Wish directors Chris Buck and Fawn Veerasunthorn explain why they wanted to include a big villain in the new movie and what Chris Pine brings to the role. Wish follows Asha, a teenager in the Kingdom of Rosas, who is disheartened when she learns a dark secret about King Magnifico and his ability to grant wishes. When Asha wishes upon a star for a solution, one answers, falling to Earth. Asha and her new friend will work together using the star’s ability to grant wishes to help the people of the Kingdom of Rosas find a brighter future even as they fight against dark forces.
During Screen Rant’s exclusive interview for Wish, Buck and Veerasunthorn discussed bringing a new Disney villain to life in the movie. They reveal their own desire to play in the Disney villain sandbox after the last few movies didn’t include one. Veerasunthorn also explained why Pine was the perfect fit for the character of King Magnifico. Check out Buck and Veerasunthorn’s full quotes below:
Chris Buck: So Magnifico was born out of our desire to have a villain in our movies that you knew was a villain from early on and that you could love to hate them the entire movie. Which is some of our favorite Disney villains.
Fawn Veerasunthorn: We missed it ourselves. Really.
Chris Buck: We’ve done movies in the past where, yeah, it was a little bit hidden, but this one was like, let’s just do it. And we also like a lot of our fans, we went, “This what is what they’ve been asking for. So we were asking for it also.” So it started there…
Fawn Veerasunthorn: And Chris Pine brought so much charm and comedy to this character because we want to make a bad guy. We want to make people feel conflicted about do I hate him or do I love him? And that’s the line that we are trying to walk beautifully the whole time. So Chris brought that sensibility of, I admire this person. He’s a king, but wow, he’s really bad. But also it’s kind of interesting. So we gave him a juicy backstory. And what we both love is that we see the descent of this king into the villain that he becomes throughout this movie. So you just kind of see the origin story of this.
Chris Buck: Yeah, it’s a little different than some of the villains we’ve done where when those villains show up on screen, they are fully formed villains. And this one you see it.
Why Wish Is The Right Movie To Bring Back The Classic Disney Villain
Disney’s villains are an iconic part of the movie, with some of them growing to be more popular with fans than the very heroes they fight. The last few years have featured movies like Encanto that don’t focus on the traditional hero versus villain story but instead explore a tale of generational trauma and Mirabel’s struggle with finding her place in the world. While these stories are worth telling, many fans missed the iconic villains that Disney has become known for.
It seems even people at Disney were missing this, with the directors sharing their own desire to bring in an antagonist that the audience could root against from the very beginning. Wish honors the hundred-year anniversary of Disney Animation Studios. It is the perfect time to introduce a new villain and tap into the hero versus villain story that so many fairytales tell. While details about this character are being kept under wraps, it seems that there will be a complexity to his descent into a corrupted power.
Given that King Magnifico is known throughout the land for his ability to grant wishes, he may have started out with a noble goal but lost himself as he tried to balance granting wishes with ruling a kingdom. Now it seems like he uses his ability to control the people he rules through false promises and hope for wishes he never intends to grant. Villains are just as important to Disney’s history as the heroes, so it makes perfect sense that the creatives at Disney wanted to add a new one to the pantheon with Wish celebrating Disney Animation Studios milestone accomplishment.
Key Release Date
Wish
Release Date:2023-11-22
