It's good to be bad. After a run of releases without a traditional Disney villain (you know the type: fabulous, delightfully evil baddies with a knockout solo and excellent fashion sense), Wish reintroduces that ever-so-popular archetype with some serious flair through Chris Pine's King Magnifico.
Naturally, when GamesRadar+ sits down with Pine and Wish co-directors Chris Buck and Fawn Veerasunthorn, along with co-writer and Walt Disney Animation Studios chief creative officer Jennifer Lee, we have to ask about this big Disney villain comeback.
There have long been bubbling calls for the big bad to return, though Lee explains that this attitude from audiences wasn't strictly on her mind while she wrote the movie. "We always say we can't get prescriptive from outside in, because we can't build character that way," she Lee. "But I will say, for a lot of us at the studio, we had had a really fun decade, I'd say, of really exploring different kinds of antagonism and villains, because in the world, it's not always easy to identify those villains. And so it was fun for a while to be playing with that. But there was this – as a writer, too, you always want to do something you've never done, and I had never had that opportunity to work on a real classic villain."
Buck echoes the sentiment. "It was a wish of ours to do a villain that we hadn't done in a while, a villain that you know is the villain from very early on," he explains. "And so that you can relish every scene that they're in, because we love the classic Disney villains and those characters that come on the screen. And I always think of it as, those scenes are so supercharged when they come in, you know there's going to be some conflict. So we love that."
Comeback king
Magnifico is the (seemingly) benevolent ruler of the kingdom of Rosas. When each resident of the kingdom turns 18, they give Magnifico their wish – their truest heart's desire, ranging from creating something to inspire the next generation to learning how to fly (dream big, right?). The catch is, Magnifico's magic ensures the wishee immediately forgets what they've given up, and their wish can only be granted by the king in a special ceremony.
"It really wasn't up to me, it was up to Jennifer and Chris and Fawn, the directors and writers of the project," says Pine of making his mark as Magnifico. "They gave me a really fun character to play. I'm not as off-book on Disney villains as some other people might be, so I felt all the liberty in the world to go explore and have fun."
At first, it feels like Magnifico really does want to do the right thing – after all, pursuing your greatest wish can be quite the stressful undertaking, so perhaps gifting it to an all-powerful sorcerer king to safeguard, leaving you blissfully unaware, is for the best. When GR+ puts it to Pine that Magnifico thinks he's doing the right thing, though, he disagrees.
"I had a different take," he says. "I don't really think he had any good intent at all. Really, I think he was just trying to steal people's wishes in order to make himself more powerful. But I'm glad that you see the complexity in the character, and that's always fun to have a bad guy that you can kind of empathize with."
When GR+ (somewhat sheepishly) admits to perhaps being tricked by Magnifico at the film's beginning, Pine jokes: "We were successful, then!"
As Lee points out, a traditional villain doesn't mean losing that interesting complexity that might lead some of us to fall under Magnifico's spell. "In this case, we really wanted to be able to celebrate that classic villain, but also, what our audiences today want in the villain, it is the more complex individual, and they want to see him at his best and understand his philosophy, and maybe even believe it, like Asha does," she explains, referring to the film's protagonist (voiced by Ariana DeBose). "And then, for me to get to play with every time he's tested, you see him make the choices that lead him [into villainy] – that was really fun to do, and it was a little different from what we had in the canon. So we're always saying, we want to celebrate it, we also want to find a way to try something new, because that always excites us."
Pine was the perfect pick to bring the multi-layered Magnifico to life. "He's an incredible actor, such wide range," says Veerasunthorn. "And we know that with this character – even though you know right away that he will be the villain – but we want some twist to it. You first meet him as a charming, powerful sorcerer king. And he gets to make all the choices, you get to see the evolution of this character diving into the villainy. So Chris can hit all those charming, powerful, funny, scary, villainous [aspects] with a beautiful singing voice."
Showstopper
Like all good Disney villains, Pine's Magnifico does indeed get a chance to flex his singing skills. After Asha accidentally summons the magical Star after a powerful wish of her own, Magnifico gathers the kingdom for help tracking down this so-called traitor – and, when they ask too many questions for his liking, he flies off the handle with panache in the toe-tapping "This is the Thanks I Get?!"
"That was Ben [Benjamin Rice] and Julia [Michaels]. They were the writers and composers of the music," says Pine of his big number. "I spent a lot of time working with them, and it was about finessing the lines and the words and the intent and the emotion behind it, and I really give credit – I felt like I was just there taking direction from people, and the direction was great, so I just tried to make it happen."
Of course, Disney Animation is famous for its iconic songs – from the likes of "Let It Go" and "We Don't Talk About Bruno" back to "Circle of Life" and "A Whole New World." As Veerasunthorn explains, though, story is always king when crafting the music.
"It's always driven by story. We break down the story, and there'll be tentpole moments where the emotion runs really high," she says. "And in musicals, we always talk about, 'You just feel so overwhelmed by these emotions that you cannot talk about it, you've just got to sing it out.' And we take great care on the transition in and out of the song, so it's not like we're stopping here for a tune – that every song moves the story forward. And what I love about the songs in this film, it's all built upon each other. "Welcome to Rosas" built into "At All Costs." Our story is expanding."
Buck has high praise for songwriter Michaels, too. "She was just incredible. We were lucky enough to get her, and she did what we did with a lot of the movie, and that was embrace our legacy, but also embrace the today with today's world."
Wish is in UK cinemas this November 24 and US theaters now. For more, see our guide to all the upcoming Disney movies for everything else the studio has in store.
