Sound familiar? Disney updates on Beauty and the Beast, Dumbo, The Lion King and Cruella
Snow White have been a hit. In recently released interviews, the star of Disney's upcoming gaming remake of the Brothers Grimm classic called Walt Disney's 1937 original «scary» and ill-suited for modern audiences.
«I just mean it's not 1937 anymore.» , said Rachel Zegler, who enters a dark tale after her triumphant debut in Steven Spielberg's West Side Story. «The prince won't save her and she won't dream of true love.»
There's nothing wrong with the fearless Snow White embracing patriarchy: the new Snow White is co-written with Greta Gerwig, whose pink crested Barbie skillfully blends feminism and brand extension. And Zegler is right about classic Disney cartoons from the 1930s and 1940s that are sometimes uncomfortable to watch today. Watch the adorable Jiminy Cricket salivate at the scantily clad dancers in the 1940s movie Pinocchio.
But the backlash against Zegler's comments confirms Disney's strategy to remake its classic animations using flesh-and-blood actors as a minefield for movie theaters. Often these projects can only seem worth the effort when they distance themselves from the original; which in turn carries the risk of Disney tarnishing its legacy and generating fan following. But if the new version is slavishly faithful to the original, why would it even exist?
Live-action remakes of beloved Disney cartoons are an ambitious feat of cinematic necromancy. And until recently, they have proved to be eminently profitable. Jon Favreau's 2019 remake of The Lion King grossed $1.6 billion at the box office (mostly created in CGI, it was hardly considered live action). Even more unusually, Tim Burton/Johnny Depp's one-time Alice in Wonderland bet topped a billion.
Zegler in costume as Snow White Credit: Splash News
However, this golden streak has begun to lose its luster and there is a case where fixing a Disney remake does more harm than good. Many of his recent remakes have failed. The flabby 2019 version of Dumbo Burton is thought to have barely recouped its $170 million budget. Live-action Mulan froze — even in China, where Disney expected it to triumph — as did Cruella's 101 Dalmatian origin story, which made $233.5 million in 2021. The recently rebooted The Little Mermaid took 32 days to raise $500 million. compared to 10 days in which Jon Favreau «The Lion King» scored the same. And let's not even mention Robert Zemeckis' 2022 remake of Pinocchio, which starred Tom Hanks but was still dropped by Disney+ with a deafening thump.
Some of the negative factors are beyond Disney's control. For example, trolls. Some sections of the Internet took offense at Zegler's role as Snow White due to her Colombian heritage. They will be horrified to discover that the 1937 film was just as untrue to the source material. Where is the cannibalism and torture so prominent in the original Grimm?
However, the 2023 edition of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs has always been problematic. Game of Thrones star Peter Dinklage, who suffers from a form of dwarfism called achondroplasia, has criticized Disney for rebooting a cartoon that portrayed «gnomes» as bearded male children with names like Dopey and Sleepy.
Original Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs Credit & Copyright: Alami
«I was a little overwhelmed when they [Disney] were so proud to cast a Latino actress as Snow White, but you're still telling the story of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs,» he told Marc Maron's WTF podcast. «That doesn't make any sense to me. You're progressive in a way, and you're still making up that damn story about seven dwarfs living together in a cave, what the fuck are you doing, dude?»
These sentiments were supported by the Limited Growth Association in the UK. «I fully support Peter Dinklage on Disney's frustration and annoyance with the Snow White remake,» Rhonda Cutmore, a member of the association, told The Telegraph.
This story has always had a negative effect on me. Not only the physical characteristics, but the labels 'Doopy' and 'Shy' didn't help on the playground.» />Remake of Aladdin by Guy Ritchie. Photo: Disney
(Such sentiments are not universal in a limited-growing community. When Leicester's Snow White pantomime was renamed Snow White and Her Seven Friends in 2015, dwarfist actor Warwick Davis called the decision condescending. «As a short film actor, I I want to have the choice to show up in panto or not,» he said. «I don't want anyone else to make that decision for me.»)
Whether or not screen dwarfs are problematic, the problem is that Disney decided to have both. Photographs from the filming of the upcoming film show Snow White merrily riding along with her seven «magical friends.» But do they have to be dwarfs? Or just random eco-warriors sniffing out an illegal rave in the woods?
Hard to tell. They vaguely resemble the troupe of the original: bearded, some are short, others are not. The big departure from the cartoon is that they are all young (ageism is a prejudice that Disney agrees with). They also have an air of ludicrous absurdity: with their flashy robes and twig-in-the-hair hairstyles, they could be Jethro Tull's cover band playing the 3am scene in a Glastonbury tree. If this is what ends up on the screen, Disney will remain visibly sluggish.
2010 Disney bombshell John Carter
So why does Disney persist? One plausible theory is that Disney's obsession with remakes is rooted in the spectacular failure of John Carter, his 2012 space opera based on Edgar Rice Burroughs' niche novel that became one of the biggest bombshells in history. Raising just $284 million on a $306 million budget, the company suffered a $200 million loss and caused Disney's share price to drop by one percent. In truth, it also led to the resignation of studio chairman Rich Ross, who at the time was the favorite of current Disney CEO Bob Iger.
The lesson for leaders was simple: new original ideas are dangerous. Determined to never again take on anything that even remotely resembled a risk, Disney's next move was to buy the Star Wars franchise through its takeover of Lucasfilm—a deal signed, sealed, and executed just months after the John Carter disaster. The company then began releasing profitable versions of familiar Disney hits, starting with Cinderella in 2015.
Since then, he has been involved in a grand project, as a family of dwarfs from the Brothers Grimm, mining coal. But with The Little Mermaid coming and going without a splash, and the new Snow White already irritating Disney purists, there's reason to wonder if this period of looking back, not forward, has reached its natural end. (Disney's Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny and Haunted Mansion, more retrograde takes on older properties, also failed to hit the box office.)
Disney doesn't seem to think so. A spin-off to Guy Ritchie's Aladdin with Billy Magnussen returning as Prince Anders is in development, and Game of Thrones writer Bryan Cogman is lined up for T.H. White's The Sword in the Stone (I wonder if it includes ranting about the rejection of the independence of the Celtic peoples). There are also plans for a 2010 remake of Rapunzel: Tangled and a remake of Moana, which is only seven years old.
Strangest of all are the reports that The Women Speak director Sarah Polley is going to give us a live-action Bambi — presumably a rival to Bambi's mother carnage.
Are there? any signs that Disney is reimagining the remakes? Yes and no. In early August, it was reported that an increasingly beleaguered Eiger prudently abandoned a planned update for The Hunchback of Notre Dame. But that was preceded by a July announcement about a reboot that looks set to happen — a new version of, yes, John Carter.
Свежие комментарии