Sadly, if you were holding out hope to see Duchess, O’Malley, and a modern jazzy rendition of “Everybody Wants to Be a Cat” in Disney’s next wave of live-action remakes, you can let that dream go off into the night. Well, at least for now. Drummer, DJ, music producer turned filmmaker Questlove has officially confirmed that his planned live-action remake of The Aristocats isn’t happening anytime at Disney anytime soon.
In March 2023, the House of Mouse first announced that the Oscar-winning director behind Summer of Soul would work on a live-action/CGI hybrid remake of the 1970 animated film. Of course, the project sounded like the right fit for Questlove, who would direct, executive produce, and even oversee the music. Will Gluck (Peter Rabbit) and Keith Bunin (Onward) were writing the script. And then? Silence.
The Aristocats (1970) followed Duchess and her three kittens after they’re kidnapped by a greedy butler hoping to steal their inheritance. With the help of alley cat Thomas O’Malley, the family tries to make it back home through the French countryside.
Fans noticed the updates on the live-action version of The Aristocats dried up quickly. Was Disney just sitting on it, or had the cats been let out of the bag too soon? Well, Questlove himself cleared things up on Score: The Podcast. “Disney had their third president… usually when a new administration comes in, we got a little reshuffle,” he explained. “The first time, this is the third time in which a new administration came in. And then I was like, okay, well, this is what I plan to do… here’s some of the music examples and this is the team I’m working with. And then they had another administration shuffle and it was like, okay, well, alright. So by the third time I was just like, maybe this isn’t meant for me.”
That’s about as blunt as it gets. The constant leadership changes, most notably Bob Iger’s return and Sean Bailey’s exit as Walt Disney Pictures President, left the project up in the air. Questlove admits he “would have loved to have done that project,” but he’s not short on work. “There’s like 20 others that I can get to. What I don’t do is I don’t make announcements until it’s ready. But there’s literally four other films — I’ll be working till, you know, 2029, 2030.”
The remake would have been part of Disney’s live-action lineup, which has been wildly inconsistent. The Lion King roared to over a billion dollars, while the recent Snow White had such a rough time that it triggered a rethink of Disney’s whole remake strategy. Bambi and Tangled are on ice, too, while Sword in the Stone quietly vanished from development chatter. On the flip side, Lilo & Stitch crushed it to the point that a sequel is already in development, and Moana is locked for July 2026.
So where does that leave Questlove’s The Aristocats? Back in the vault. Maybe they’ll claw their way out again in a few years when Disney feels nostalgic.
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