Recently, Disney has been coming out with multiple live action remakes, such as Dumbo, The Lion King, Aladdin, Mulan (2020), The Little Mermaid (2020), and most recently, Lady and the Tramp. Though I am a huge Disney fan, what is Disney’s motivation?
One of the biggest reasons is money. While Alice in Wonderland and Beauty and the Beast earned more than $1 billion each, when audiences demanded original films from Disney, their original movies (such as A Wrinkle in Time, Tomorrowland) still fell short of $1 billion. It would be logical for Disney to turn to their established brands so they can target their audience with nostalgia using characters from their childhoods. People are more likely to see films with familiar story lines and faces.
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In the box office, familiarity rules as people want the classics and what they know. Disney can survive this way because it has become a part of our culture, and it becomes something that older adults want to pass down to their kids and grandkids. Thus, they will continue to crank out the remakes until people become uninterested and their revenue drastically drops, but the chances of that happening? Unlikely.
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Along with this, making live action remakes of past movies is much lower effort to Disney than creating new original movies. There is no need for them to pay for the rights to a whole different movie or have to create a plot and entirely new script. They can simply reuse their past resources to keep pumping out new movies the public will gobble up.
ReplyDeleteSources:
https://www.newstatesman.com/culture/film/2016/05/why-disney-producing-so-many-live-action-remakes-its-most-popular-animated
The effect of nostalgia on the movie industry is very compelling. Even if someone isn't a huge fan of a particular movie, I see the appeal in wanting to see how the live action film turned out compared to the animated ones people remember from their childhood. I also believe that this model is similar to that of putting out sequels to movies. Although the live action films are remakes and not sequels, it is bringing people back into theaters for the same storyline and characters they know and love just like the release of a sequel.
ReplyDeleteI think the reason for Disney having all these remakes is in order to appeal towards Disney fans in order to bring back nostalgia and childhood. However, the reason that many kids grow out of cartoons, is to watch live-action movies. I think it is smart that they are using live-action and realistic remakes because it does bring back the childhood memories of classic Disney movies, with also appealing more towards the older generation of Disney Watchers.
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