now they’re making a live action moana in 2025. it hasn’t even been 10 years, disney is lowballing so hard with these lifeless remakes. hopefully ariel flops bad enough that they change their minds.
Some of their movies work okay as live action, they weren’t great, but with the context of the story being human centric, making a live action version is understandable. But when they make “live action” versions of something like Lion King, then just use CGI to make the lions anyway, wtf disney. Plus when they used CGI and made realistic looking lions, it removed the expressiveness the cartoon versions of the lions had.
The absolutely hard stop for me is fucking Lilo & Stitch, my favorite disney cartoon movie, and the movie that will lose the most in translating it into live action. Fuck disney, they actively make the world of media worse. They own too much, and pump out mediocre workshopped slop.
A lot of people seem to think The Little Mermaid is doing quite well and if you’re just reading the headlines from all the major reporting groups I could see why. If you look at the box office numbers, it is a different story. Many sources state the break-even point for it to be north of $500 million and after almost a month in theaters it still hasn’t made the mark.
Marvel, Star Wars, Pixar, and their animation studio have produced a lot of content since 2020 with most of it losing money, barely breaking even, being critically panned, or having terrible viewership. Disney is in turmoil financially and it’s clear that their current pool of talent isn’t delivering what fans want to see. Elemental just released to the worst opening weekend for a Pixar movie ever. They need some changes to right the ship. Chopping some live actions from the line up may be something we see if they dry up as a major cash source as is indicated by The Little Mermaid.
Honest question, what is Disney being in financial turmoil based on? They beat/met expected EPS (earnings per share) three of the last four quarters. They are more than a TV/streaming/movie making business. They have LOADS of assets. They report losing money on streaming, but if you look back they didn’t expect streaming services to be profitable until 2024. it looks to me like Disney is and will be fine financially.
You’re right. I’m only referring to their movie and streaming service revenue. From the constant losses on movies and the fact that they have lost millions of Disney plus subscribers for 2 quarters in a row, I don’t see that service even being profitable by that 2024 expectation. I’m sure the writer strike will further hamper their ability to produce content. I don’t see more people signing up for a service that is shedding subs and offering little new content.
Nah. The Little Mermaid live action was pretty good. There are many kids I know that prefer the remakes than the original cartoons. I’m okay with letting them have their own movies that us old folks maybe don’t like as much
What if we tried coming up with new stories instead of giving our kids the same reheated leftovers from yesterday?
“Capitalism breeds innovation”. The “innovation”: Entertainment executives too afraid to try out new ideas for the absolute dread of commercial failure, so they’d rather give us Despicable Me 8 and Toy Story 6 instead
These remakes feel like a copyright extension as well as a cash grab for Disney. Win win for the mouse
What if we tried coming up with new stories instead of giving our kids the same reheated leftovers from yesterday?
All of theater is basically a nostalgia game. Shows and Operas have been playing for hundreds of years, and that’s fine. Even something like “Lion King” is a not-so-subtle replay of the incredibly traditional Shakespearean play “Hamlet”.
And plays like Peter Pan were going on for decades before Disney’s cartoon edition.
Sometimes, its nice to just lean into the nostalgia. A changed song or two with a new set of actors is … fine? Its how its been done for decades, or even centuries of theater.
I’m well aware most of the themes and plots in literature are an exercise in “Can I copy your homework?” “Sure, just change it up a bit so it doesn’t look obvious”.
But there’s “original”, and then there’s “are you even trying?”. We all know the current live action remakes were done for copyright extension reasons and little to no effort was put into refreshing up the stories, giving them a nice twist, nada.
If Sophocles was able to do retellings of ancient myths, which his audience already knew in full, and still could keep people interested in the play and even introduce enough innovations to earn the praise of his peers, then so can we even if we start from a material that’s not truly original.
Actually, Lion King is a testament Disney knows how to do this. When it came out, nobody was saying “This movie is trash. It’s just Hamlet with talking animals”, even though when you’re told you can clearly see it takes lots of themes and character archetypes from said play. But it also changed things up a bit to warrant being it’s own thing, and praised accordingly.
Treasure Planet was one of the best animated Disney movies of the early 21st century (and arguably, of all time) and the story could hardly be called original. It’s what the movie built on top of that, including the experimental seamless union of animation styles, that made it great. But it was a comercial flop (more of a self-fulfilled prophecy with its release date), so the mouse said nevermore.
Its how its been done for decades, or even centuries of theater.
Trying to compare mediums like animation movies to theatrical plays is bound to make for some strange comparisons. With movies if I want to take a stroll down memory lane I can just replay the old ones, even show them to my kids for them to see what I liked when I was their age.
On the other hand, it’s in the very nature of theatre to redo the same plays over and over by one same company, sometimes in an itinerant fashion sometimes not. Because it’s a live spectacle, that’s the only way for new audiences to actually watch the play.
Yeah I just ignore their existence. The last one I watched was beauty and the beast I think. And I didn’t like it so I was like aight I’m out
Honestly, I thought Beauty and the Beast was the weakest of the remakes so far.
Live action remakes are fine if they bring something new to the table that brings a new perspective to the original.
Like the upcoming “Barbie” movie, for example.
Thank you Margot Robbie. Can’t wait to watch you on the big screen in the upcoming “Barbie” movie
The new Little Mermaid was fantastic. Hard disagree, as long as they keep the quality. I didn’t care for most of the other live actions.