A newly released poster for Disney’s upcoming Dumbo remake puts the baby elephant and his giant ears front and center, spotlighting him with a solo shot. Dumbo is a live-action take on Disney’s 1941 animated film of the same name, which won an Academy Award for Best Music, Scoring of a Musical Picture.
Following in the footsteps of Cinderella, The Jungle Book, Beauty and the Beast and a handful of others, Dumbo is the Mouse House’s latest reboot of an animated classic using live-action and CGI. While the basic premise remains the same - a story about a young circus elephant with oversized ears who can fly - the cast reports that Tim Burton’s “remake” actually tells a “completely new narrative.” In addition to changing the way in which Dumbo gets his name, which originally came from taunts the other circus animals lobbed at Dumbo and his mom (Mrs. Jumbo), Burton’s version of the tale introduces a number of new characters to add greater depth to the story. Colin Farrell stars as Holt Farrier, a former horse showman who lost an arm in WWI and who comes to work for his old circus boss, Max Medici (Danny DeVito). Michael Keaton costars as entrepreneur V.A. Vandevere, the film’s main antagonist and owner of an entertainment venue called Dreamland that wants to acquire Dumbo. Actress Eva Green is also featured in the film as Colette Marchant, a French aerialist who works at Dreamland.
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A new poster released on social media by Disney shares another look at a wide-eyed Dumbo perched atop a red, white, and blue circus pedestal. While the poster shows a clearly happy-looking Dumbo and sports clouds toward the bottom to reference his flying abilities, it doesn’t shed any new light on the film’s plot. Disney had previously released a set of five posters for the film, one each for Dumbo, Farrell, DeVito, Keaton, and Green.
The official trailer for the film was released back in November, but this latest poster continues to build hype and anticipation ahead of its theatrical release. To this point, Disney has done exceedingly well with its live-action remakes: Beauty and the Beast grossed more than $1.2 billion worldwide, Alice in Wonderland more than $1 billion, The Jungle Book more than $900 million, and Cinderella more than $500 million. It’s not the least bit surprising given this success that Dumbo is on the way along with Aladdin, The Lion King, Mulan, and surely many others.
While the adorable CGI elephant is designed to fly right into audiences’ hearts, it’ll be interesting to see if parents are okay with showing their children a film centered around a circus at a time when circuses have increasingly come under fire or gone out of business for their treatment of animals. That said, Disney’s live-action remake train is basically Casey Jr. coming down the tracks at this point and there’s no stopping it now.
More: Colin Farrell Explains Dumbo & Jungle Book's CGI Difference
Source: Disney
