Thomas Kail
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Cinderella deepened its characters and emotional stakes without betraying the original.
But this isn’t Cinderella. Moana can’t relocate to Seattle and rediscover herself running a paddleboard rental company.
…the "Cinderella" remake gave the princess and the prince a little time to bond before their nuptials…
A few examples precede that, like 2014’s Maleficent or 2015’s Cinderella…
The studio hasn't gone a year without making at least one live-action remake since Cinderella in 2015.
But at their best — say, Kenneth Branagh’s Cinderella, for one — they can put a fresh sparkle on beloved material…
The Jungle Book succeeded because it reimagined its source material while preserving its spirit.
While not as technologically sound as The Jungle Book and not as irritatingly animated as The Lion King, Disney has made a film that feels as if most of it was shot in a studio, with water added in post-production.
…the same year that Disney released their remake of "The Jungle Book"…
…the run that started with The Jungle Book in 2016…
The result was a generation of Disney films like The Sword in the Stone, The Jungle Book, and Robin Hood…
The Jungle Book (2016)…
…far brighter and more vivid than most of the dreary live-action remakes (thanks, Tim Burton’s Alice in Wonderland)…
…it wasn’t until 2010, when Tim Burton’s colourful live-action re-imagining of Alice In Wonderland earned a cool billion at the box office, that the Mouse House’s remake floodgates opened…
…a trend that began properly in 2010 with the release of Tim Burton's shockingly successful "Alice in Wonderland"…
Disney’s been full steam ahead on live-action remakes since Alice in Wonderland was a major hit sixteen years ago…
Alice in Wonderland (2010)…
Disney’s live-action remakes of its popular animated properties have included such photorealistic versions as Alice in Wonderland (2010), Beauty and the Beast (2017) and The Lion King (2019), all of which opened to more than $100 million domestically.
Like The Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast, The Lion King and its sequel, Snow White or even worse, Guy Ritchie’s dreadful Aladdin, these live actions reboots seem to suck the life out of IP that were just fine in their animated incarnations…
Their "Beauty and the Beast" remake addressed online accusations of Belle's Stockholm Syndrome, for instance.
2017’s Beauty and the Beast, for example, added a whole section of the ending with platformer-style action…
…similarly so-so adaptations like Beauty and the Beast 2017…
Other remakes took advantage of longer runtimes to add new scenes, such as Cinderella or even Beauty and the Beast.
Beauty and the Beast (2017)…
Clearly Kail was trying to find a visual equivalent to the energy that one might experience from seeing it live and it is obviously preferable to simply plunking one or two static cameras in front of the stage for the duration (as anyone who saw the woeful filmed version of the Kevin Kline-Linda Ronstadt revival of “The Pirates of Penzance” can attest) but a little more restraint in this area might have made it a little more effective in the long run.
…arriving 10 years after the OG cartoon Moana, considered a new Disney classic…
Thomas Kail’s Moana is Disney’s latest act of artistic duplication, remaking John Musker and Ron Clements’ 2016 animated classic…
The 2026 “Moana” is basically a duplicate of the 2016 “Moana” with real bodies in place of the computer-generated drawings.
Original voice of Moana, Chloe Auliʻi Cravalho…
It's been a decade since Disney introduced audiences to the Chief's daughter in the animated feature, Moana.
When Disney announced that their 2016 animated hit Moana would be remade as a live action film and released just under a decade after the original…
It reminded me of such expert concert films as Jonathan Demme's Stop Making Sense and Martin Scorsese's The Last Waltz.
Like The Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast, The Lion King and its sequel, Snow White or even worse, Guy Ritchie’s dreadful Aladdin, these live actions reboots seem to suck the life out of IP that were just fine in their animated incarnations…
Jon Favreau, the director of the 2019 remake of "The Lion King," noted that his movie shouldn't be considered animated…
While not as technologically sound as The Jungle Book and not as irritatingly animated as The Lion King, Disney has made a film that feels as if most of it was shot in a studio, with water added in post-production.
The Lion King 2019…
Disney’s live-action remakes of its popular animated properties have included such photorealistic versions as Alice in Wonderland (2010), Beauty and the Beast (2017) and The Lion King (2019), all of which opened to more than $100 million domestically.
Like The Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast, The Lion King and its sequel, Snow White or even worse, Guy Ritchie’s dreadful Aladdin, these live actions reboots seem to suck the life out of IP that were just fine in their animated incarnations…
Their "Aladdin" remake addressed the mostly all-white casting of Persian characters.
…a watered-down version of Robin Williams’ genie from Aladdin…
Aladdin (2019)…
…directed by longtime Disney vets John Musker and Ron Clements of “Aladdin” fame…
…while films like The Little Mermaid update the original for modern audiences…
Even the studio’s more divisive remakes, like Snow White and The Little Mermaid, at least attempted to reinterpret familiar stories through a different lens.
Like The Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast, The Lion King and its sequel, Snow White or even worse, Guy Ritchie’s dreadful Aladdin, these live actions reboots seem to suck the life out of IP that were just fine in their animated incarnations…
One could see the profit motive behind earlier remakes like The Little Mermaid and The Lion King…
…the latest dud in a run of on-again/off-again run of remakes in the Disney+ era: The Little Mermaid, Pinocchio, and Snow White ranged from underwhelming to awful…
The Little Mermaid (2023)…
Thomas Kail, who directed both the Broadway musical and the film, uses techniques pioneered by Jonathan Demme in Stop Making Sense, cutting together footage captured over three nights of shows at the Richard Rogers Theatre in June 2016.
It reminded me of such expert concert films as Jonathan Demme's Stop Making Sense and Martin Scorsese's The Last Waltz.
It likely explains why we haven’t seen a live-action version of the overwhelmingly white Frozen reach the big screen.
Walt Disney Animation Studio's biggest hit since Frozen…
…where the studio released movies like “Frozen” and “Zootopia” to critical acclaim and healthy box office numbers…
…which is basically Gus Van Sant’s “Psycho” in that it’s essentially a shot-for-shot remake…
…a shot-for-shot facsimile on par with Gus Van Sant’s “Psycho.”
In some cases, such as Maleficent and Cruella, the story is reimagined from another character’s perspective…
Others flipped the story on its head by telling it from the villain’s perspective, even humanizing them in the case of Cruella.
…origin story Cruella had fun by taking things in a completely different direction…
I’m not anti-Disney or anti-live action, having enjoyed last year’s tent-pole Lilo and Stitch…
If the box-office returns for a second-rate live-action take like last year’s Lilo & Stitch could fill the company’s coffers…
…last year’s phenomenally successful Lilo & Stitch remake won audiences over by adding enough askew humour of its own…
The feature went back into development in the fall following the success of Lilo & Stitch, which opened in May 2025 to $146 million in North America, en route to hitting $1 billion globally.
…a “Lilo & Stitch” where Nani gives up Lilo to social services…
In some cases, such as Maleficent and Cruella, the story is reimagined from another character’s perspective…
A few examples precede that, like 2014’s Maleficent or 2015’s Cinderella…
…so that it stops their interest in remaking Tangled again…
…an era beginning roughly with “The Princess and the Frog” or “Tangled”…
Weeks after the subdued debut, Disney paused development on its planned live-action Tangled.
Theater fans who mourn that so many Broadway shows are retreads of the oldies; “South Pacific,” “Fiddler on the Roof,” “West Side Story,” “My Fair Lady,” “The Music Man,” will cheer that “Hamilton” is thoroughly original.
Theater fans who mourn that so many Broadway shows are retreads of the oldies; “South Pacific,” “Fiddler on the Roof,” “West Side Story,” “My Fair Lady,” “The Music Man,” will cheer that “Hamilton” is thoroughly original.
I’m game to see her in something other than a live-action remake of “Moana 2.”
The second happened because Moana 2 was arriving and I wanted the context fresh.
…less than two years after cartoon Moana 2, considered considerably less than a classic…
Moana 2 arrived in 2024, placing this remake beside an ongoing series rather than allowing it to arrive at a historical distance from its source.
I found this a confusing film to watch, as 2024’s inferior sequel Moana 2 is far fresher in my mind than the original film…
2024's Moana 2 however was a different case entirely.