Beauty And The Beast’s Alan Menken Returning For Live-Action Aladdin

Disney’s live-action Aladdin has been full of developments recently, but this one might just be the most important to long-time Disney fans.

That’s because Oscar-winning composer Alan Menken is returning to score the live-action version. Menken worked on the original animated film, and alongside Tim Rice will be re-recording that film’s classic songs (via Deadline). In addition, the film will be getting two new songs, created by Menken, Benj Pasek, and Justin Paul (La La Land, Dear Evan Hansen).

Menken should be quite comfortable with this process now, as he also returned to score the live-action Beauty and the Beast to phenomenal success. Menken and Howard Ashman’s original songs were re-recorded and updated for the film, which also added three new songs to the classic tale that meshed with the originals seamlessly.

As for the original tracks, they will likely get a few changes here and there to accommodate the new version and a new audience.

“I think it’s really healthy to give little changes to all of the songs as they come in,” Menken told ComicBook.com. “And we did that for the Broadway show, too,” he said. “We did that when we brought Aladdin to the stage. ‘You know what? I don’t want to do the same arrangement of ‘A Whole New World,’ because it should feel fresh.’ You know the song, but there should be a freshness to the arrangement.”

Some of those changes will come from unexpected places, such as original cuts found after the fact. This took place in the live-action Beauty and the Beast as well.

“We have a change at the end of the movie where we found some lost lyrics from ‘Beauty and the Beast’ that Howard had written and was perfect to end the movie with,” said Menken. “Those lost lyrics were just so great to get into the movie…[There] are subtle changes to ‘Beauty and the Beast.’ They kind of go into a waltz feeling in the dance, but again, essentially, it’s ‘Beauty and the Beast.’”

If Menken is able to do for Aladdin what he did for Beauty, fans are in for a quite a treat.

Aladdin has no release date.