Magic carpets are taking flight! The first full-length trailer for the live-action adaptation of Disney’s Aladdin was released on Tuesday, March 12.
In the teaser, fans got their first listen of Will Smith singing Genie’s song “Friend Like Me,” originally performed and made famous by the late Robin Williams.
“Whenever you’re doing things that are iconic, it’s always terrifying,” Smith, 50, admitted to Entertainment Weekly in December. “The question is always: Where was there meat left on the bone? Robin didn’t leave a lot of meat on the bone with the character.”
The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air alum’s version of “Friend Like Me” has a modern feel, while still channeling the 1992 classic.
“I started to feel confident that I could deliver something that was an homage to Robin Williams, but was musically different,” Smith told EW. “Just the flavor of the character would be different enough and unique enough that it would be in a different lane, versus trying to compete.”
Tuesday’s trailer also teased Mena Massoud and Naomi Scott’s chemistry as Aladdin and Princess Jasmine, respectively, and their rendition of “A Whole New World.”
“I thought a princess could go anywhere,” Aladdin says to Jasmine before grabbing her hand for a magic carpet ride, to which she replies, “Not this princess.”
Scott, a British actress known for starring as the Pink Ranger in 2017’s Power Rangers, opened up to EW about taking on the role of the iconic Disney princess.
“Having a Disney princess that looked something like me, I think was really powerful,” she told the magazine. “Jasmine’s main objective at the beginning is to really protect her people and to do right by them. She definitely isn’t a finished article at the beginning of the movie, but she has this beautiful arc and progression, and she goes from asking for what she wants to just taking it, and displaying that she is a leader.”
Aladdin hits theaters on May 24.
