'Enchanted' director Kevin Lima was 'shocked' to not have been asked to direct sequel

Disney’s beloved movie Enchanted mesmerised its viewers when it first released in 2007.

According to The Hollywood Reporter, director Kevin Lima got involved in the project 15 years ago, however, the director was upset that Disney studios did not consider him when it came to the sequel.

Lima tells THR that he was “shocked” to not get asked to be involved in the new film, Disenchanted which currently holds a 39 percent approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes, as opposed to Enchanted’s 93 percent rating.

“A perfect storm of a change of executives and Hollywood politics made it so that I was uninvited to the party, unfortunately,” he said of Disenchanted. “It was a very, very sad turn. I haven’t seen the movie; I haven’t read the script. So I’m going to experience the characters that I helped create, grow and live on as the audience does.”

However, Lima shared that he is still proud of the movie and that it made it to the list of fan-favourite Disney-Princess film. Lima believed that this was “because we paid homage to those movies in a loving way, Enchanted has become timeless.”

Shedding light on the struggles of making the original movie, the outlet stated that the Enchanted’s origins date back to the late 1990s with the initial script written by Bill Kelly. Over the years, the script went through rewrites, and such directors as Rob Marshall, Jon Turteltaub and Adam Shankman were in talks to helm the project before Kevin Lima came aboard.

Lima told THR that his pitch for Enchanted touted the film as a “love letter to Disney,” rather than the more cynical version that had been in the works. And it was Lima was pushed for Amy Adams to lead the movie rather than an established actress. “Amy is the lifeblood of Enchanted, and without that performance, the movie wouldn’t be half of what it is,” the director added.

Lima recalled that the studio was “quite nervous” about the film, with some individuals at Disney expressing concerns that the movie would only appeal to girls.

“The marketing department didn’t have faith that the movie was worth making,” Lima shared. “They didn’t think boys would go to see this movie, and the marketing department did their best to shut down the movie a couple of times while we were in pre-production. But I was really lucky that [Disney execs] Nina Jacobson and Dick Cook believed in the film and kept pushing us forward.”