That Disney would plan a live-action spin on 1992 'toon Aladdin came as no great surprise, since the Mouse House has been slowly working on drawing from its animated back catalogue for new versions. But the man in talks to direct might raise a few eyebrows: Guy Ritchie.
When it was first reported, the plan for Aladdin was to focus first on a prequel explaining how the chatty powerful genie (famously voiced by Robin Williams) got into the lamp in the first place. That script had Damien Shannon and Mark Swift at work on it, but Deadline's update of the movie's status mentions Big Fish writer John August as responsible for the current draft, so it may have crept closer to being a straightforward re-working of the main Aladdin tale.
Ritchie seems an unusual choice for the material, though he's dabbled in magic and mystery with the Sherlock Holmes films and his latest, King Arthur: Legend Of The Sword, is more of an adventure tale, so perhaps he's trying to stretch himself. The Arthurian movie is set to arrive on 24 March.