Disney is the king of the franchise right now and while the Marvel Cinematic Universe, Avatar, and Star Wars are the names we normally think of when the word “franchise” comes up, there’s another corner of the Disney kingdom that has been equally successful in movie after movie, the live-action remake.
Disney has churned out one live-action remake after another over the years with a frequency only matched by the list of upcoming Marvel movies, and while not all of them are massive hits, when they hit, they hit big, to the tune of billions of dollars at the box office. Some of them have been so successful, they’ve received sequels, or in the case of Mufasa: The Lion King, a prequel.
I’ve been a Disney fan my whole life, which means I tend to be a fan of most of these movies that inspired the remakes, and I don’t actually hate most of the remakes. But I really hope that Mufasa is as big a hit as the remake of The Lion King because I hope Disney makes more movies like it, and fewer like The Lion King.
I Love Disney Movies But The Remakes Have Been Largely Underwhelming
I don’t dislike The Lion King remake. How can you? If you loved the original, and I did, the remake is the same movie, so there’s a lot to love. And the technical expertise on display in creating life-like animals and environments is truly impressive. And yet, while the movie made a billion dollars, I was as underwhelmed by it as I have been by many of the remakes.
While I won’t claim there’s no value in translating animated films into live action, doing 1:1 recreations has diminishing returns. We’ve seen the movie already, and we can watch it as many times as we want with a Disney+ subscription. Just giving it to us again just isn’t that exciting.
Maybe there’s a new song, though most of those have been lackluster. Maybe there’s a new scene, but the core story is exactly what we expect and know. It’s all just too comfortable.
My Favorite Disney “Remakes” Haven’t Really Been Remakes At All
I know my own opinion goes against the box office results of most of these movies, but my favorite Disney remakes are the ones that aren’t actually remakes. I love the original Maleficent with its twist on the story by focusing on the villain. I have a soft spot in my heart for Dumbo, as it finishes its “remake” in Act I, and the rest of the movie is actually a sequel. I’ve already gone on record that I hope the Snow White remake is more than just a remake.
These decisions are at least creative, they give us a new take or a fresh twist on the story we know. I’ll even give a slight pass to the Aladdin remake, which is almost entirely the movie we know, but Will Smith’s take on the Genie is so different from Robin Williams’ iconic character that the film doesn’t feel like a total carbon copy.
It's for this reason that I've honestly been looking forward to seeing Mufasa: The Lion King ever since the movie was announced. A prequel to The Lion King was at least new, and directed by the great Barry Jenkins, I just wanted to see what a great filmmaker could do with the admittedly wonderful world of The Lion King.
Mufasa: The Lion King Is A New Story, And New Is Good
But Mufasa: The Lion King isn’t a remake. It’s a prequel, which is a story that we have not seen before. That, all by itself, puts the new movie in a great place because I simply can’t compare it to any story I've seen before. I didn’t adore Mufasa, but I enjoyed it, and a big part of the reason was that I simply hadn’t seen the movie before.
The thing is, we didn’t need a remake of The Lion King to get to Mufasa. Disney could, rather than doing live-action remakes, simply do live-action sequels, prequels, spinoffs, or whatever. I’ll be the first to admit that doing a live-action sequel to an animated movie might be a bit strange, but Star Wars has given us animated canonical franchise installments that are connected to originally live-action content, so why not flip the script?
Of course, if that hadn’t happened Disney wouldn’t have made a billion dollars, so they’re certainly going to continue to do the remakes before they bother to do any sequels or prequels, but now it means I actually want these movies to do well because the movie I really want to see is the film that comes next.
Mufasa isn’t the first follow-up to a remake we’ve seen. We got a sequel to Tim Burton’s Alice in Wonderland and one to Maleficent, and if we’re being honest neither of them was all that great. If nothing else Mufasa is the first follow-up in the franchise to be pretty good, and that’s a trend I hope continues.
After the Aladdin remake made a billion dollars there was talk of a sequel to that movie, and while I would have said I wasn’t necessarily interested in that at the time, my interest in such a thing has now peaked. As long as it’s not a remake of Return of Jafar, but rather an entirely new sequel, let’s do it. Let’s write a fresh story, make new music, and give it a shot. There hasn't been much news on an Aladdin sequel so it's unclear if this project is still alive, but now, for the first time, I hope it is.
So as I look forward to the 2025 movie schedule and two more live-action remakes in Lilo & Stitch and Snow White, I’m looking even more forward than that. I hope I enjoy the movies. I want them to be good, but I’m hoping they are successful enough that Disney green lights sequels because honestly, those are the movies I’m much more interested in.
