Should Disney stop remaking animated movies into live action movies?
Walt Disney, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Walt Disney Studios opened in 1923 and has been making memorable childhood classic movies ever since “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs” was released in 1937. As technology has advanced throughout the years, Disney has made immense progress in creating magical movies for their predominately younger audiences. The early era of Disney’s movie-making process was through the usage of “Technicolor”, multi-plane cameras, “Xerography”, and hand-drawn characters. “Technicolor” gave these movies a great advantage, as said in an article about Disney’s technological history,
“This innovation changed the animation landscape, culminating in the release of “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs” in 1937 — the world’s first full-length, color-animated feature. This style gave Disney the unique, nostalgic, and magical look that most people grew up with on their television; these movies are the foundation for Disney’s skyrocketing success. For example, Disney classics like “Sleeping Beauty” (1959), “Lady and the Tramp” (1955), and “Cinderella” (1950) were created using these tools. Around the 1990s the introduction of 2D and 3D animation expanded Disney’s horizons and opened the door to more action-packed, smoother-looking, modernized movies that captured their audiences’ eyes.
The first movie using this was “The Little Mermaid” (1989) when seeing Prince Eric’s ship, the castle, and the final battle scene. It was also used in classics like “Beauty and the Beast” (1991), “Aladdin” (1992), and of course the very popular animated movie, “The Lion King” (1994). Not too long after the introduction of 3D animation, Disney created its first ever fully CGI movie in 2005 named “Chicken Little”. This birthed the era of Disney that delved into deeper narratives in storytelling, enhanced visuals, and even more working room to push their creative desires.
Now live-action remakes are possible because of how much technology has advanced in the world of cinema in the past century. Disney first experimented with a live-action remake of the animated classic “101 Dalmatians” in 1996 but there was little to no CGI used in that film, and it did not do very well, receiving a 5.7/10 on IMDb and a 39% on Rotten Tomatoes. As Disney began experimenting more with CGI and the idea of creating live-action remakes of their greatest animated classic hits they had a rough start with most receiving poor reviews. For example, “Alice in Wonderland” (2010) received a 6.4/10 on IMDb and a 50% on Rotten Tomatoes. Then Disney finally found their footing with their live adaptation of “Cinderella” (2015) which received a 6.9/10 on IMDb and an 84% on Rotten Tomatoes and then again in 2017 with “Beauty and the Beast” getting a 7.1/10 on IMDb and a 71% on Rotten Tomatoes. Disney’s best remake to this day is the 2016 live adaptation of “The Jungle Book” which received a 7.3/10 on IMDb and a whopping 94% on Rotten Tomatoes.
Viewers were slowly getting on board with Disney’s live-action era, but not consistently. From 2010 to the present-day reactions to each remake fluctuate, with some older movies being better than their newer ones and vice versa. Then in 2022, Disney released the live-action remake of the classic “Pinocchio” and it was the biggest letdown of any remake to date. Not only did it receive a 5.1/10 on IMDb and a 27% on Rotten Tomatoes, but it also, according to IMDb’s box office gross report, received a worldwide box office gross of $33,731, which is just tragic knowing it had a $150 million budget.
Comparing the worldwide box office gross of “The Jungle Book” (2016) which was $967,724,775 to “Pinocchio’s… it's very eye-opening. Both “Pinocchio” and “The Jungle Book” heavily relied on CGI to create most of the movie, but with more developed and advanced CGI a movie that was created 6 years prior did tremendously better in both ratings and the box office. “Only Mowgli, the character played by young actor Neel Sethi, is real. The rest of the characters, from Baloo (Bill Murray) to Raksha (Lupita Nyong'o) and King Louie (Christopher Walken), were created with CGI,” Oliver Franklin-Wallis wrote in an article for Wired in 2016. “…in reality, its lush Indian landscapes - overgrown rainforest, Sun-roasted plains - were entirely created on a small studio lot in downtown Los Angeles.” Pinocchio was also heavily reliant on CGI. “Watching Pinocchio (1940) as a kid, I remember it being a warm and lively home filled with wonderful wood carvings, where you could almost smell the wood shavings and polish through the screen,” Helena Gifford wrote in The Johns Hopkins Newsletter. “In this version, however, most of the cuckoo clocks and carved wooden figures are CGI. They don’t look real, seemingly more plastic than pine.”
Even with all these reviews about a lack of life, meaning, and detail, this won’t stop Disney. They already have a stacked roster for upcoming live-action remake releases; the list from IMDb goes “Mufasa: The Lion King” (2024), “Snow White” (2025), “Lilo & Stitch” (2025), and “Moana” (2026). Along with a list of “To Be Announced” movies including “Hercules”, “Robin Hood”, “The Aristocats”, “Bambi” and many more. All in all, the numbers do not lie, and with a good majority of Disney’s higher-ranked remakes being produced before 2020, something needs to change in the animating studio if Disney wants to see a change in their ratings and box office numbers. So… should Disney ultimately stop remaking animated classics? Not necessarily, because they have some great movies they can remake, but they need to stop relying so heavily on CGI to produce future films if it can be avoided.