In The Sorcerer's Apprentice, Nicolas Cage flies around New York City on what you might call the art deco equivalent of a gargoyle, one of the metal eagles that flanks the Chrysler Building. It's a cool idea both because it looks great, and it plays with the old idea of the stone gargoyles come to life in a way appropriate to the city where the movie is set.
But apparently some exec at Disney took a look at those flying scenes, forgot entirely about their animated version of The Hunchback of Notre Dame and said to themselves, "That's great… but what if it was a gargoyle instead?" And thus we will be getting "Untitled Gargoyles Project," which THR says the studio is developing with Zoe Green in charge of the story. Green hasn't had any work make it to the screen yet, but wrote Tigress for Stan Lee's POW Entertainment and sold Book of Shadows, a fantasy project with Rob Reiner attached to direct. All sound original, which is good, but no guarantee that she can take the shopworn idea of living gargoyles and give it new life.
The one thing we know about what Green is planning is that the story will be set in modern times, which invites even further comparisons to The Sorcerer's Apprentice. Basically Disney seems to know that, even if Sorcerer's itself doesn't do so well, they've hit upon a good idea here. If Green can come up with a better script than what Sorcerer's is working with, we may not even notice that we're watching essentially the same story. Disney can be tricky like that.
