Disney 100: Wish Producers Reveal Their Hopes for the Company's Next 100 Years

Jennifer Lee wants more moms in Disney movies.

By Jamie Jirak

Walt Disney Animation Studios is celebrating its 100th anniversary next month, and over the last century, the studio has released over 60 films starting with Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs in 1937. Their latest feature, Wish, is coming to the big screen in November and follows Asha (Ariana DeBose) as she learns a dark secret about her kingdom's wish-granting ruler, Magnifico (Chris Pine). ComicBook.com recently had the chance to chat with the film's directors, Chris Buck and Fawn Veerasunthorn, in addition to producers Peter Del Vecho and Juan Pablo Reyes Lancaster Jones, and writer/executive producer, Jennifer Lee, who is also the Chief Creative Officer at Walt Disney Studios Animation. We asked each creative what they were hoping to see over the course of Disney's next 100 years.

"Oh gosh, there's so many things," Lee replied when asked about her hopes for the studio's future. "Well, you know what I love? Instead of the 'dead mom,' the mom is the lead. We love to joke about it, and the innocence of why so many times characters did not have the mom around. And it's like, well, everyone knows moms solve all the problems. I love moms. And so I'd love a film that tackles that in a wonderful way and celebrates that in a way that relates to all ages, too. And I think moms can be that."

Lee added, "There's so many I think that are just fun opportunities ... but that was the first one that popped into my head."

"Look, the imagination of Disney is boundless," Del Vecho began. "I will say that as a studio, we've really grown. We've become more diversified than ever, and I think that's only elevating the stories that we're telling in the stories we will tell in the future."

"Yeah, I agree with that," Lancaster Jones added. "I mean diversity, but in every way. I think something beautiful about Wish is that interaction between the different generations as you see with Chris and Fawn and how it's not just one perspective. We work as a community and you see all of these perspectives and points of view make their way in one way or another into a movie." 

Jennifer Lee Talks Disney Appealing To All Ages:

ComicBook.com asked Lee what she thinks it is about Disney magic that appeals to all ages.

"It's funny, Walt would always say 'to connect with the kid in us,' but I think some people misinterpret that to the concept of toys and an innocence that is naive. And I don't think that's what that means," Lee explained. "I think that he means 'connect with that part of ourselves that is wondrous, that sees possibility, that doesn't give up, that has a way of looking at the world and seeing the world for its best and all of those things that we should always revisit over and over again.'"

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Lee continued, "But I think by also connecting with fairytales, that's where he started, his storytelling. Fairytales are created to help us cope with life. They're not just a story for story's sake. And so by using the fairytale model, to me, there's different times in life where we need that support. So I always held true to that." She added, "And I think with Wish, what I'm really excited about, as you said, is an original, it's an original fairytale. It's not based on an older one, it has more contemporary ideas and themes. But what it has that connects to us at all ages is not just like, 'I wish for a pony or a horse.' 'I wish,' meaning 'this is the thing that drives who I am."

Wish opens only in theaters on November 22nd.   

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