Academy Award-winning director and Roots drummer Questlove is set to helm a live-action remake of the 1970 Disney movie The Aristocats.
Questlove, whose 2021 debut Summer of Soul (...Or, When the Revolution Could Not Be Televised) won the Oscar for Best Documentary Feature last year, will also be “overseeing music,” per Variety, and executive producing via his Two One Five Entertainment company alongside fellow Roots member Tarik Trotter, Shawn Gee, and Zarah Zohlman. The script is by Will Gluck (2014’s Annie) and Keith Bunin (Pixar’s Onward).
Deadline notes it’s a “live-action hybrid reimagining” of the animated feature directed by Wolfgang Reitherman.
Questlove took to Instagram on Monday to confirm the news, writing, “They chose i to chase the cat...I basically have 2 life goals: 1. Don’t dismiss my dreams & 2. Get out of my own way.”
Two One Five Entertainment’s official Instagram wrote, “We’re In The Scripted Feature Business!!!!”
Back in September, Quest was enlisted by J Dilla’s estate to produce a new film on the life of the late Detroit producer.
“The estate of James Dewitt Yancey, and its wholly-owned production entity, Pay Jay Productions, Inc., which benefits J Dilla’s two children, his younger brother, and his mother, is proud to give its blessing to an amazing project created by discerning and talented filmmakers who knew J Dilla,” a rep for the estate said at the time. “We trust the judgment of Ahmir, Joseph, Dan, and Scenario to elevate Dilla’s life, music, and legacy to their rightful place in the canon of music’s great innovators; and their film is the only documentary project we have endorsed.”
The Aristocats news comes less than a week after it was revealed that multi-time author Questo is starting his own publishing imprint, AUWA Books, underneath Farrar, Straus and Giroux’s MCD Books.
