via Walt Disney Pictures
Throughout the 2000s and 2010s, Disney made it a mission to try to capitalize on two crazes at once, but it would be an understatement to say that one fared much better than the other. However, The Sorcerer’s Apprentice accomplished the rare feat of trying to tick both boxes at once, only to get away with it miserably on each front.
The studio’s insatiable desire to mount as many live-action blockbuster remakes based on its catalog of animated classics was only in its infancy at the time, with whimsical fantasy sandwiched between the billion-dollar phenom Alice and Wonderland dollars and Angelina Jolie’s $758. million in revenue Maleficent.
Meanwhile, the Mouse House had sought to replicate the Pirates of the Caribbean formula with mixed results with Prince of Persia: The Sands of TimeAnd The Sorcerer’s Apprentice was not so different from the saga of swashbuckling with a magic twist. As The Lone Ranger And Jungle Cruise would ultimately show, however, that it is difficult to find lightning in a bottle.
As a $150 million spin-off epic Fancy and its sequel which saw Jerry Bruckheimer produce tasks with an A-list star in the lead role playing a long-haired eccentric cursed by fate and fate, it was clear that national treasure director John Turteltaub was trying to have his cake and eat it trying to strike the perfect balance between Disney’s hottest new trends.
At the end, The Sorcerer’s Apprentice tanked at the box office and was spurned by critics and audiences alike, marking it a blatantly failed experiment forever. There’s certainly potential in the premise, as a recent Reddit thread noted, but the execution was so bland, sure, and forgettable that it never really had a chance to stand out.
