After the failure of Snow White, Disney seemed to have paused development on several live-action remakes that weren’t already deep in production—like Moana. It’s clear this shift happened because Snow White bombed much harder than expected, especially when compared to earlier remakes. And disney started to rethink if all live action remakes might be a hit

And honestly, yeah—it’s pretty clear that live-action remakes can’t just be pulled from any random era and still rake in a billion dollars. Even though jungle book almost did so it only worked because at that point it was the start of something new with Disney live action remakes . But now? You can’t expect major box office success from remakes of films most younger audiences barely know and the older generation that do know don’t care about anymore—or sadly aren’t here to see it like Snow White.

But I’m not entirely sure that Disney is giving up on it just yet what I think what will happen is Disney is probably going to refocus their remake strategy after the inevitable success of Lilo & Stitch, but with a tighter lens. That means sticking to millennial and Gen Z favorites. As for future projects I doubt any of the really old ones are ever being made again. Even the early 2000s ones might not be made just yet, and it’s not because of they have no nostalgia only because they are more likely further down the line after they’ve mined the more recent and popular 2010s content.

If I had to bet, Frozen is next after Moana. It has a mega-popular soundtrack, iconic characters, insane merch sales, and even a Broadway adaptation. If not Frozen, then Tangled—which we’ve already heard whispers about.

And look even if you’re not a fan of the remakes (I’m kind of indifferent myself—I don’t hate them, I just don’t care much), the one upside is they might still help boost the ever-shrinking box office pie. Whether or not they deserve to make bank I most certainly don’t think so, but hey those are just my thoughts

They feel inferior to the animated originals in nearly every way and rarely even try to offer anything new to the world of the originals or expand on the stories (with some exceptions being Maleficient and Cruella —a mix of a retelling + an origin story, attempting to give some new depth for each villain)

One of my main issues with these is they will take characters that are clearly cartoonized and do uncanny CGI "realistic" versions of them that don't even look that good, making the film look outdated upon arrival. Stitch looks like he isn't even in the scenes in the Lilo & Stitch trailer. The CGI dwarfs in Snow White look creepy and superimposed into every shot.

Don't get me started on the "live action" Lion King which was beat for beat the original's script and had no "live" elements — just CGI animated talking "realistic" animals. Why would I watch this when I can just watch the original?

TLDR: I wish animated films could just be animated films. I'm not into this recent obsession with everything needing a live action remake.

Obviously it makes Disney a lot of money.

I'd love to hear other people's thoughts on this phenomenon.