Editorial: Studios Must Stop The Live-Action Remakes!

[wonderfly]

The News Team's "The Overlord" has a new editorial up on the front page of AnimeSuperhero.com:

"Editorial: Studios Must Stop The Live-Action Remakes!"​

"It looks like DreamWorks is following the Disney model and making a live-action remake of the animated classic “How to Train Your Dragon”. This seems like a bad trend that will continue into the future, and ultimately Universal is just copying Disney. If anyone is to be blamed for this trend, it’s Disney with their actions in the last 10 years.

Yes, there have been “live action remakes” going back decades (with the live action “Jungle Book” and “101 Dalmatians” movies in the 90’s), and the live action “Alice in Wonderland” film in 2010 (but c’mon, that felt more like “a Tim Burton film”, rather a “Disney Live Action” film). But the trend of “live action remakes” really kicked into high gear 10 years ago, with 2014’s “Maleficent” (a retelling of “Sleeping Beauty”). Since then, there has been at least one live action remake a year, and now we’re in 2024/2025, with 3 live action remakes in the span of a few months: Mufasa: The Lion King”, “Snow White” and “Lilo & Stitch”.

Perhaps the problem has come into focus with the most recent reveal: a trailer for the remake of “Snow White and The Seven Dwarves”, the first iconic Disney animated film (and in fact the first feature-length animated film ever), has become the most downvoted Disney trailer in history. It seems like a real shame that the first animated Disney film, the first feature-length animated film, looks like it is being turned into a mediocre live-action movie almost 90 years later."

Read the full editorial here.

 

[harry580]

I agreed, I blame Tim Burton for this, he would rather direct ripleys believe or not movie he was going to make instead of Alice in wonderland

and I agreed, live action remakes are insulting, offensive, sexist & racist (because of all the whitewashing)

its already bad we getting live action Moana & tangled films and while they at it, sooner or later we getting Pixar live action or blue sky studios live action (the latter will could cause the blue sky studios fandom to call it insulting to the legacy of the studio, even blue sky studios animators would be angered by the news and I don't blame them)

 

[John Pannozzi]

Hot take, but I'm admittedly a little interested/hopeful in the How to Train Your Dragon live-action remake, if only because Dean DuBois came back to direct it.

 

[MatthewP]

honestly i feel like disney's going at this the wrong way, they should be remaking duds rather than uh... football captains; like aim for properties that flopped or are obscure enough to warrant a remake/reboot

basically what i'm saying is where's my pepper ann live-action remake

 

[Surreal Kangaroo]

I know I am in the minority, but I enjoy many of the live action remakes. In my mind, they don't take away from the originals. I was actually having a conversation with a friend IRL about the Snow White remake. I said while obviously the original is a timeless classic, the new one can add more depth like scenes of Snow White actually interacting with the Queen, scenes of the kingdom, and more scenes of the Dwarfs. Yeah I know one could argue that they weren't in the original because they were not needed, but it's stull something I would like to see.

 

[LinusFan303]

On the Disney side, I think that they had a problem of the fact they made the iconic movie versions of a lot of public domain stories (hmmst) or they made a big movie that worked out in the first place that people like. So they decide to live-action remake but they really shouldn't take the movies they made that are more original stories and do that .On the other part their adaptations, I think they should really have tried to make like a story that maybe fits the original fairy tale or whatever a little more and go with that or make an interesting spin on the story they didn't do in the animated version. I think the closest we got to that was the Alice in Wonderland stuff. I think even doing stories based on different characters in the stories like Maleficent isn't a bad idea either.

They could have just made a new Snow White story instead of trying to take one and changing some pieces and calling it a day.

To me, their best remakes are 101 Dalmatians (1996) , Pete's Dragon (2016) , and Jungle Book (2016). Lion King was unnecessary, and since it wasn't the 1960's they weren't mad enough to use real Lions. Lilo and Stich is unnecessary to remake too, really could have made a new Stitch story, even a live-action animated hybrid, Stich has done stories without Lilo before.

Making live-action How to Train your Dragon remake is also kind of unnecessary, but would be funny if Universal does their remaking better whatever that means. Could have made a family live-action viking movie, but I guess original stories are scary or something.

 

[Freddy]

Hot take, but I'm admittedly a little interested/hopeful in the How to Train Your Dragon live-action remake, if only because Dean DuBois came back to direct it.

For me personally, that kind of stuff makes me less interested. I know these remakes are inherently "brand management" for the studios and everyone involved is probably told to play it safe from the outset, so the brand doesn't suffer and there's no controversy around it, but if you are going to remake something, it should be done with interesting creative swing. Get someone with new unique take in the material to be the creative voice, find a new angle for the story and recast every single character, even if some of the original actors are still alive and "too iconic".

While I don't like any of the Disney live-action remakes, I feel more respect to the likes of 2016's Jungle Book and Alice in the Wonderland for not being direct remakes of the original Disney animated versions and doing sicnificant changes.

 

[Edward Joseph]

A lot of these people seem to have a very contradictory attitude to these past movies nowadays. They need to be revived and remade because they're classics and people love them...but they need to be changed to fit modern sensibilities. No doubt that's what their "target audience" wants out of them. That's the thinking of the people who greenlit these live-action remakes: If it worked in one medium, surely it can work in another.

The people who've made most of them are long gone (ESPECIALLY with their earliest ones). So are the people who greenlit them. Let's face it, Hollywood and studios keeps changing. The environment that leads to the original film being made in the first place is also gone for most of them.

What really confuses me is that Moana is getting a live-action remake. That one came out a couple of years ago. Nostalgia wouldn't have sunk in far enough to get people to see it so they could relive it (especially considering Moana 2 just released).

It's a real shame since they CAN get it right sometimes. As LinusFan303 pointed out, Jungle Book (2016) and Pete's Dragon are great films (the 101 Dalmatians remake isn't the best, but it's good in comparison to all of the later ones). This is mainly because they use the original as a jumping off point and make changes that IMPROVE upon the original (it also helps that the original Jungle Book and Pete's Dragon aren't considered the greatest Disney films by many people, they're relatively easier to compete with). Compared that to the other remakes, which change too little and make it TOO similar to the original (The Lion King (2019)) or change TOO much to the point that I can hardly call it the same film (Mulan (2020), Dumbo (2019), Pete's Dragon as well even though it's pretty good).

All I'm saying is...give me a good idea. That's all I ask of them.

Though I suppose that all of this is a minority opinion, considering how successful these films have turned out. To each his own. If these bankrupt films provide some enjoyment to some people, they're doing their job well.

(To be fair though, Disney's original live action catalogue isn't very good either. For every Mary Poppins, Pollyana, True-Life Adventure documentary, Pirates of the Caribbean or Hocus Pocus, you get a The Misadventures of Merlin Jones, One of Our Dinosaurs Is Missing, Unidentified Flying Oddball, Blank Check and Old Dogs. Their remakes of live action films are pretty poor too (sans Homeward Bound and Freaky Friday (2003))

 

[harry580]

for me, I rather stuck with The Misadventures of Merlin Jones, One of Our Dinosaurs Is Missing, Unidentified Flying Oddball, Blank Check and Old Dogs over the live action remakes of animated films of I being honest with you

 

[Eurbane]

I wont mind. The live action Snow White will be great. When it premieres, the audience will give the same feelings the audience saw when the animated version premiered. If the new Snow White does so well, everyone will love it and will win a special Oscar the same way Shirley Temple presented to Walt Disney in 1939.

 

[harry580]

People who watching these are fundamentally unable to really enjoy animated films IMO. It's bad enough seeing live action versions of Moana & tangled. If someone needs a film that has the likes of edgy & dark & anything else fix, they can just go watch freaking Harry Potter or Charlie and the chocolate factory

 

[cheril59]

for me, I rather stuck with The Misadventures of Merlin Jones, One of Our Dinosaurs Is Missing, Unidentified Flying Oddball, Blank Check and Old Dogs over the live action remakes of animated films of I being honest with you

I'm sticking with the live-action 101 Dalmatians, as well as 102 Dalmatians. Not to mention The Jungle Book: Mowgli's Story. These three are all pretty decent in my opinion, and I'm not going any further than that.

 

[JoeMabbon]

I feel like we've been at this point for at least five years now. Disney keeps making 'em and people keep watching 'em. I kinda thought the enthusiasm for these was dying down, but here we are.

 

[AdrenalineRush1996]

Yeah, I'm just a bit burned out from live-action film remakes, hence I don't plan on seeing Snow White at all along with that while people would disagree with me, I would rather want live-action remakes of Atlantis: The Lost Empire and Treasure Planet instead.

 

[awinger24]

I fear that these live action remakes are a shady excuse for studio executives to hide and erase their animated catalog which they might declare problematic so they can present the more appropriate, modern, inclusive and politically correct versions while completely wiping away what existed before.


Imagine if Bob Iger took the David Zaslav strategy and took a billion dollar tax write off on their entire 2D animated catalog and all we will remember is their CG animated films that he oversaw.

 

[Space Cadet]

I fear that these live action remakes are a shady excuse for studio executives to hide and erase their animated catalog which they might declare problematic so they can present the more appropriate, modern, inclusive and politically correct versions while completely wiping away what existed before.

I think it's less complicated than that. Studios see an existing IP and since the premise is "your favorite cartoon characters coming to life, literally," they think it'll print money easily. And they're right sometimes. And then we get the ones that bomb but they'll keep trying until they have too many that fail at the box office.

 

[awinger24]

I think it's less complicated than that. Studios see an existing IP and since the premise is "your favorite cartoon characters coming to life, literally," they think it'll print money easily. And they're right sometimes. And then we get the ones that bomb but they'll keep trying until they have too many that fail at the box office.

Not re-releasing their classic animated catalog like they used to back in the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s really robbed the current generations from seeing a lost and rare art form buried by recent trends. What if people remember the Snow White remake with the uncanny CG dwarves and not the 1937 original which Rachel Zegler thinks it is problematic because the prince is #MeToo bait.

 

[Light Lucario]

Not re-releasing their classic animated catalog like they used to back in the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s really robbed the current generations from seeing a lost and rare art form buried by recent trends. What if people remember the Snow White remake with the uncanny CG dwarves and not the 1937 original which Rachel Zegler thinks it is problematic because the prince is #MeToo bait.

I don't think that people are going to forget their animated classics. Snow White was the first animated movie by Disney, so that alone would make it more memorable than the live action remake, which from what I've heard did not perform well financially or was received well by audience/critics. Very few, if any, of the Disney live action remakes are going to be that memorable. The success of the Lion King remake did not make people forget the original animated movie for example.

 

[harry580]

so, what the future of these?, with Snow White bombing, what the future helds, I don't know the numbers for the live action lilo & stitch movie yet

 

[awinger24]

If the Lilo and Stitch remake does well, the original 2002 film is likely going to be erased for a tax write off which I do not want. That is all these remakes are doing. Reimagining them in order to push what is relevant now. Can't take risks anymore. Be generic, safe and by committee as possible.