Tonight on ABC, Disney is set to premiere “Once Upon A Studio,” a new animated short celebrating the 100th anniversary of Walt Disney Animation Studios that features Mickey and Minnie Mouse gathering up hundreds of characters from throughout the history of Disney’s cartoons to pose for a group photo. Controversially, though, one of those cartoon characters is the Genie from Aladdin, complete with “new” (never-before-heard) dialogue from Robin Williams.
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This is controversial for a couple of reasons, the obvious one being that Williams died in 2015 and therefore couldn’t consent to this himself, but also that Williams supposedly put a line in his will specifically preventing Disney from reusing outtakes from his Aladdin recording sessions for new movies featuring the Genie. As it turns out, that’s exactly what Disney did in this situation, though the studio seems eager to confirm that it got permission from Williams’ estate in order to do it—and so it can preemptively deny any rumors about it recreating the Genie voice with AI, which Williams’ daughter recently spoke out against.
In a Polygon piece about the premiere of “Once Upon A Studio,” producer Yvett Merino explained that it was “so important” to Disney to have Robin Williams’ “team” involved from early on, saying that it “meant the world that they said yes to his inclusion.” There’s no mention in the Polygon piece about Williams’ own feelings about reusing dialogue from his old recording sessions, but it does stick out a bit that Disney was sitting on these recordings with full knowledge that Williams didn’t want them to be used in a new Aladdin movie. And while this definitely is not a new Aladdin movie and therefore is at least following the (supposed, as we haven’t seen the physical document) literal text of Williams’ will, the fact that Disney still has to say “yes, we got permission” does indicate that there is some uncomfortableness to this.
But, according to co-director Dan Abraham, the Genie was simply too important to Disney’s history to not be included: “I just think that we couldn’t have made this short without Cinderella. We couldn’t have made this short without Stitch. We couldn’t have made this short without Robin Hood. And we couldn’t have made it without the Genie. He’s just such a part of our history, our legacy.” That doesn’t explain why the Genie had to speak in the short, especially since the voice actors for Cinderella and Robin Hood are also dead (probably among many, many others who will appear in the short), but Disney is going to Disney, and this whole thing is one of the most Disney things Disney has ever Disneyed.