Disney’s Chief Creative Officer Admits There are a “Finite” Number of Remakes They Can Do

Disney is on this kick of rebooting or remaking many of their animated classics into live-action movies.

Just this year we got Aladdin and The Lion King (and Dumbo that everyone keeps NOT mentioning) and soon we are getting Mulan and the Little Mermaid. When will it all end?

According to Disney Chief Creative Officer and Co-Chairman Alan Horn, no time soon. Although live-action remakes are “finite”, spin-offs are the way they are going in the future!

Here’s what he had to say at a roundtable hosted by The Hollywood Reporter:

“There is no question that we, at some point, are going to run out of the kinds of films like Aladdin or Lion King. We have taken a step past that now, so Maleficent is a step away from Sleeping Beauty, and Cruella (2021) is a step away from 101 Dalmatians. But there is no question it’s a finite universe.”

Their answer is that they will run out of live-action remakes and will instead do live-action spin-offs based on characters we know from the original films.  Because Maleficent 2 just did so well in the box office. It’s clearly what people want.

What happened to plain old innovation and creation? That’s what Walt Disney was about. People complained for years about Michael Eisner’s direct to video sequels and I think this feels about the same. At least with the crappy DTV sequels they made new stories. It’s like Disney is about doing whatever is the fastest, cheapest, and easiest instead of sticking to what has made them special all along.

I get that for something like a streaming service a company needs a lot of content, so I can give the streaming reboots a pass, for now, but what was mentioned in the articles, and in relation to the roundtable, is that they are going to continue this “step away” trend into the theatrical releases too. Sure, that might be cool for some films where a movie based on a character like Cruella would work well, but when does it end? When do we get innovation, fresh ideas, new stories and characters again?

People are nostalgic about these re-makes, for now, but they aren’t all hitting the $1 billion dollar mark and maybe they should shift focus to what made the company so beloved in the first place.

What do you think? Comment and let us know.

Source: Collider