If you’re anything like me, you’re not jazzed about the prospect of more unnecessary cash grabs live action remakes of animated films coming out of Disney. But they were part of D23, they continue to make billions for some reason, and someone’s gotta cover ’em, so let’s get this over with.
There’s a range of 75 years between the adaptions that were far along enough to show off tonight; one goes way back to the beginning of feature animation and the other is the most recently animated film to receive a live-action remake (that record will be beaten if Disney is serious about remaking Moana).
Nope, nothing’s sacred anymore. Somehow Snow White escaped the Eisner Cheap Sequel Era untouched, but it won’t be so lucky this time. It would have actually been out last March had the SAG-AFTRA strike not delayed production. One big question was how this would handle the “real” Seven Dwarves. You can’t hire little people because that’s…not nice. The teaser reveals they worked around it by rendering the 7D as CGI creations.
Will this venture turn into a Snow Wrong? It doesn’t matter what we think since it’ll probably make all the money once it comes out March 21.
Experiment 626 has entered the chat! The live-action #LiloAndStitch is coming only to theaters in Summer 2025! pic.twitter.com/82KFLEFL5E
— Walt Disney Studios (@DisneyStudios) August 10, 2024
BLAGALAGAH! The “live-action” Stitch busts through his own logo to reveal himself. Yup, that’s pretty much the design of the 2D Stitch — no radical reinvention here. Like Snow White, the charming designs and soft watercolors of the original are going to be lost in whatever this is. No clips were ready to show but it’ll be out in a year.
Finally there’s Mufasa, which is at least a little more original than the previous two. Even if these bland visuals lack the rizz of hand-animated lions, Mufasa has never had his own movie so there’s unexplored story potential here. The cast stars mostly returning members from the 2019 Lion King: Aaron Pierre as Mufasa, Kelvin Harrison Jr. as Taka (the future Scar), John Kani as Rafiki, Seth Rogen as Pumbaa, Billy Eichner as Timon, Beyoncé Knowles-Carter as Nala, and Blue Ivy Carter (Beyonce’s daughter) as Kiara. It starts playing December 20.
