The Nutcracker and the Four Realms

[D82]

I suppose Disney felt more confident in this film as live-action since it follows the Narnia/Wonderland/Oz formula they've been using.

Yes, I guess you're right.

[Disney's Divinity]

I can see this film doing better than A Wrinkle in Time (sadly), but not by a huge amount. I don't see it being a big success. Could be wrong though.

[D82]

Me neither. I think it could do even worse than A Wrinkle in Time, but we'll see. Disney doesn't seem to have much faith in it either. Well, maybe its Christmas setting can help a bit, though perhaps it's released too early to be considered a Christmas film.

[Disney Duster]

I think this film will do well because of the Christmas theme and do better than A Wrinkle in Time sadly just because it's more white.

[JeanGreyForever]

Is The Nutcracker as popular throughout the whole world as it is in America?

[D82]

^I have no idea. I'm not sure, but I'd say in Spain it's well-known although not one of the most popular fairytales. I could be wrong though. Is it very popular in America?

[JeanGreyForever]

The ballet is hugely popular in America because it's considered a staple of the holiday season and Christmas time. Which makes the introduction in Fantasia quite jarring now because of how it's referenced that nobody really knows the music for The Nutcracker. I believe The Nutcracker became a huge deal in the 1950s or around that time. The fairy tale and actual story is less known though because most people just associate it with the ballet.

[D82]

^Interesting. I didn't know the ballet was so popular there. I think in Spain it's not nearly as popular. I don't know about the rest of Europe, I guess at least it must be famous in Russia because of Tchaikovsky.

By the way, here's a theater standee for the film:
https://twitter.com/DrissiAdv/status/10 ... 7652402177
https://twitter.com/realdanielpinto/sta ... 6686357505

[Atlantica]

Absolutely beautiful ! Very much looking forward to this

[Jules]

The ballet is hugely popular in America because it's considered a staple of the holiday season and Christmas time. Which makes the introduction in Fantasia quite jarring now because of how it's referenced that nobody really knows the music for The Nutcracker. I believe The Nutcracker became a huge deal in the 1950s or around that time. The fairy tale and actual story is less known though because most people just associate it with the ballet.

Deems Taylor never said that. He stated that Tchaikovsky “hated” his own Nutcracker* ballet but it turned out to be “one of the most popular things he ever wrote.” So quite the contrary, actually.

*I’ve read some other accounts that Tchaikovsky didn’t actually hate the Nutcracker, but was disappointed and incredibly irritated that it achieved great success whereas Swan Lake - which he considered far superior - floundered. Perhaps ol’ Deems was exaggerating.

[JeanGreyForever]

This is what I was referring to.

It's a series of dances taken out of a full-length ballet called "The Nutcracker" that he once composed for the St. Petersburg Opera House. It wasn't much of a success and nobody performs it nowadays, but I'm pretty sure you'll recognize the music of the suite when you hear it.

It wasn't a success originally but the part about "nobody performs it nowadays" is what confuses a lot of viewers today who watch this segment since The Nutcracker is anything but not performed.

[Jules]

Is that in the movie?

[JeanGreyForever]

That's a quote from what he says in the movie before the Nutcracker segment begins.

[Jules]

Oh! I forgot there’s the Roadshow cut. Forgive me. I know Fantasia very well, but have seen the Roadshow version only twice (maybe thrice) and am not really familiar with Deems Taylor’s added commentary. I remember none of it, actually, though I can clearly recall everything he says in the shortened 1990s cut of the film. That’s the one I grew up with.

[JeanGreyForever]

There's no need to apologize. I didn't realize that the remark about The Nutcracker's public success was part of the extended commentary that was cut out in previous editions. I'm not a Fantasia buff and I've really only seen the restored version of it.

[Sotiris]

New TV spot.

[D82]

Photos from a D23 magazine article about the film:
https://www.instagram.com/p/Bm4cZPChZok ... mdisney200
https://twitter.com/mffansofficial/stat ... 7266143232

And a piece of concept art and an illustration that inspired the crew shared by the film's director:
https://www.instagram.com/p/Bm07OnolOcg ... ehallstrom
https://www.instagram.com/p/Bm062_tFMc9 ... ehallstrom

[D82]

The article from the D23 magazine talks about the popularity of the ballet in America. You were right, JeanGreyForever, it was around the 1950's that it became so famous.

The Nutcracker has been beloved by American audiences for nearly 80 years, thanks in part to Walt Disney.

His Fantasia in 1940 was the first time US audiences had seen actual dancing to accompany Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky’s well-known Nutcracker Suite — even though the dancers were fairies, fish, flowers and mushrooms rather than prima ballerinas. The full ballet from which the suite was excerpted wasn’t staged in the United States until 1944, in San Francisco, and it didn’t become an annual phenomenon until 10 years later, when a brief debut at New York City Ballet — in February — was so popular that it was brought back to run for a full month at the holidays.

In the decades since, Tchaikovsky’s masterpiece has conquered the world — as the international cast and crew of Disney’s upcoming adaptation, The Nutcracker and the Four Realms, can attest.

It also confirms that the Nutcracker will be in the film.

The movie takes its inspiration from the same 18th-century stories adapted for the Tchaikovsky ballet, as well as from the ballet itself, but as the title promises, it takes young heroine Clara, her toy soldier companion, and her mysterious godfather, Drosselmeyer, into realms previously only hinted at.

And it seems that, like Belle in the live-action remake, Clara will be an inventor too.

“We landed on the idea of Clara as a very science-oriented girl” Powell (one of the screenwriters) says “someone who was maybe a little bit of a tomboy and had that mechanical sensibility that could make her view the world in a different way and give her a stronger connection to Drosselmeyer because they shared this love of inventing things and figuring out how they worked.”

[JeanGreyForever]

At least the Nutcracker has finally been mentioned. Being an inventor suits Clara more than it ever did Belle imo. The Clara of the movie anyway. The real Clara/Marie from the novella was very dreamy and whimsical much like her literary successors, Alice, Dorothy, Wendy, Lucy, etc.

[D82]

According to IMDb, Maxamillian Hofgartner is the actor who plays the part of the Nutcracker in the film and not Jayden Fowora-Knight (the black soldier). But we all know IMDb isn't always reliable, so I don't know if this is true.