Disney’s animated villains are really good at using music to express how bad they are. From Ursula’s “Poor Unfortunate Souls” in The Little Mermaid to Gaston’s self-titled track in Beauty and the Beast, Disney evildoers prove again and again that, despite being horrible, they do know how to sing. Now the Mouse House has given us a preview of their next antagonistic number. It’s an early listen to a charming baddie’s big number sung by a charming Hollywood favorite. Disney has shared an early listen/look of Chris Pine performing its latest villain song “This Is the Thanks I Get?!” from Wish.
Anyone who watched the big screen adaptation of Into the Woods knows Chris Pine should be in way more musicals. Now his latest chance to show off his theatrical vocal chops will come in Disney’s Wish. He voices the seemingly benevolent King Magnifico, a dashing ruler who grants his subjects wishes.
As “This Is the Thanks I Get?!” shows, all the monarch asks for in return is a little gratitude. Well, that and total control over his mostly unsuspecting subjects who don’t realize he’s a power-hungry monster.
We both love and hate him already.
Disney also shared a behind-the-scenes video of Chris Pine recording the Wish song, written by Julia Michaels and Benjamin Rice.
In a press release screenwriter and executive producer Jennifer Lee, chief creative officer for Walt Disney Animation Studios, also offered insight into the King and his big song. “He’s charismatic; he’s handsome—and he knows it—but I think he truly believes their wishes are safest in his hands,” she says. “So when [the film’s protagonist] Asha exposes the flaw in his philosophy, he feels under-appreciated and threatened.”
He’s not getting any sympathy from us! Neither King Magnifico nor Chris Pine. Not when both can believably sing, “I can’t help it if mirrors love my face.” That might be true, and it might sound good, but saying so in song is something only a villain would do.
Wish comes to theaters on November 22.
