Per Jonathan Klotz
| Updated
Disney is working its way through its entire slate of animated classics, giving us live action versions Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin, The little mermaidand even Moanabut all those movies were record hits. If Disney had the guts, they’d go in the opposite direction and make a live-action remake The black cauldron. The 1985 film is terrible, but the source material, Lloyd Alexander’s Chronicles of Prydain, is full of untapped potential, and the five-book series should have been adapted years ago.
Chronicles of Prydain
During the 60s, Lloyd Alexander managed to publish the entire pentalogy in five years, in between Book three in 1964 and High King in 1968. He joined The black cauldron (1965), The castle is full (1966), i Torn wanderer (1967), the saga tells the story of Taran, assistant pig keeper in charge of Hen-Wen, a pig who can predict the future, on his journey to save the land from the Lord of Death and his right-hand man, The Horned King. Being written for children, the Chronicles of Prydain are one of the best entry points into high fantasy, which makes it a shame that Disney butchered so badly.
The black cauldron adapts the first two novels, but to call it a loose adaptation is going too far, it’s more like a hatchet job. Although the film includes most of the same characters, the delicate but fierce Eilonwy, the bard Fflewddur Fflam, and Gurgi, a strange ape-like human-animal hybrid, he also adds in the Horned King, while omitting the novel’s villain, Morgant the Dark Warrior. Even worse is the ending, which eschews the novel’s theme of sacrifice for a more optimistic victory.
The movie that almost killed Disney
Despite the change from the novel, The black cauldron it was considered too dark for a children’s film, especially a Disney animated one. 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, the company lost so much money that it almost destroyed the Disney befminer The little mermaid started Disney’s renaissance and saved the company.
Ambitious but flawed, The black cauldron it may not have succeeded as a film, but the wealth of Lloyd Alexander’s world-building manages to peak around the edges. If every book was adapted as a feature film, then the rise of Taran would be a hit, from exploring the world to Book three to explore your past Torn wandererthe start of the next great fantasy franchise is right here. However, after Disney’s failure, no one touched the property for almost 40 years.
That’s not fair, especially not in a world with multiple adaptations Chronicles of Narniaanother series that Hollywood can never get right, so why not give the Prydain Chronicles a second chance? No one ever asked for a Lion King prequel about Mufasa or live action Moanabut a new all-ages fantasy franchise bringing some of the most underrated novels to life, why not? The black cauldron was a historic failure, but Chronicles of Prydain is a hit just waiting to be discovered.