Questlove to direct live-action hybrid remake of Disney classic Aristocats

Questlove will direct Disney’s live-action/hybrid reimagining of The Aristocats.

The founding member of the band The Roots, whose real name is Ahmir Thompson, won last year’s Academy Award for Best Documentary for Summer of Soul.

The Aristocats will be the Grammy winner’s feature directorial debut and he will also produce and supervise the film’s music, according to Deadline.

The new film will be based on the 1970 Disney animated film about Duchess, a Persian cat and her kittens Marie, Berlioz and Toulouse, who will inherit their owner’s fortune.

The greedy butler steps in and sends the cats out into the country, where they meet a charming alley cat named Thomas O’Malley.

The Persian cats receive an education about life on the streets courtesy of Thomas O’Malley and his friends as they head back to the city to reclaim their home before it’s too late.

Questlove’s Two One Five Entertainment along with Tarik Trotter, Shawn Gee and Zarah Zohlman will produce the script by Will Gluck and Keith Bunin.

Questlove’s Summer of Soul, about the 1969 Harlem Cultural Festival, premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in 2021, where it won the Grand Jury Prize and began its Oscar-winning run in 2022.

Last month, The Late Show with Jimmy Fallon star revealed why Will Smith wasn’t included in the Grammys’ tribute to 50 years of hip hop.

Smith, 54, was scheduled to take the stage in Los Angeles Crypto.com Arena alongside his 1990s collaborator Jazzy Jeff, but he was mysteriously absent that night.

LL Cool J introduced the segment, tracing the roots of the genre at a party in the Bronx in August 1973, when a DJ played the beats and laid the foundation for hip-hop.

The tribute featured hip-hop artists from multiple generations, from Grandmaster Flash to Lil Uzi Vert, and many fans praised the tribute on social media.

And while Smith is rebuilding his reputation after slapping Chris Rock at the 2022 Oscars, that’s not the reason he wasn’t part of the hip hop tribute.

questlove said Variety:’I’m going to give the spoiler alert away. Will Smith was a part of tonight’s festivities, but they started filming Bad Boys 4 this week.

“He had to do a lot of preliminary takes, so we had to lose Will.”

And while Questlove was at the 2022 Oscars, he completely missed Smith slapping Rock, even though his award was the one Rock was presenting.

“Of course, that happened in the cyclone of a completely different situation with two very good friends of mine,” he said on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon shortly after the Oscars. “I really wasn’t aware of that.”

The Roots drummer said he was practicing Transcendental Meditation at the time his category was announced, during which time the incident between Smith and Rock occurred.

“It’s weird to say, because they tell you ahead of time, ‘This is your category,’ so at that point, you’re either going to be full of anxiety or, for me, I’ve been meditating for the last two years,” he said.

“When the commercial break was happening, I was just meditating, so when I opened my eyes, I didn’t realize: why is everyone so quiet? Like, literally, I wasn’t there for that whole moment.

He continued: “But in my mind they’re just doing a sketch or whatever and I said, ‘Okay Ahmir, remember to thank your mom, dad,’ so I wasn’t there at all, I was just in a blank space. ‘

Questlove said that as he “walked onto the stage” he was “putting two and two together and he realized that that was a real moment” between Smith and Rock before delivering his acceptance speech.