EntertainmentDisney keeps remaking its animated classics because they're a proven box-office success.- Insider spoke with three former Disney animators who worked on "Beauty and the Beast," "Hercules," "The Lion King," and "Mulan" who shared their thoughts on the adaptations.
- They were surprised so many of the films they worked on are getting remade, especially the more recent ones from the '90s.
- None of them were fans of "The Lion King," criticizing the film's lack of emoting and how closely it adhered to the original.
- "I think it's all about the money and growing the company and making the investors and stockholders happy," "Mulan" co-director Tony Bancroft told Insider.
- Insider also spoke with producers and VFX artists on "Aladdin" and "The Lion King" who pushed back on claims the remakes are simply cash-grabs.
- If Disney's going to do remakes, the animators want them to feel nostalgic, while re-envisioning the classic stories to feel like more than shot-for-shot remakes.
- A perfect example is Disney's upcoming live-action "Mulan," which exceeded Bancroft's expectations.
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Last year, Disney made a record $11.1 billion at the box office. A large part of that success involved cashing in on audience nostalgia.
Disney has released 16 remakes of its classic animated movies since 2010 with over a dozen more on the way, including "Mulan" (which has been pushed back to the summer).
Fans either love these films or say Disney is ruining their childhoods. For the studio, it's an easy way to tap some of its biggest hits while sharing updated versions with a new generation.
But up until now, we haven't really had a sense of how the original animators behind these big hits feel about seeing the films they spent years working on being remade without them.
Insider interviewed three original animators who worked on films during Disney's lucrative renaissance period in the '90s who shared their honest opinions on the new films. Bottom line? They like "Maleficent" and "The Jungle Book" and are intrigued by "Mulan." But they aren't impressed by the remakes of some of Disney's biggest hits like "Beauty and the Beast." None of them enjoyed 2019's "The Lion King" too much, either.
We also spoke with producers and visual effects supervisors on the new live-action movies to gather their responses to criticism. They explained why Disney's remakes aren't a simple cash-grab and why it's OK for the studio to be remaking most of its animated classics.
Some Disney animators criticize the live-action movies for not being original enough
If you were an animator on some of Disney's most popular movies of the '90s, it can be strange to see the films you worked on 20 or so years ago get remade one after the other.
Brothers Tom and Tony Bancroft worked at Disney Animation for over a decade. The twins helped bring some of the company's most beloved animated classics to life, including "The Lion King," "Aladdin," "Beauty and the Beast," "Tarzan," and "Mulan."
Two decades after the film's original releases, they're seeing many of the movies they worked on remade for a new generation — without most of the people who worked on these original movies.
1998's "Mulan," Disney's latest remake, was co-directed by Tony Bancroft. Tom animated the
"I'm sure I was like everybody else. 'Eh. Why didn't I see this coming?'" Tom told Insider of his first reaction when he learned the studio was remaking many of its classics.
"Still, hearing it was hard. It really didn't sit well," he added.
"I didn't see it coming that they were going to go so deeply into remaking all the movies we worked on," said Tony Bancroft, who like his brother, was taken aback a bit by seeing the familiar Disney flicks return to the big screen. "When it was just 'Pete's Dragon' and 'Maleficent' and a couple things here and there, I thought, 'OK, well, that's kind of cool.'"
"As long as it's changed, or it's like a revision, not just a remake, but a re-visioning of that classic story, that makes sense to me."
Both brothers agree 2016's "Jungle Book" was "really well done" and that 2014's "Maleficent," adds to the existing "Sleeping Beauty" story by telling it from the villain's POV. The original films were first released in 1967 and 1959, respectively. Up until that point, with the exception of "Pete's Dragon," Disney was only remaking animated movies from those two eras.
Then Disney turned its attention to remaking films from its golden age in the '90s. Tony told Insider he enjoyed the additional character backstories in 2019's "Aladdin," even though it didn't have the appeal of the original for him. But neither brother enjoyed "Beauty and the Beast."
"I won't say that I truly hated 'Beauty and the Beast.' I loved Emma Watson in it," said Tom of the 2017 remake. "The Beast character was horrible, I thought. Then Cogsworth and Lumiere looked horrible. They really, really overdid them and did not do them well."
"He kind of looked a little too close to basically one of the theme park 'Beauty and the Beast' characters," Tom said of the Beast not being repulsive enough — the animated version is based off of the combined designs of a gorilla, buffalo, bear, boar, wolf, and lion. Tom (who was also an assistant animator on the original 1991 movie) thought the remake leaned into "the cuteness" of the character to make the love story believable.
"A lot of the magic was gone from that live-action version, and that's kind of the way it's been since," he added.
The brothers aren't the only former Disney animators that don't understand why some of these movies are being remade.
"It goes against every belief I have to just remake a film that is not even that old," "Klaus" director Sergio Pablos told Insider.
During his time at Disney, Pablos worked as an animator on films including "Hercules," "The Hunchback of Notre Dame," and "Treasure Planet." He left Disney in the early 2000s to work on bringing original ideas to life. He recalled studios telling him if his projects didn't have a built-in audience, to "forget it."
So he co-founded SPA Studios and helped create Illumination's "Despicable Me" franchise, which has grossed over $1 billion. More recently, he directed Netflix's 2D animated hit "Klaus," which was nominated for best animated picture at the 2020 Oscars.
Pablos said he misses the originality that Disney had during its animated renaissance.
"I really wish they put their energy into creating original content because that's what I really responded to," said Pablos. "We got to work on those movies suddenly. It was exciting because they were new and they were daring and they were doing something new. And it's sad that we're not doing that anymore."
None of the animators that Insider spoke to liked 'The Lion King' remake, either
Perhaps the most controversial Disney remake has been 2019's "The Lion King."
Starring the vocals of A-list actors and singers, including Beyoncé Knowles Carter and Donald Glover, a lot of the criticism circled around the animation of the digital animals.
"'Lion King' was an utter failure artistically," said Tony, who watched the 2019 remake because he knew fans were going to ask him to weigh in regardless.
"It was so much like the original," he continued. "It was the same dialogue, and then to do it in this hyper-realistic style, where the characters have no emotion... Yeah, I did not like that."
"The trailer was painful to watch because of how close director Jon Favreau went, like literally shot for shot," said Tom of his reaction to the film's first trailer, which was released in November 2018. "It looks like they just went back to the original storyboards and just copied what the board artists had done."
"I almost feel bad for Jon Favreau, because he's a great director, and he did a great job on 'The Jungle Book,'" said Tom. " I feel like all the way from the top, he had to have been told, 'No, no, no. You can't change hardly anything. I have a feeling he was sort of trapped from the beginning.'"
When the trailer for the 2019 remake debuted, Insider and other outlets compiled videos comparing the two movie introductions. After the film's release, Insider compared many similar shots between the two films.
The biggest problem all three had was with the lack of emoting animals in the film, something which became a major criticism of the remake.
"We were actors with a pencil, that's what they would call us back in the day. We would look in front of a mirror and we'd act it out and we would put this performance in this character," said Tom. "We humanized these animals for a reason, to get these great expressions and stuff."
Tom added that because Disney wanted the animals to look so real, like something out of National Geographic, "it deadens the performance."
"Quite honestly if they had done 'Lion King' to be like a really realistic story, lions that don't talk... I think I would have enjoyed that. I think I would've said that's an interesting restriction," said Pablos of his thoughts on the remake. "I would have been interested in seeing that. But if you take away a capacity for characters to emote in their spaces and in their body structure, but you still think that emotions come through, only through dialogue, it goes against what I believe animation should be. I'm not so sure extreme realism is the way to go."
In January 2020, "The Lion King" visual effects team told Insider they played with the idea of having the animals share more emotion in the film. VFX supervisor Rob Legato, who worked with Favreau on 2016's "The Jungle Book" before returning to work on the visual effects for 2019's "Lion King" remake, said he has gone back and watched the movie over and over again after receiving criticism about any lack of emotion.
"You get a little insecure, especially when somebody criticizes what it is and you go back, you look at [it] and you go, 'You know what? I got every bit of emotion when Mufasa died,'" said Legato. "I projected what Simba would be feeling at that moment. That's why it connects to the audience. So the criticism of it seems not correct."
"If we made it cartoony, then you would lose the moment of reality, which I can identify with as a person," Legato continued.
MPC VFX supervisor Andy Jones has found that fans who grew up watching the original over and over again are a bit disappointed with the lack of emotion, but added that young children who have only seen the new "Lion King" don't seem to have an issue.
"I talked to some newer, young kids that only have [the new 'Lion King'] as a reference," Jones said. "They love it. They're like, 'It's so much fun.'"
Why Disney is remaking so many of its animated movies: They're sure-fire box-office wins, allowing the studio to take a chance on riskier original ideas
How did we get to the point of seemingly never-ending Mouse House remakes?
Since 2010, the majority of them are lucrative cash cows. Similar to the studio's well-oiled Marvel Cinematic Universe, the live-action and CGI remakes provide Disney with a cushion to offset any potential box-office upsets in any given fiscal quarter. Four of them have crossed $1 billion at theaters, while another two crossed $700 million.
We also have Johnny Depp and 2016's "The Jungle Book" to thank for the influx of remakes.
But before we get to that, it's important to remember we could have had a resurgence of Disney animated remakes 20 years ago. Before Disney's animated reimaginings became commonplace, the studio remade three movies in the '90s: "The Jungle Book," "101 Dalmatians," and "102 Dalmatians." They just weren't much to brag about.
1994's "Jungle Book" grossed $43.2 million worldwide. Though "101 Dalmatians" brought in $320.7 million worldwide, its sequel, released four years later, didn't break $200 million at the box office. These weren't exactly sure-fire hits, and, aside from "The Jungle Book," critical reviews of the films were negative. (The two "Dalmatians" sit at 42% and 31% on Rotten Tomatoes, respectively.)
Disney didn't attempt another live-action adaptation of a classic until 2010 with Johnny Depp in "Alice in Wonderland." The difference this time around? Depp was already a part of Disney's very popular "Pirates of the Caribbean" franchise, which at that point had released a trilogy of films. Depp's presence as the Mad Hatter helped the film cross $1 billion worldwide. Again, the reviews weren't great, but the film achieved what the three previous remakes hadn't by being a runaway success.
It was the most money a Disney live-action adaptation had made at that point. The success of the next remakes was critical to making sure "Alice's" box-office intake wasn't a fluke. (It wasn't.)
"Maleficent" (2014, $758 million worldwide), the well-reviewed "Cinderella" (2015, $542 million worldwide), and "The Jungle Book" (2016, $966 million) all proved the Mouse House had struck gold by adapting some of its early films from the '50s and '60s. It proved the company may be able to see the same success with its core hits from Disney's lucrative renaissance period (i.e. "Beauty and the Beast," "Aladdin," "Mulan," and "The Little Mermaid").
The "Jungle Book's" success was especially important, suggesting Disney could move forward with a "Lion King" remake. The 2016 film used an early version of the technology that would be used to create Favreau's 2019 "Lion King" film.
Remaking Disney classics is an easy way for the company to print money at the box office. They're four-quadrant films, meaning they're films that appeal to men and women below and above 25. Disney was able to deliver something nostalgic for fans of the originals while offering something new for young children, many of whom may be children of fans who grew up with the originals.
The outpouring of successful Disney remakes and Marvel movies have also allowed the studio to try out more original — and perhaps, risky — properties.
If Disney wants to make "A Wrinkle in Time" and it doesn't perform as well as hoped, you can bet that it will be flanked by the likes of at least one big Disney win so any loss is less visible. In this case, "Black Panther" debuted right before it ($1.3 billion worldwide) and "Avengers: Infinity War" ($2 billion worldwide) came out a month after it. "A Wrinkle in Time" grossed $132.7 million worldwide. It was the studio's only miss in its Q2 2018 earnings report.
"Disney's changed so much," Tony Bancroft said of the company since his time there in the '90s. "They're a huge conglomerate now. They have so much power and control there. I feel like more and more, I have probably more negative feelings about the company now than I ever have because I just see them going for cash grabs and trying to just grow and they've just taken on so many things."
"I think it's all about the money and growing the company and making the investors and stockholders happy," he added. "It's losing, more and more every day, the spirit of Walt Disney."
As of April 2020, five releases through 2022 are labeled as "Untitled Disney Live Action." A "101 Dalmatians" spinoff, "Cruella," starring Emma Stone is expected May 28, 2021.
So they're just cash-grabs? It depends on who you ask.
"All movies are cash grabs," said "Lion King" VFX supervisor Rob Legato when told that some people refer to Disney's remakes as such, making at least one of his colleagues laugh during a press day Insider attended in January.
"We're in the movie business," Legato said, becoming more serious when asked his stance on the remakes being referred to as such. "We are entertaining and we want you to like the film. We're making money on it to make other movies. So to say something is a 'cash grab,' as a detriment, this is the business we're in."
Legato passionately defends critics who claim "The Lion King" is a simple retooling of the original to generate box-office dollars.
"You have people make the same movie or the same stories over and over again because they resonate," said Legato referencing "The Lion King's" inspiration from the Shakespeare story "Hamlet." "People like to see them, we enjoy them, and we enjoy seeing them from different angles."
"Aladdin" producer Lin agreed.
"The critics are saying, 'Disney's just a money machine. They're just remaking these movies,'" Lin told Insider. "The truth is they aren't. It's very difficult. They're really empowering filmmakers like ['Aladdin' remake director'] Guy Ritchie, like Jon Favreau, like [live-action "Mulan" director] Niki Caro."
Lin, who grew up loving the original "Aladdin," doesn't take recreating these films lightly. He sees them as an opportunity for Disney to revisit some moments that may feel outdated.
"We looked at [the animated 'Aladdin'] really extensively. We didn't think it held up in today's day and age of female empowerment and even some ethnicity issues," said Lin.
In 2019's "Aladdin," one of the biggest changes was that Princess Jasmine gets her own song, "Speechless."
"In the original movie, it felt like she was a Disney princess that was just looking for love," said Lin. "We wanted to have our version of a Disney princess, a modern-day version of it where she is looking to lead."
Changes like this are what the original animators would like to see moving forward.
"They're not perfect films," said Tom of the original animated movies. "They're just cherished for certain reasons. You can retain those things and make it different, and you could still have a successful film, I think."
'Mulan' could set the bar for Disney's live-action remakes moving forward
Over and over again, Insider heard the same thing from animators of Disney's renaissance period. Many of the Disney remakes are too similar to what came before.
But even the Bancroft brothers are optimistic about Disney's remake of "Mulan."
"I really want them to go off and make a new version of 'Mulan,'" said Tony of being OK with big changes to the film. "I love that character. I love who she is. I love what she represents."
"When I saw the trailer, I was pleasantly relieved," said Tom after viewing Disney's first official teaser trailer for the film from July 2019, adding, "A lot of people I know I think are surprised by that because I created Mushu, I should be really upset that Mushu's not in it. I'm really not."
Instead of rehashing the original, which follows a young woman who disguises herself as a man to take her father's place in war, the new film is supposed to be more connected to "The Ballad of Mulan." The short poem, from the fifth or sixth century, describes a young woman who fought for her country for 12 years before humbly returning home.
Early reactions to the film have been overwhelmingly positive with many calling it Disney's best live-action remake. Insider was among those able to view the film in March at its world premiere and can confirm it's one of, if not Disney's finest adaptations. It almost feels more like a superhero film.
Tony, who also attended the premiere, praised the movie, telling Insider he enjoyed it far more than expected.
"It was still very reminiscent, I feel like it has things for the fans that they're going to really like, but it feels unique," Tony told Insider after seeing the film at the Dolby Theatre. "This, to me, is what all these Disney remakes should be. They should be one-part nostalgic and reminiscent of the original and two parts, all-out original."
Of course, Disney will never please everyone, but most of the people Insider spoke to agree on one thing: The remakes aren't replacing the original films, and, if anything, they're getting people to talk about their animated work again.
"I've enjoyed seeing that audiences and fans have come out and said, 'I had to go back and watch the original again,'" Tony said.
Disney has capitalized on that as well by re-releasing the animated films alongside the remakes on Blu-ray. Walt Disney Home
"I know all of us that worked on that, we want people going back to the original and comparing them because it just keeps it alive," said Tom, who still heads to artist conventions with his brother where they meet fans and show off Disney artwork. "I think that's pretty, pretty great."
Read the original article on Insider