Disney is without a doubt the biggest company in entertainment, and while every move they make seems to make someone angry, they only get more powerful. One of the most polarizing moves they routinely make is adapting their own classic animated childhoods into modern live-action blockbusters, but they don’t stop there.
To date, Disney has made 18 remakes of their own work, with many more to come with questionable release dates. Instead of coming up with new stories, the notoriously risk-averse company has committed murder by updating stories with new visual effects. While some are excited to see their childhood nostalgia being passed on to the next generation with even more money behind it, many consider these remakes to be soulless cash-strappers taking advantage of tradable IP.
While not a live action movie, the most financially successful Disney remake of their own content is John Favreau’s 2019 version The lionking. Achieved with photorealistic CGI, this widely marketed blockbuster was one of the most expensive films of all time. It was rewarded for that spend with $1.6 billion, making it the seventh highest-grossing film ever. The vast majority of its financial returns come from brand awareness, tech demo ads, and massive celebrity stunt casting. The Rotten Tomatoes score is split, with a new rating of 52% from critics and an 88% from the audience. However, a closer look at that audience rating reveals that the vast majority of praise revolves around nostalgia for the original film. The negative reviews are much more telling. Many view this 2019 remake as a grim sign of decline for Disney, or even the movie industry in general. This division between profit and reception seems to exist in most of Disney’s remake efforts.
Some of Disney’s live-action remakes are bona fide flops. Both Mulan and Cruella suffered the wrath of the ongoing pandemic, which brutally undermined every potential they had to succeed, regardless of their merits. Before that, however, several other examples of this unsavory technique did not lead to box office success. Tim Burton’s 2010 Alice in Wonderland this trend arguably started with huge financial returns, but his outlook on 2019 dumbo was well below expectations. This model also seems to have issues with sequels. Alice through the looking glass could not recoup the estimated total budget and Maleficent: Mistress of Evil barely even broke. This strategy doesn’t always work, but the successful submissions are so substantial that it hardly matters. There hasn’t been a truly horrific checkout disaster that can’t be attributed to outside forces yet, so there’s no reason to believe this technique will go away.
Disney live-action remakes are perfectly tuned to appeal to the emotional reactions of the audience. Nostalgia has quickly become the most powerful force in Hollywood, making outdated IP the most profitable asset a company can own. It just doesn’t pay to make new things when old things almost guarantee a respectable financial return from name value alone. This risk aversion drowns out the medium’s creativity in a much more direct way than the usual culprits. People criticize the Marvel movies for bringing in millions of old ideas and creating cultural hegemony, but Disney’s bigger crime is undoubtedly just remaking the same few ideas with more shiny effects. But the brand awareness that generates the bulk of the profits also fuels the uniquely negative response from the fanbase.
Nostalgia is powerful and nothing sends an audience into a feverish rage quite like ruining the legacy of a beloved piece of classic media. By now, even hardcore fans know that the only reason to remake these movies is to monetize the fans who loved them as kids. Many fans like the idea of their children enjoying the same works of fiction they grew up with, but they also want those works to be respected. Using a known IP address is a gamble, and while it may entice an audience to check it out, it can also sour an entire fanbase of the company in general. After a few too many disastrous remakes, some fans may be reluctant to see anything Disney makes. Nothing makes a fan angrier than ruining their favorite childhood nostalgia.
Disney could be on the lookout for another company that consistently tries and fails to port much-loved animated content to live-action, Netflix. The streaming service has produced multiple anime adaptations and has not slowed down after most failed to find an audience. There are many reasons why Netflix has lost subscribers at an alarming rate in recent months, but constantly enraging fans is an ongoing wound. New content may seem like a greater risk, but a bad original story comes and goes without much fanfare. A bad adaptation of work that everyone knows and loves will forever linger in the minds of his fans.
0 Comments