Dumbo (2019 film)

Tim Burton was selected as director in March 2015.

Early development for a live-action adaptation of Dumbo began in 2014, when Ehren Kruger gave producer Derek Frey a script for the film, which Frey gave the green light to.[1] On July 8, 2014, it was announced that the film was in development for Walt Disney Pictures. Kruger was confirmed as the screenwriter, and Justin Springer as a producer along with Kruger.[24] On March 10, 2015, Tim Burton was announced as the director.[25] On July 15, 2017, Disney announced Dumbo would be released on March 29, 2019.[26] The film features a different storyline from the original film's, though as star Colin Farrell described, "[t]he one central thing that holds true in both the original animation, the original cartoon" and the 2019 film, is the message of "believing in yourself and finding something inside you that allows you to become the best version of what you thought you could even be, and that we're all, regardless of the things that sometimes society says, should arrive us at being outcasts; they're the things that make us all individual, special, and beautiful regardless of how crippling a certain thing may be or how polarizing a certain physical attribute even may be."[27]

The film does not feature talking animals, focusing instead on the human characters.[28] Kruger wrote the script so that it "offered a way to tell that story in a framework that expanded it, but without redoing the original [film]", and a story that "was simple, with an emotional simplicity, and didn't interfere with what the basic through line of the original is about."[1] As in the original film, Dumbo depicts the protagonist as a symbolic figure who does not fit in and uses their disabilities as an advantage.[29] Kruger wrote the script in order to "explore how the people of the circus world would relate to Dumbo's journey",[1] while Springer said that "[the production team] really wanted to explore the human side of [Dumbo's] story and give it historical context. In the animated feature, Dumbo flies for the world at the end of the film. [They] wanted to find out how the world reacts when people learn that this elephant can fly".[1] The group of crows from the 1941 film that had been criticized as being racist were excluded from the film, and their dialogue was instead said by a ringleader character.[30]

In January 2017, it was announced that Will Smith was in talks to play the father of the children who develop a friendship with the elephant after seeing him at the circus.[31] However, Smith later passed on the role due to scheduling conflicts with Bad Boys for Life, among other reasons.[32] He went on to be cast as the Genie in Disney's live-action film adaptation of Aladdin.[33] Bill Hader, Chris Pine and Casey Affleck were also offered the role, but passed on it before Colin Farrell was cast.[10] Farrell, a fan of Burton, chose to work on the film because "[t]he idea of [acting in] something as sweet and fantastical and otherworldly, while being grounded in some recognizable world that we can relate to, under the direction of [Burton], was a dream ... I've always been looking for something of that ilk."[34]

In March 2017, Burton's frequent collaborators, Eva Green and Danny DeVito, joined the cast as Colette, a trapeze artist, and Max Medici, the circus' ringmaster, respectively.[13][14][35][36] Due to her fear of heights, Green trained with aerialist Katherine Arnold and choreographer Fran Jaynes in order to prepare for the role.[1] In April 2017, another veteran of Burton's films, Michael Keaton, joined Dumbo, to complete the casting of prominent "adult" roles.[12] Tom Hanks was reportedly in discussions for the role before Keaton's casting.[31] Hanks would instead sign on for the role of Geppetto in Disney's 2022 live-action film adaptation of Pinocchio.[37] In the summer of 2017, DeObia Oparei, Joseph Gatt, and Alan Arkin joined the cast.[17][19][38] DeVito said that "[he loves] Tim and [he] would do anything to be in a movie with him."[34] He also said that Burton is "[a]lways spirited, always an artist, always thinking about the craft, always painting with his mind," and that he felt like "part of some kind of palette, a color scheme" while filming the movie.[34]

Cardington Airfield served as a filming location for the production.

Principal photography had begun by July 2017 in England, with most of the filming taking place at Pinewood Studios and Cardington Airfield.[1][39] Two elephant props were used during filming "to give [the production team] an idea of his size and his shape in the scene; an idea of the lighting, and that kind of thing; where he's going to be for camera."[40] Creature performer Edd Osmond used a green suit to represent the character while filming certain scenes, as well as an "interactive reference" for scenes that required the actors to be in contact with the character, and as a guide for Burton to use; with Burton later providing information of his performance to the animation team.[1] Unlike most remakes of Disney animations, Dumbo mostly used practical sets during filming.[41]

Production designer Rick Heinrichs designed the film's scenes in a way that represents both the film's story and the period setting. He stated that the film's story "provided a very specific period, but at the same time, having worked with Tim many times in the past, [he knows] that [Burton is] a little less interested in giving a history lesson as he is in the emotional story being told."[1] The "Dreamland" and circus scenes were designed differently in order to contrast them.[1] The production design crew were heavily influenced by the works of Edward Hopper, with Heinrichs stating that the team tried to create something similar to "[Hopper]'s reductive process of looking at environments and reducing it to its essence."[1]

Heinrichs also said that the production design team had "to push the reality—the live action—a bit into the storybook world. [They] certainly make the baby elephant look believable, but [they] also stylized our world, pushing it into an expressive direction with all of the lighting, costumes, props and environments."[1] Burton filmed the remake in sound stages, stating that "[f]or this kind of movie, shooting all indoors obviously helps with weather concerns and all those things. It's one movie where [they are] not sitting around, talking about the weather all day long."[1] The production team also created a full-scale version of the train "Casey Jr." from the original film, though it was visually redesigned in order to reflect the circus' state.[42] According to visual effects supervisor Richard Stammers, a motion base, which he described as "essentially a hydraulic round gimbal rig," was used for scenes in which Green's character flies with Dumbo, with hydraulic pistons used to simulate Dumbo's flying.[1]

The visual effects were provided by Moving Picture Company, Framestore and Rise FX, with the help of Rising Sun Pictures and Rodeo FX. At Rodeo, to achieve the effects for the opening sequence of the train travelling through the country, augmented aerial footage was merged with matte paintings and computer-generated imagery. They would also do the effects of Holt's amputated arm by digitally recreating the character's costumes and the backgrounds obstructed by the sleeve.[43] The Third Floor, Inc., tasked primarily with creating the animals of the film, achieved the effects of humans flying on Dumbo using a 3D mold of the character and an animatronic mounted on a 6-axis gimbal.[44]

Dumbo grossed $114.8 million in the United States and Canada, and $238.5 million in other territories, for a worldwide $353.3 million.[7] It was estimated the film would have had to gross more than $500 million worldwide in order to break-even, and with a combined production and advertisement budget of $300 million, Deadline Hollywood reported it ultimately lost money.[8][9]

In the United States and Canada, the film was released alongside The Beach Bum and Unplanned, and was projected to gross $50–65 million from 4,259 theaters in its opening weekend.[4][55] The film made $15.3 million on its first day, including $2.6 million from Thursday night previews. It went on to debut to $46 million, topping the box office.[56][57] The start was considered disappointing, given the $170 million budget and the Disney brand, with the blame put on the original film being 78 years old and the middling critical response versus poor marketing.[58] In its second weekend, the film dropped 60%, to $18.2 million, finishing third, behind newcomers Shazam! and Pet Sematary, and then made $9.2 million in its third weekend, finishing fifth.[59][60]

In other territories, Dumbo was projected to earn $80–90 million from 53 countries in its opening weekend, for a global debut of $137–155 million.[55] Similarly to its domestic market, the film underperformed, grossing $73.5 million for a worldwide $119.5 million.[61] Its largest markets were China ($10.7 million), Mexico ($7.2 million) and Japan ($2.4 million).[62] It earned $39.6 million in its second weekend overseas, for a running total of $137.5 million.[63] As of June 2019, its largest markets are the United Kingdom ($32.5 million), China ($21.9 million), Mexico ($21.6 million), France ($16.9 million), and Italy ($12.5 million).[64]

On review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, the film received an approval rating of 46% based on 368 reviews and an average rating of 5.5/10. The website's critical consensus reads, "Dumbo is held partly aloft by Tim Burton's visual flair, but a crowded canvas and overstretched story leave this live-action remake more workmanlike than wondrous."[65] On Metacritic, the film has an average score of 51 out of 100, based on 55 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews."[66] Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "A−" on an A+ to F scale, and those at PostTrak gave it 3.5 out of 5 stars.[58]

The performances of Danny DeVito and Michael Keaton received praise from critics.

Writing for The A.V. Club, Katie Rife gave the film a "B−" and wrote "characters are just there to keep the story moving, to provide awestruck reaction shots as we move from oddly muted spectacle to agreeable callback to the heartwarming happy ending. And yes, these are all symptoms of the same relentless conformist drumbeat the film is critiquing in its script. But what's more Disney than Disney controlling the ways in which a filmmaker can critique Disney?"[67] David Rooney of The Hollywood Reporter wrote: "The hopes of diehard Burton fans might have been stoked by the recruitment of Michael Keaton and Danny DeVito, totems of the director's more consistent days. But this is another frustratingly uneven picture, with thin characters—human and animal—that fail to exert much of a hold, reclaiming the story only toward the end. Up to then, the filmmaker's overstuffed visual imagination and appetite for sinister gloom all but trample the enchantment of a tale that, at heart, is simple and whimsical. The central failure to recognize those virtues lies also in Ehren Kruger's cluttered screenplay."[68] James Berardinelli from Reelviews called Dumbo "a perfectly adequate family film", rating it 3 out of 4 stars.[69]

Conversely, Owen Gleiberman of Variety lamented disappointment in the film, stating that the film "transforms a gentle and miraculous tale into a routine story by weighing it down with a lot of nuts and bolts it didn’t need".[70] For IndieWire, David Ehrlich gave split opinions on the acting, praising DeVito and Keaton's performances but criticizing Arkin's as "hilariously lazy" and stated it would invite the audience to "stop caring about the plot".[71] The Guardian's Peter Bradshaw gave the film one star out of five, lamenting that "Tim Burton's new Dumbo lands in the multiplex big top with a dull thud. It is a flightless pachyderm of a film that saddles itself with 21st-century shame at the idea of circus animals, overcomplicating the first movie, losing the directness, abandoning the lethal pathos, mislaying the songs and finally getting marooned in some sort of steampunk Jurassic Park, jam-packed with retro-futurist boredom."[72]