As of 2020 Disney’s taken steps towards making more “safe” movies, sticking to what they know will bring in money, like sequels to existing franchises and live-action remakes of their animated classics. Starting with The Lion King in 2020, these movies retell the same story as the original animated movie but focus on its more realistic style with live actors.
There’s nothing original about these live-action versions; they tell the exact same story. In Disney’s eyes there are already millions of people who’ve watched the animated classic, so they’d want to watch this retelling of the same story, and they’d be right! The Lion King stirred controversy over its CG animated art style back when it got announced but topped the charts when it came out in theaters. With this success, Disney created live-action remakes of Mulan, Lady and the Tramp, Lilo and Stitch, Pinocchio, The Little Mermaid, Snow White, and Moana, all of which tell the exact same story as the original in a live-action style, all released within the past seven years. The animated original Moana movie came out in 2016; that’s only 10 years old compared to the pre-2000s animated movies being remade. In my opinion these live-action movies contribute to the “animated movies aren’t real art; they’re for kids” argument since there are people out there who get grossed out by animated movies, thinking they’re only for children.
Disney’s been sticking to the same universes they’ve created; they have tons from their plethora of animated movies. Not every live-action movie they’ve released within the past seven years is completely unoriginal; there’s Maleficent: Mistress of Evil, Cruella, Mufasa: The Lion King, and Peter Pan and Wendy. All of these movies focus on characters in preestablished universes from the animated classics, mainly villains; there are no completely original live-action movie stories in sight.
Why make an original movie that could fail when you could make a movie you know has a pre-established audience? That’s what a lot of Disney movie ideas feel like these days; they’re still good movies, but they’re not good from their own creativity. They’re good from what their animated classics did, following in decades-old footsteps and doing it worse.
Even their animated movies have gotten to sequels that just shouldn’t exist. Toy Story has attempted to end conclusively three times now, and there are even Muppet jokes about the redundant existence of these Toy Story movies. The Incredibles, Frozen, and Zootopia are all getting unnecessary sequels, and they’ve begun to remake animated direct-to-DVD sequels like Aladdin 2 and Lilo and Stitch 2. There’s no sign of Disney stopping this trend of safe cash grab movies, both live-action and animated, any time soon. I’m just glad they’re making original animated movies in modern day at all.
