WISHES DO COME TRUE – In Walt Disney Animation Studios’ “Wish,” Asha (voice of Ariana DeBose) is a sharp-witted idealist who lives in Rosas—a kingdom where wishes really do come true. Helmed by Oscar®-winning director Chris Buck and Fawn Veerasunthorn, “Wish” features original songs by Grammy®-nominated singer/songwriter Julia Michaels and Grammy-winning producer, songwriter and musician Benjamin Rice. The epic animated musical opens only in theaters on Nov. 22, 2023. © 2023 Disney. All Rights Reserved.
Courtney Howard // Film Critic
Cinderella once sang, “A dream is a wish your heart makes. Whatever you wish for will come true.” Disney Animation has long been at the forefront of turning wishes and dreams into inventive and breathtaking realities with their feature films. Their latest completely original musical animated adventure WISH takes the concept of wishes and turns them into an innovative storytelling catalyst. Directors Chris Buck and Fawn Veerasunthorn’s fairy tale takes place in a fictional medieval kingdom of Rosas, where we follow 17-year-old Asha (voiced by Ariana DeBose) as she wishes on a star that lands on Earth and creates unexpected conflicts for her kingdom and its arrogant, narcissistic, overly-protective ruler King Magnifico (voiced by Chris Pine).
At the film’s recent long lead day, we got a sneak peek at the new trailer and about 30 minutes of out-of-context footage – and the excitement held within its aesthetic, narrative and sonic inspirations. We’ll wager your toes will be tapping on the floor, your shirts will be soaked with tears and your hearts will be touched during the run time – as was ours. The creatives themselves let us in on all the magic – and wishes – behind their brilliant, sparkling film.
WISH’s Inspired Look
While WISH will be, according to co-writer/ chief creative officer of Walt Disney Animation Studios Jennifer Lee, “a joyful original story,’ it does pull aesthetic inspiration from iconic Disney artists like Mary Blair (ALICE IN WONDERLAND), Eyvind Earle (SLEEPING BEAUTY), Gustaf Tenggren (SNOW WHITE AND THE SEVEN DWARFS and PINOCCHIO) and Kay Nielsen (FANTASIA). Not only that, Buck says they used the same Cinemascope as SLEEPING BEAUTY, the production’s “main legacy pull.” They also pulled from the animated techniques pioneered on the Disney shorts, PAPERMAN, FEAST and the watercolor look of FAR FROM THE TREE.
Lee later said nailing the creative vision has always been their greatest technical challenge on animated features. “How do we actually get the artist’s vision from the beginning, from that first painting? Lisa Keene, who’s one of the production designers on this, her paintings, I wrote to them in FROZEN and I wrote to them in WISH. With fighting through the technology and getting some of the linework back in, it’s tied to that watercolor. This achievement has meant a lot to us because it’s getting their vision, actually finally having technology and artistry meet in a way that they’re seeing eye to eye, instead of having to compromise.”
Veerasunthorn said, “What I love was it brings our CG artists and 2D artists together. Because, you know, animators will call and ask for advice about how do you put the lines on the face of a character to accentuate the emotion, and they studied that. The effects crew went to the animation research library where you have seen some of the artwork today. And they study how the effects, the graphic shapes of it was translated into our CG process. The artists have expressed that this is a wonderful thing that it brought them together, that there’s no longer a boundary between 2D and CG.”
WISH’s Incandescent Location
This fairy tale takes place off the Iberian Peninsula in the middle ages, in a time before SLEEPING BEAUTY and SNOW WHITE. Buck said it’s neither Spain or Portugal, but an amalgam. “It’s inspired by, just like when we did the FROZEN films, it’s inspired by Norway. We’re not saying it’s that actual area, but we do look to those regions for some of the coloring, what cultures would’ve been there. And this takes place in, like, between 12 and 13 hundred.”
Veerasunthorn added, “For our story, we wanted to create Rosas as a destination, a place people go to. In the Mediterranean Sea, that’s kinda where all the cultures converged, historically. We worked with our culture consultant to make sure that this could happen.”
Lee elucidated, “There was cultures coming from all around the world at a certain time. Magnifico built this kingdom not knowing if they’d come. And people came because they believed in his vision.”
WISH’s Intrepid Heroine
Like any good Disney animated feature worth its weight in gold, the story needs a charismatic heroine at the heart of the picture, propelling the action and emotion forward. And Oscar-winning DeBose was just the person to help bring this character to life. Buck said, “She’s very, very active within the booth. She’s acting it all out. We record all of it. The animators, all the way down to the mouth shapes, eye shapes, anything that she’s done. She’s so expressive. Jen and Allison wrote an incredible script and our actors do play. They’ re able to play with that, too. So she takes it and makes it her own. Jen is always done this. Jen knows how to write for Asha. So, it evolves as the process goes. Bringing in the actors, the beginning, and then it just keeps getting better and better.”
Lee added, “There’s a vulnerability feel when you come in as a dreamer, and then you suddenly have all of this. And she navigates it beautifully. But that vulnerability, and we have a character rising from just young teen with very present dreams being challenged and having to rise to that at a level she didn’t know if she had inside her. We connect with the actor at a level that’s so true in their heart, and then it helps hear. You hear how they would say it, what would matter to them. It’s always a critical part of our process.”
WISH’s Innovative Music
Julia Michaels, who has written for chart-topping artists Dua Lipa, Pink and Justin Bieber, provides the songs for WISH – and they are bops and tear-jerking ballads. She’s the youngest person to write songs for a Disney musical. We were treated to four songs, from the town’s flamenco-sounding introductory number (a la Mirabel’s in ENCANTO), to a disgruntled King Magnifico’s absolute banger number, “This Is The Thanks I Get,” which Lee joked doubles as an anthem for moms everywhere. Buck said, “We always wanted to do a nod to the Disney villains – and our audience was craving for another villain.”
Asha’s deeply evocative and emotional “I Want” song, which lays out the heroine’s yearnings just before her life changes, sounds like a distant homage (without being reductive, mind you) to THE LITTLE MERMAID’s “Part of Your World.” Veerasunthorn mentioned, “That song was actually the very first song that Julia wrote for this film. We didn’t quite have the whole story at that point. We gave her some of the brief storyline, and then she wrote that incredible song.”
Lee follows up, “We hadn’t written the script yet, even. We really wanted to talk about that time in life, cause Asha is 17, turning 18, where you have big aspirations and then the world shows you its flaws. And you go, this isn’t acceptable. That moment when you don’t have the answers, but you know something’s wrong and you know there should be more. And she just hooked onto that beautifully.”
Asha sings this song while running through the forest and encountering a very SNOW WHITE-esque wishing well (though she wishes on the night sky). Once her wish descends to earth in the body of a cute, chaotic star with boundless energy, pantomime way of communicating, and the heart-shaped mask face reminiscent of Mickey Mouse, the woodland creatures sprinkled with its also begin singing a cute little ditty of their own, “You’re A Star”. They even form a SOUL TRAIN-ish dance line at the end of that song.
WISH opens in theaters on November 22.
