Disney's Lady & The Tramp Movie Uses Real Dogs Who Eat Spaghetti And Kiss Somehow

One of Disney's next live-action remakes of an animated classic, Lady & The Tramp, filmed at least some of its scene with actual dogs, it has been confirmed. Why is this notable? The first trailer for Disney's new Lion King movie billed the film as being "live-action," but those aren't real lions or elephants you're seeing, but instead very visually stunning CG creatures. For Lady & The Tramp, however, Disney used real dogs--at least for a part of the process.

Actor Thomas Mann, who plays Jim Dear in the new Disney movie, confirmed to Collider that real, tail-wagging dogs were used on set for the new Lady & The Tramp.

"The dogs were there. We shot with the dogs, every day," he explained. "They were on set and they weren't even trained. They found these dogs and started training them about three months before. They just wanted to find the perfect dogs. The main dog's name was Rose, who played Lady. It was crazy because they didn't know they were working, so they would run off in the middle of a take, and then come back over. You have to be extra patient because you have to be good every time for when they are good once. It was a lot of fun. It was so cute, every day, to just have a bunch of dogs to play with. It made the job a lot less stressful."

One of the most memorable scenes from the 1955 original was when the two main dogs shared a bowl of spaghetti and kissed. Apparently the movie-makers recreated this with the real dogs for the remake.

"Who doesn't want to see two real dogs kiss over a plate of spaghetti? That is the main draw for me. You get the charisma of real dogs in there," Mann said.

What's unclear at this stage is how much post-production effort will go into the new Lady & The Tramp specifically for the dogs. Presumably there will be significant visual effects to help make their speaking sequences and other cues look more believable.

The new Lady & The Tramp features the voices of Tessa Thompson and Justin Theroux in the title roles, with Janelle Monae, Benedict Wong, Kiersey Clemons, and Ashley Jensen also appearing in the film. It's directed by The Lego Ninjago Movie director Charlie Bean. No release date has been set yet.

It's just the latest remake from Disney. The film giant has already released reboots of Cinderella, The Jungle Book, and Beauty and the Beast. In addition to Lady & The Tramp and The Lion King, some of Disney's other upcoming remakes include Dumbo, Mulan, Aladdin, and Pinocchio, among others.