow Blot, an evil creature made of both Paint and Thinner who wishes to take over both the Wasteland and the Cartoon World.
 * Djali, a goat who is Hugo's boyfriend
 * Bob Joles as Gus, a friendly gremlin and handyman who helps Mickey in the Wasteland
 * Charles Kimbrough, Jason Alexander and Patrcia Lentz as Victor, Hugo and Laverne, a trio of comical gargoyles and Oswald's friends, who live with him at the Mickeyjunk Mountain, and who always try to help Oswald with his insecurity issues.
 * Dave Wittenberg as the Mad Doctor, the Shadow Blot's main ally in his conquest to take over the Wasteland.

Differences from the source material

 * The game is set around the 40's, while the film would be set in modern times.
 * The game starts with a narration by Yen Sid, while the film would start with a live-action animated sequence depicting Oswald's fall from grace.
 * In the game, the Shadow Blot was created by Mickey after an accident in Yen Sid's workshop, while in the film he would be an acciental creation of Oswald's who was unknowingly banished by Walt Disney by trashing the only sketch in which he appeared.
 * The film would feature more scenes with Mickey in the Cartoon World than the game
 * In the game, Oswald lives in the Mickeyjunk Mountain alone to guard the Blot's bottle, while in the film Oswald would live there alongside The Hunchback of Notre Dame characters Victor, Hugo, Laverne, and Djali, and would be because he feels like trash.
 * The film would feature Oswald and Mickey working together to gather the rocket pieces to get Mickey out of the Wasteland, while in the game Mickey worked alone.
 * Mickey meets Oswald in the Mickeyjunk Muntain in the video game, while, in the film, they would meet at Mean Street. Additionally, their meeting would more hostile in the film, with Oswald attacking Mickey out of anger
 * The film would feature a deleted concept from the game in which Oswald and the Blot join forces near the climax.

Casting
On the D23 2020, while announcing the film, Johnston would reveal that Frank Welker would reprise his roles from the video game as Oswald the Lucky Rabbit and the Shadow Blot, while Chris Diamantopoulos would reprise his role as Mickey Mouse from the Mickey Mouse TV series. On June 23, 2021, Dave Wittenberg would confirm he would reprise his role as the Mad Doctor from the video game. On December 12, 2021, Jason Alexander would reveal that he and Charles Kimbrough would reprise their roles from The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1996) as Hugo and Victor, respectively. On May 4, 2022, Johnston would reveal that Bob Joles would reprise his role as Gus from the game, while Patricia Lentz would reprise her role from Kingdom Hearts 3D: Dream Drop Distance as Laverne. During the premiere, Brenda Song and Amanda Leighton would reveal that they would reprise their roles as the voices of Anne and Polly from Disney's animated series Amphibia.

Recording sessions
Most of the film's cast would record their voices separately, througth Diamantopoulos and Welker would record their voices together, as Johnston would feel that their characters' dyanmic would benefit if their actors worked together. Jason Alexander and Dave Witterman would improvise some of their lines during recording.

Animation
Most of the film would be animated with traditional animation, aside from the scenes taking place in the Cartoon World, which would be animated with both computer-animation and traditional animation. According to Johnston, the different animations used in the film would be in order to showcase the contrast between the Cartoon Word and the Wasteland, as he would feel it would make sense to animate the Wasteland with traditional animation as it has been "forgotten" in comparation to the more used computer-animation.

As scenes in the Cartoon World feature characters from animated Disney series, which are made using hand-drawn animation, the animators from those series would be brought as consultants in order to create computer-animated models for the characters that resemble their hand-darwn animated counterparts.

Additionally, a brief flashback with Oswald in the Cartoon World as he's forgotted would be animated with hand-drawn animation, which producer Clark Spencer would say it would be due to the fact that, at that time, computer-animation wasn't invented, and the filmmakers would feel it would make more sense if the scenes in the Cartoon World were animated with the most popular animation at the time the scene takes place.

Music
Alan Menken would compose the film's score, which would contain motifs from the videogame's score by James Dooley. Unlike most Disney films scored by Menken, Epic Mickey wouldn't be a musical, which marks the first time Menken worked solely as composer for an animated Disney film. According to Johnston, Menken would be hired "as [he] felt natural that the studio's oldest composer scored a film starring its oldest characters".

Menken would say that his score's style would be "changing, reflective of the set", with a score more akin to his recent films during scenes in the Carton World, while his score for the scenes in the Wasteland would be more akin to his earliest scores for The Little Mermaid and Beauty and the Beast. For the flasback sequence at the start of the film, Menken would compose a score "very much like those of" Wilfred Jackson and Bert Lewis, who composed Mickey's first released short, Steamboat Willie.

Critical reception
The film would have an aproval rating of 89% on Rotten Tomatoes, with an average rating of 7.5/10. The critical consensus would read, "A wonderful adaptation of a great game that manages to retain its soul in spite of its alterations, Epic Mickey is a visually stunning and emotionally affecting tale that manges to tell a great story by taking its source's characters and concepts and giving them a new look in many ways." On Metacritc, the film would have an weighted average score of 71 out of 100, based on 30 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews".

Trivia

 * Mickey would be the only character from the game to have a different voce actor, as he was voiced by Bret Iwan in the game, while Victor, Hugo and Laverne only made a non-speaking cameo.
 * During the battle against the Shadow Blot and the Blotlings, Victor and Hugo would build a catapult, which they would try to throw to some blotlings, causing an annoyed Mickey to say "all these years and you still don't know how to use that thing!", referencing a similar gag featured in The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1996), in which the two build and threw a catapult to Claude Frollo's soldiers during the climax.
 * This would be the first WDAS film to feature characters from a Disney Television Animation series.
 * A recurring gag througth the film would involve the gargoyles being declared as "annoying" by other characters, to which they would react calmly, referencing the negative reaction caused by the characters' inclusion in The Hunchback of Notre Dame.
 * According to director Phil Johnston, Amphibia creator Matt Braly would serve as a consultant for Anne and Polly's appearance in the film.