Robin Williams’ acting skills were some of the finest in the film industry. There are a number of roles in his filmography that describe his capabilities best, with some examples being Good Will Hunting, Dead Poets Society, Jumanji, and Mrs. Doubtfire. Despite this, there is one role that describes the actor and who he was as a person in the most perfect way possible, his work as the Genie in Disney’s Aladdin.
Though he is an Oscar-winning actor for his exceptional talent in the dramatic arts, he is a comedian at heart and that is perfectly depicted and seen in this character. The Genie is one of the most memorable and funniest characters in all of Disney films. Knowing this, one would assume that the writer’s room of this project was full of extremely talented comedy writers, and while that might be the case, they cannot be credited for this character’s humor as a majority of it was Williams’ doing.
Robin Williams Wrote His Own Jokes
Robin Williams did not take part in the second part of the Aladdin film series, for many reasons, he did return for the third and final part in the series, Aladdin and the King of Thieves. Unfortunately, he did join this project extremely later on, after all of his character’s lines had been recorded by Dan Castellaneta, who voiced the character in the second part, Aladdin II: The Return of Jafar. Disney, however, did not seem to mind this as well as pushing the release of the film, only to make sure that they could get the genius of the Oscar-winning actor, on the project.
They also made sure to change some dialogue, as well as, add new scenes in the script that would better suit William and that he could pull off well. According to Den of Geeks, the writers on this project, Mark McCorkle and Bob Schooley, spoke on this, talking about how they were both, extremely big fans of the actor and were excited to work with him.
“Then of course, he did his own,” remembers Schooley. “A few of our jokes made it, and we were happy about that, but Robin goes off.”
They then went on to talk about what the entire process was like for them to see the actor re-record these lines. Schooley revealed that when they were changing the script for the actor, they tried their best to guess what the actor would say and the types of jokes he would make. It would seem, however, that their predictions weren’t very accurate as the actor ended up changing a lot of the jokes in the script, so much so, that there were only a handful of original jokes that made it into the final cut of the project.
Why Did Robin Williams Not Do Aladdin 2?
Knowing how good Robin Williams was at playing the role of the Genie in the Aladdin film series, it is odd that the actor opted out of doing the second part of the series, Aladdin II: The Return of Jafar, even though the character is very present in the plot of this film. The reason for his refusal to join this project was related to a disagreement that he had with Disney. When signing onto this project, the actor made it explicitly clear that he was not interested in his voice as the character to be used in the marketing campaigns, used for the promotion of the film.
Disney, however, ended up breaching this agreement after they decided to several commercials and Genie merchandise that featured the actor’s voice. This, along with the fact that had only been paid $75,000 for his performance, resulted in a fallout between the two and the actor refusing to reprise his role in the sequel to the film. It was here that Disney hired Dan Castellaneta to replace the actor.
