Disney’s ongoing onslaught of live-action remakes of its animated classics has yielded a lot of box office success over the past decade, but they’re about to run into an unavoidable problem. The Mouse House first achieved success with live-action adaptations of its animated films with 2014’s Maleficent and 2015’s Cinderella, but it didn’t become a cornerstone of Disney’s big-screen output until the 2016 revamp of The Jungle Book became a mᴀssive hit with critics and audiences alike. Since then, turning Disney’s backlog of cartoon masterpieces into live-action movies has become an aggressive corporate strategy.
Although they’re often criticized for being derivative, uninspired, and inferior to their predecessors, most of these live-action remakes have been huge box office hits, like Guy Ritchie’s Aladdin, Jon Favreau’s The Lion King, and Bill Condon’s Beauty and the Beast. Even the supposed commercial disappointments, like The Little Mermaid, have still turned a healthy profit. Disney will keep remaking its animated movies in live-action and currently has no reason to stop. But the studio doesn’t have an unlimited supply of source material, and they could run into a major obstacle very soon.
The Gap Between The Animated Movies And Their Remakes Will Get Smaller
Disney Is Already Starting To Remake More Recent Movies
When Disney started adapting its animated hits into live-action movies, it had plenty to choose from. They quickly blew through all the older classics that still hold up today, like Dumbo, Alice in Wonderland, Lady and the Tramp, and Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. Then, they moved onto the biggest hits from the Disney Renaissance of the late ‘80s and ‘90s, like Mulan, The Little Mermaid, and Beauty and the Beast. The studio is skipping more problematic movies like Pocahontas and Song of the South, so they’re running low on films to adapt.
Disney’s next live-action remake, Snow White, will be released on March 21, 2025.
Sooner or later, Disney is going to catch up with itself. The studio has been able to churn out soulless live-action remakes over the last few years a lot faster than it could generate timeless masterpieces over the past century. In 2019, Disney released a whopping five live-action adaptations of classic animated movies that spanned three different decades. They’ve gone from adapting movies from the ‘40s and ‘50s to adapting movies from the ‘80s and ‘90s. The movies being treated to a live-action makeover are getting more and more recent; there’s a remake of 2010’s Tangled in development.
The biggest example of this is the upcoming live-action remake of Moana, which will see Dwayne Johnson reprise his role as Maui. If the live-action remake of Moana does well and proves that audiences will buy tickets to see remakes of movies that just came out, Disney won’t waste a second greenlighting a live-action redo of Frozen. There are only so many classics that Disney can revisit, meaning the live-action remakes might start to catch up with newer releases relatively soon.
Live-Action Remakes Of Relatively New Movies Might Not Have The Same Appeal
There Hasn’t Been Enough Time To Build Nostalgia
There are two reasons for the seemingly inexplicable appeal of Disney’s live-action remakes. A lot of moviegoers have a nostalgic attachment to their favorite Disney movies. When a new version of Dumbo or The Jungle Book or Beauty and the Beast comes into theaters, it taps into that nostalgia and those audiences will turn up to relive their favorite movies from their childhood. A recent movie like Moana and Frozen hasn’t had enough time build up that sense of nostalgia. The moviegoers who were kids when they first came out are still kids now.
Unless the original was rereleased at their local theater, some younger moviegoers have never been able to see The Lion King or The Little Mermaid in cinemas.
Another reason why Disney’s live-action remakes do so well is that they retell stories that many moviegoers have never had a chance to experience on the big screen. Unless the original was rereleased at their local theater, some younger moviegoers have never been able to see The Lion King or The Little Mermaid in cinemas. Since Moana and Frozen only came out in the last few years, the only people who didn’t get to experience them in a theater are too young to buy a ticket to relive them on the big screen in live-action.
Moana’s Live-Action Remake Coming Right After The Sequel Reveals Another Problem
Moana’s Animated & Live-Action Franchises Will Weirdly Run Concurrently
Not allowing enough time for nostalgia to build isn’t the only problem with remaking recent movies. The live-action remake of Moana will arrive in theaters on July 10, 2026, just a year and a half after the release of Moana 2. Although Moana 3 hasn’t been officially greenlit yet, Moana 2 did so well that a threequel seems inevitable. Disney has been announcing sequels left and right, and Moana is one of the studio’s most valuable properties, so it’s only a matter of time before Moana 3 is confirmed to be in development.
That means that the animated series will run concurrently with the live-action one, and Frozen could have a similar problem. Frozen 3 and Frozen 4 are both being developed simultaneously, so the animated Frozen franchise will continue for at least another few years. If a live-action remake of Frozen is announced around the time the live-action Moana is released, then it’ll likely be released in between animated Frozen movies. This will be even messier than DC developing two Batman franchises at the same time; at least those are two totally different takes — one isn’t a straightforward adaptation of the other.
Why Disney’s Live-Action Remake Strategy Will Continue To Work Anyway
There’s Room To Expand The Existing Remakes With Sequels & Prequels
Despite these inevitable hiccups, Disney’s live-action remake strategy will probably continue to work. The recent success of Mufasa: The Lion King has proven that Disney can expand its existing remakes into larger franchises with sequels and prequels. That’s exactly what the studio did with direct-to-video follow-ups to the animated originals, and it worked a charm. A sequel to Mulan could explore her next adventure with the Imperial Army. A sequel to Aladdin could borrow elements from The Return of Jafar.
Mufasa: The Lion King grossed $672.1 million at the worldwide box office.
Plus, there are still a handful of classics that Disney has yet to adapt into live-action. The Mouse House is currently developing live-action versions of Hercules, Bambi, Lilo & Sтιтch, Robin Hood, and The Aristocats, all of which have the chance to become big box office hits. On top of that, Disney hasn’t remade any of its more recent movies yet, so speculating on what the reception will be isn’t very reliable. Remakes of Moana, Frozen, and Tangled could still be really successful.
