’Lan Of Duty

When news first broke that Disney had greenlit a live-action remake of the 1998 animation Mulan, which featured captivating songs and a wise-cracking dragon sidekick voiced by Eddie Murphy, many may have expected a slavishly faithful recreation of the beloved original. After all, neither Guy Ritchie’s live-action Aladdin nor Jon Favreau’s The Lion King did much to deviate, and both went on to earn more than $1 billion at the global box office. However, a musical was never on the cards for Mulan.

“Honestly, that was never a discussion. Instead, Caro turned to the source. “Both myself and the studio were really committed to honour the DNA of the 1998 animation and the centuries-old  – on which the story is based – but we always knew we wanted to make something completely new. This was never going to be a frame-by-frame retelling of the story.”