Since its release in 2021, Encanto has taken the world by storm. Some people are even calling it the best Disney movie ever. The film centers around a young girl named Mirabel Madrigal who comes from a family where everybody has special powers except for her. However, when the family’s magic is threatened, she is the only person who can save it. The story has been applauded by people all over the world and the film has been enjoyed by people of all ages. What many of those people don’t realize, however, is that the Encanto they know and love almost went a little differently. Originally, the story in the film wasn’t exactly like the one everyone has come to enjoy. Keep reading to find out more about how the story in Encanto changed during development.
The Original Story for Encanto
In the entertainment industry, it’s very common for the final product to be very different from the original idea. All of the creative people out there know that making changes is always an important part of the process. However, those who have seen Encanto will have a difficult time imagining the story any other way. According to an interview, Byron Howard and Jared Bush did with D23, the pair came up with the concept of the film together. Bush said, “Byron and I teamed up on Zootopia wanting to evolve and elevate what a talking animal movie could be.[Something with] depth of character and sophistication without sacrificing entertainment, but built from a core that really had something to say. And because we’re both musicians—trombonists, by the way, we wanted to apply these same storytelling principles that Jared just mentioned to a musical. We love—L-O-V-E—love musicals.”
Bruno Was Originally Oscar
While many of the elements of the story came together fairly early on, there is one character whose story changed a lot over time. Initially, Bruno Madrigal was quite different. For starters, his name was Oscar – but that wasn’t the only thing that was changed during the production process. Byron Howard told Empire Online, “It was very difficult, in the early versions, not to let it become a buddy movie between Mirabel and Bruno. He was actually Mirabel’s age at one point. We tried him as kind of a chubbier, funnier uncle who she met earlier in the movie.” However, once they began to dive deeper into Bruno’s powers, Bush and Howard knew they needed to do something different with the character. Bruno’s ability to see into the future opened up the door to lots of possibilities. While this talent may seem awesome, Howard and Bush knew that it could have negative consequences if Bruno started seeing things in the future that people weren’t happy about.
With that in mind, Howard and Bush started to change direction from their original version of Bruno. Howard said, ” [We thought about] him getting this terrible reputation around town, people thinking he’s making these things happen and how messed up that would make someone. If he’s not been around for 10 years – nobody knows where he went, and he has this reputation – then this really deserves to be a gossipy, chisme song about everyone’s misperception of him. What was this guy up to?” What may have seemed like minor changes at first went on to have a big impact on the overall story. Most notably, Bruno’s character development led to the song “We Don’t Talk About Bruno” which has become one of the most popular tunes from the movie. On top of that, Bruno is arguably one of the film’s most memorable characters. Although you never know how things are going to pan out when you decide to make a major change, this one turned out to work out really well in the movie’s favor.
Will There Be Another Encanto Movie?
With all of the success that Encanto has achieved since its release, lots of people can’t help but wonder if the film is going to get a sequel. After all, there is still lots of places the story can go and viewers have already shown that they are very invested in the Madrigal family. As of now, no equal has been announced, but that doesn’t mean that the time won’t come. Sometimes it can take years for another installment to be released. Even if Encanto doesn’t end up getting another feature film, some fans have expressed that they would be interested in seeing a series based on the movie. Now that Disney has its own streaming service, a TV show could be a great way to expand the Encanto franchise.magic
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