With the recent success of the Percy Jackson TV series on Disney+, the book series was finally done right after the 2010 and 2013 movie flops, but that is for another day. Disney has been remaking its popular classics and intellectual properties (IPs) in either live-action or reanimation in the past several years.
As one of the largest film companies, Disney has a huge streak of remaking its old movies or IPs. The most recent example is the Little Mermaid remake, featuring Halle Bailey as Ariel.
Despite all of the mixed feelings from fans, myself included, many of the remakes have either expanded on the story or reshaped our understanding of the characters. For example, Maleficent and Cruella, iconic Disney villains, both had movies about them that gave more depth to their characters. While Cruella is the third remake of 101 Dalmatians, it specifically fleshes out her character more than the 1996 remake does, adding more about her past which led her to be the iconic fashionista villain we know.
In Maleficent’s case, this is the first remake of Sleeping Beauty but it is more focused on the villain. In the movie we not only see why she was not invited — the reason she cursed Aurora in the first place — but we also see how she was not always the villain we know and love. We see her go through changes that humanize her while still keeping her qualities as a “villain”.
However, not all remakes do justice to the original film. In 2019, the Lion King was reanimated and released in “live action.” While it was nice to have the feeling of watching a movie for the first time again, it did not do so well. Some favorite parts of the original — like the sequence for the song “Be Prepared” — were not up to fans’ expectations.
Keeping this in mind, it almost feels like some of their remakes are done just to make more money for the company. Even though that is why movies are made, as a fan of the classics, it almost feels like they are just making content for the sake of making content and selling merchandise, which begs the question: should we keep making remakes of older Disney IPs?
For me, I believe there should be a mix of remakes and new, original movies. While remakes can bring a new audience to an older film they might not watch, a lot of film companies, not just Disney, have fallen to the trend of remaking movies, some of which could benefit from a remake and others not so much.
So I once again ask the question, should movie companies follow the trend of remakes or should they take a chance on new ideas?
