This past Friday Disney unveiled the teaser for the upcoming live-action ‘Lion King’ which looks like a shot-for-shot remake of the original, only this time, instead of animation, presented to us in CGI. Let’s line-up 16 upcoming live-action Disney remakes that have been greenlit: “Beauty and the Beast,” “101 Dalmatians,” “Sleeping Beauty,” “The Jungle Book 2,” “Peter Pan,” “Pinocchio,” “Dumbo,” “Mulan,” “Dumbo,” “Sword in the Stone,” “Winnie The Pooh,” “Snow White,” and “Tinker Bell.” All of these are coming out within the next 5 years. That’s a deluge of films. These are safe, and cozy projects for the mouse house because they are banking on what is most popular at the multiplex these days: Nostalgia. There is absolutely no conceivable way that these live-action remakes can artistically surpass the original animated classics. Why? Because Disney wouldn’t take the risk of messing with the original formula — audiences want what they already know, that’s the sad truth. And so, with these live-action remakes, Disney are, by all accounts, going for shot-for-shot duplicates, the only difference? They are done in CGI instead of hand drawn animation. Forbes’ Dani Di Placido has written a piece on the disturbing trend of live-action remakes from Disney and how it’s hampered down any kind of creativity from not just them but their competitors. He goes on to say: The answer is pretty obvious; reselling old stories with a new, shiny coat of CGI is an immensely profitable activity. The film industry is rife with immense financial risk; it doesn’t take many box-office flops to bankrupt even a major production company, and the surest way to stay in profit is to stick to familiarity. As much as we complain about Hollywood’s lack of original ideas, we want to see reboots; or at least, the majority do. The film industry is a democracy, and we all vote with cinema tickets. We seem to want to take a trip back into childhood, however brief, and see our memories reconstructed in glossy photorealism. But photorealism is not inherently superior to 2D animation; those old Disney animators didn’t draw cartoon lions as a backup plan because they couldn’t train an animal to say lines. They chose that medium to tell a beautiful, stylized story, a story that resonated with children and adults alike.” … But the thing about photorealism, even the most expensive, jaw-dropping effort, is that it is doomed to age terribly. There’s nothing that can be done to remedy this — we’re always going to get better at spotting fakery, especially if it is trying to look indistinguishable from reality, and the immensely talented folk who work in the special effects industry are always being pushed to innovate. … Disney should tread carefully; there’s only so much you can squeeze iconic, beloved stories before they start to fall apart; just look what happened to Solo: A Star Wars Story. Contribute Hire me
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