The latest trend in Disney movies appears to be giving villains their own solo films.
Luckily, with a film catalog of over 60 animated classics to choose from, there's no shortage
of compelling baddies to follow. These are the Disney villains who deserve their own
origin story.
Although Emma Stone may have just finished playing Cruella de Vil, she's already got
an opinion on which classic Disney villain should get their own movie next. In an interview
with Variety, the Oscar-winning actress explained why Ursula, the nautical nemesis from 1989's
The Little Mermaid, deserves some big-screen representation. She said:
"She's an octopus, and the world you would get to live in, like Ursula's parents and
what happened there [...] You've never really seen a non-human Disney villain be explored
in that way."
As it turns out, the infamous sea witch will be gracing the big screen once more in the
highly-anticipated live-action remake of The Little Mermaid — in which she'll be portrayed
by none other than Melissa McCarthy. And although that film will presumably focus more on Halle
Bailey's Ariel than Ursula herself, it would no doubt be interesting to find out more about
what led Ursula down the path of sea sorcery.
Pixar's The Incredibles was a major hit for Disney in 2004, pulling in over $600 million
at the worldwide box office. Although the superhero flick featured a super-powered core
cast of heroes, it wouldn't have worked nearly as well without the sinister villain Syndrome.
In the movie's opening scenes, audiences get a glimpse into the golden crime-fighting era
of Bob Parr, aka Mr. Incredible, including his continuous run-ins with his obsessive
fanboy Buddy Pine. After Buddy accidentally causes a near-disaster, Mr. Incredible officially
breaks ties with the young superhero wannabe, inadvertently sending him down a road of bitterness
and vengeance. The next time Buddy appears, years later, he's now a fully-grown genius
with a plan to officially defeat his former idol once and for all.
"You sly dog, you caught me monologuing! I can't believe it."
He's even got the resources to pull it off. But this raises the question: what exactly
did Buddy do to become so rich? The guy literally has an evil volcano lair on his own private
island, equipped with missile-launching defenses, an army of henchmen, and a monorail. Between
all that and his decades-long war against the superhero community, there's clearly a
lot more of Syndrome's story left to tell.
No one's slick as Gaston, no one's quick as Gaston — no one deserves their own original
flick like Gaston! Gaston LeGume, the lady-lovin', hunky hunter from the 1991 Oscar-winning animated
masterpiece, Beauty and the Beast is perhaps Disney's scariest villain ever. He's hyper
masculine, machinating, and just downright mean. But while Beauty does a magnificent
job of painting Gaston as a scum-of-the-Earth bully, there's a whole lot about his upbringing
that we still have no idea about.
As it turns out, Disney has already realized the potential of a Gaston backstory, officially
greenlighting a live-action Beauty and the Beast prequel series that, as reported by
Deadline, "will follow Gaston and LeFou as they set off with LeFou's stepsister, Tilly,
after a surprising revelation from her past comes to light." While getting to see how
Gaston originally met his buffoonish bestie sounds interesting enough, there's still a
lot of unexplored ground in the history of the self-proclaimed "man among men." Maybe
a full-length movie is the perfect medium in which to explore it.
There's no Disney villain more mysterious than the shadowy voodoo master of The Princess
and the Frog: Dr. Facilier, voiced by the uber-talented Keith David. The Shadow Man
has big aspirations to take over the city of New Orleans, and he comes pretty darn close
to doing so before the movie's end.
Aside from a few throwaway lines about his ancestors being of royalty, Facilier's past
is essentially a blank slate, making his backstory one that many Disney fans would clamour to
see on the big screen. All we know is that he's got friends on the other side. What we
don't know is how he got them.
Is 2000's The Emperor's New Groove the most underrated Disney movie to date? Although
it may not have excelled at the box office when it was originally released, the hilarious
animated flick has only grown more popular with age, and with a star-studded voice cast
led by David Spade and John Goodman, it's not hard to see why.
While Spade and Goodman are both magnificent as Kuzco and Pacha, the lasting impact of
New Groove truly rests on the shoulders of the film's terrible twosome: Kuzco's scorned
former advisor, Yzma and her meathead henchman, Kronk. Every scene involving this zany pair
is ripe with laugh-out-loud interchanges, both for kids and adults alike.
"She's hiding something. When I give the word, we search the house."
"Okay, but I still have ninety-four monkeys to go."
Yzma's growl
They were so likeable, in fact, that Disney made a direct-to-video spinoff titled Kronk's
New Groove in 2005. But why stop there?
An origin movie following this devious duo would undoubtedly be a big hit with the movie's
cult following. Failing that, their story might well be suited for a Disney+ series.
Either way, there's no denying that it'd be a whole heap of fun.
Let's face it: Hollywood has purveyed many a falsehood about Greek mythology in the past
few decades — mostly because it makes for a better story. Disney's Hercules is particularly
guilty of this, with perhaps no better example than its depiction of Hades, who, despite
being the film's antagonist, honestly wasn't so bad in the world of Greek myth.
In Disney's animated hero tale, Hades is portrayed as a fiery, vengeful outcast hell-bent on
overthrowing Zeus' rule of Mount Olympus by releasing the evil Titans. This doesn't align
with actual Greek mythology, however, in which Hades fought against the Titans alongside
his brothers, Zeus and Poseidon. In fact, Hades only rules over the Underworld because
he drew the shortest straw when he and his brothers were dividing up the universe — not
because he's evil.
Perhaps being such a misunderstood mythological figure would make Hades an ideal candidate
to get his own spin-off prequel. Disney could easily re-enlist James Woods to star, or,
considering Woods' more recent controversies, simply hire a younger actor to play the part.
And given his storied history in Greek mythology, there's no shortage of potential plotlines,
either. From the early days of his reign in the Underworld to the infamous abduction of
Persephone, there's all sorts of myth to mine when it comes to Hades' heyday.
While it was undoubtedly Robin Williams' unforgettable Genie who stole the show in 1992's Oscar-winning
animated classic Aladdin, you'd be hard-pressed to find a better Disney villain than the sinister
sorcerer Jafar. As the Sultan's advisor, Jafar sought a mysterious magical lamp, secretly
plotting to use it to take control of Agrabah. He was everything a good villain should be,
too: conniving, conceited, and downright creepy.
Although Marwan Kenzari's take on the character in Guy Ritchie's 2019 live-action remake struggled
to resonate with most fans, that shouldn't diminish Jafar's box office potential. In
both versions of Aladdin, Jafar is immediately introduced as the evil-doer we all know him
to be — so we have essentially no idea what happened to make him that way.
This leaves a lot of gray area should Disney want to explore what happened in Agrabah in
the years leading up to the events of Aladdin. How exactly did Jafar work his way up to becoming
the Sultan's right-hand man? How did he acquire his mysterious snake-headed staff, or learn
how to use it to hypnotize people? Perhaps most intriguing, how did he know about the
Genie's lamp and the Cave of Wonders in the first place? These are the tantalizing questions
a potential Jafar movie might ask. Tempting, isn't it?
It seems that the only thing most people remember about 2009's Up is the film's tear-jerking
opening sequence. What fewer people remember is the fact that the movie's main villain
is a deranged former explorer with his own platoon of talking dogs.
Voiced by Oscar-winning star Christopher Plummer, Charles F. Muntz was a one-time famous adventurer
known for taking his zeppelin on vast voyages of discovery. After one particular quest to
South America, he returned with the bones of a large bird that he dubbed "The Monster
of Paradise Falls." Unfortunately for Muntz, the scientific community rejected his findings
and labeled him a fraud. Vowing to prove himself, Muntz and his technologically-collared canines
fly back to Paradise Falls where they spend the rest of their lives ruthlessly hunting
a living specimen of the bird.
So why would a Muntz movie make for a must-see? Well, for one, it would presumably include
Dug, the scene-stealing "goodest boy" who was one of the brightest spots of the entire
original film. Besides that, at one point during his surprisingly dastardly monologue,
Muntz hints at the fact that he had previously killed a number of rival explorers. Needless
to say, there's an even more sinister underside to this dastardly character; one that's positively
ripe for exploration.
2010's Tangled truly had it all — a magnificent heroine, a loveable leading scoundrel, and
a story that both oozed humor and tugged on the heartstrings. But you'd be remiss not
to mention the film's vile villainess, Mother Gothel. Hiding a secret agenda for keeping
her "daughter" tucked away from the world for years, Gothel guarded Rapunzel like a
helicopter parent on steroids. We know that she only did it because Rapunzel's magical
hair kept her eternally young, but aside from that, the movie doesn't give much away about
this wicked old crone.
For example, how exactly did Gothel know about the magical flower before it was uprooted
to help baby Rapunzel? How did she know about the secret tower hidden in the thick of the
woods? Perhaps most importantly, just how old is she? All of these questions could be
explored in a potential Mother Gothel origin flick.
In 2012's Wreck-It Ralph, building-crushing bad guy Ralph, fed up of playing the heel
to Fix-It Felix, Jr. in their vintage 8-bit arcade game, decides to go rogue and attempt
to earn a medal in another game. You might recall that, when the other game programs
in the arcade learned of Ralph's plans, they asked him if he was "going Turbo."
"You're not going Turbo, are you?" "Turbo? No, I'm not going Turbo. Come on,
guys. Is it Turbo to want a friend?"
It seems a previous fictional arcade game character named Turbo had left his own racing
game to join another more popular one, ultimately resulting in both games getting their plugs
pulled.
While it's eventually revealed that Turbo was actually King Candy in disguise, the film
doesn't really go into much detail as to what happened to the "turbo-tastic" racer between
the de-plugging of RoadBlasters and his eventual landing in Sugar Rush. Given how successful
the two Wreck-It Ralph films have been thus far, you could certainly argue that audiences
are desperate for more from this virtual universe. Maybe an original Disney+ film or series,
exploring what happened to Turbo in his pre-Sugar Rush days, might be a satisfying double-dip
into the arcade world.
Somehow, Disney recently managed to give a sympathetic backstory to Cruella de Vil, a
fashionista hell-bent on skinning Dalmatian puppies for clothing material. So there's
no reason why they couldn't do the same for Edgar Balthazar, Madame Bonfamille's longtime
butler in 1970's The Aristocats. True Disney fans will recall that Balthazar is the main
antagonist in this early-Parisian cat tale — but in retrospect, he wasn’t really
all that bad.
In a nutshell, Balthazar decides to cat-nap his rich boss's pets after he learns that
she was planning on bequeathing her entire fortune to her cats. Let's be honest here:
Edgar's plot may not have been exactly righteous, but it's not like he didn't have a good reason
to do it. He didn't kill the cats or anything — he just simply wanted to be the one to
inherit Madame Bonfamille's money and estate. What were those cats even going to do with
all that money?
With the right casting, an origin story following Edgar as he became the Bonfamille's loyal
butler could make for an intriguing watch. You could even throw in his early interactions
with a kitten version of Duchess, the feline matriarch in The Aristocats for good measure.
At the very least, it'd be a golden opportunity to enjoy a little more of that smooth, smooth
cat-jazz. Hey, why not?
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