Disney’s 1992 animated classic “Aladdin” has numerous credited writers, the two key ones being “Pirates of the Caribbean” and “The Legend of Zorro” scribes Terry Rossio and Ted Elliot.

With the release of the trailer for the 2018 live-action remake earlier this week, Rossio has taken to Twitter to reveal an unexpected bit of news – Disney’s not paid him or Elliot for the new film which is said to use much of the original film’s script. He says:

“So strange that literally the only words spoken in the new Aladdin trailer happens to be a rhyme that my writing partner and I wrote, and Disney offers zero compensation to us (or to any screenwriters on any of these live-action re-makes) not even a t-shirt or a pass to the park.

The reason for this ties back to the Writer’s Guild of America’s rules – animated movies aren’t covered by the WGA and so Disney isn’t legally required to pay the original writers anything – not just on this but all live-action remakes of animated films.

The Guy Ritchie-directed film stars Mena Massoud as Aladdin, Naomi Scott as Princess Jasmine, Marwan Kenzari as Jafar, and Will Smith as Genie. It opens in cinemas May 24th 2019.