Fun
Frisky
Nostalgic
Intense
Adventurous
Choked Up
Curious
Romantic
Weird
This weekend, the massively anticipated Beauty and the Beast remake hits theaters and is poised to rake in buckets and buckets of money for Walt Disney Pictures. Will it be any good? Who knows! Also who cares? If Disney has learned one thing this decade, it’s that reviews don’t seem to matter much when it comes to churning out live-action remakes of their vast catalog of animated classics. What matters is that the machine keeps rolling and Disney fans of all ages keep getting access to their drug of choice: nostalgia for Disney’s animated past.
By a rough count, Beauty and the Beast marks about the 7th live-action remake of a Disney animated classic since 2010 (give or take whether or not you consider 2010’s The Sorcerer’s Apprentice, starring Nicolas Cage and Jay Baruchel, as a proper remake or just a reimagining that becomes more of its own thing). When Tim Burton offered his typically over-the-top take on Alice in Wonderland, the reviews were unkind. A rotten 52% on Rotten Tomatoes was probably too generous, and it ended up on “worst of” lists from HuffPo, the UK’s Telegraph, and Rolling Stone. That wasn’t the headline, though., The headline was that this poorly-reviewed film grossed over a billion dollars worldwide. It’s currently the 25th highest-grossing movie worldwide of all time. It even won two Oscars. TWO OSCARS! That’s as many as Spotlight!
The success of Alice in Wonderland may have been dismaying to fans of quality cinema, but it was cash-register-sound-effects to Disney’s ears. Beginning in 2014, Walt Disney Pictures began churning out a series of live-action remakes of its own animated properties, starting with Maleficent, a re-imagining of the Sleeping Beauty tale starring Angelina Jolie and Elle Fanning. The reviews on this one weren’t any better (which is too bad, because it’s not a thoroughly awful movie), but once again the worldwide box-office was huge.
From there, the movies got steadily better — Cinderella in 2015; The Jungle Book and then Pete’s Dragon in 2016 — and the money showed no signs of slowing down. Beauty and the Beast is currently tracking to top the Alice numbers to be the biggest money-maker of the bunch.
What moviegoers may not realize is that this is just the tip of the iceberg. Over the next few years, as many as ten live-action remakes of Disney animated films will be marching into theaters, starting with a Mulan adaptation from Whale Rider director Niki Caro. What’s remarkable about the new Disney live-action lineup is that, for a series of cash-grabs, they’ve attracted a remarkably talented array of filmmakers. Kenneth Branagh directed Cinderella, Jon Favreau helmed The Jungle Book, and a whole bunch of acclaimed directors are set for the movies ahead:
- Guy Ritchie (Snatch; Sherlock Holmes) will be directing the Aladdin remake, which made headlines last week for its casting call that specifically sought out Middle Eastern actors, helping to quell concerns about whitewashing.
- David Lowery, who did a rather lovely job with Pete’s Dragon last year, is attached to a live-action remake of Peter Pan (yes, another Peter Pan movie).
- Tim Burton has his Miss Peregrine’s Home and Dark Shadows muse Eva Green lined up for a Dumbo remake. Take your best guess as to who Eva Green would play in a Dumbo remake.
- Favreau is attached to a proposed Lion King remake.
- The Girl on the Train writer Erin Cressida Wilson is attached to a Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs remake.
- Broadway director Alex Timbers (Rocky; Peter and the Starcatcher) is directing the Cruella movie, starring Emma Stone and written by Crazy Ex-Girlfriend/The Devil Wears Prada writer Aline Brosh McKenna.
After Mulan, Disney has three release dates set aside for “untitled live-action fairy tale adaptation” (March, November, and December of 2019), and between all the above-mentioned films, they’ve also got sequels to Maleficent and The Jungle Book in the works, plus plans for The Sword in the Stone, Pinocchio, The Little Mermaid, and James and the Giant Peach. The future is Disney; it’s time we all got used to it.
Where to stream Alice in Wonderland (2010)
Where to stream Maleficent (2014)
Where to stream Cinderella (2014)
