Disney’s live-action remakes of its classic animated films over the past decade—including *Cinderella* (2015), *The Jungle Book* (2016), *Beauty and the Beast* (2017), *Dumbo* (2019), *Aladdin* (2019), *The Lion King* (2019), *Mulan* (2020), *Pinocchio* (2022), and *The Little Mermaid* (2023)—are the result of a deliberate strategy that leverages nostalgia, financial incentives, and the need to adapt timeless stories for modern audiences .

The decision-making process behind these remakes is rooted in the recognition that Disney’s animated classics possess enduring emotional resonance, which can be harnessed to attract both older fans and new generations, ensuring multi-generational appeal and sustained profitability [cfcaf052-95a6-474b-92de-9c0a0ba2dfd8_669457786_1].

**Nostalgia as a Strategic Driver** Nostalgia is a central pillar in Disney’s approach to live-action remakes.

The company capitalizes on the deep emotional connections audiences have with the original animated films, which serve as cultural touchstones for multiple generations .

This nostalgia is not only a powerful marketing tool but also a financial safeguard, as it creates a built-in audience base that is likely to revisit beloved stories in a new format .

For example, *Beauty and the Beast* (2017) and *The Lion King* (2019) each grossed over $1 billion worldwide, demonstrating the lucrative potential of leveraging established intellectual property with strong nostalgic value .

*The Little Mermaid* (2023) grossed over $550 million globally, surpassing the original’s earnings and underscoring the commercial viability of this strategy .

The nostalgia factor also encourages parents to introduce these stories to their children, further expanding the audience and ensuring continued relevance .

**Financial Motivation and Risk Management** Disney’s reliance on live-action remakes is also a calculated financial strategy.

By reimagining proven stories, the company minimizes the risks associated with original content development in a competitive entertainment landscape .

The strong box office performance of these remakes, such as *The Lion King* (2019) earning approximately $1.66 billion globally and *Aladdin* (2019) grossing over $1 billion, highlights the effectiveness of this approach .

Even in the streaming era, Disney’s remakes have performed well, with films like *Elemental* (2023) becoming the most viewed premieres on Disney+ .

This financial success reinforces the company’s commitment to remaking its animated catalog .

**Adapting Stories and Characters for Modern Audiences** A defining feature of Disney’s live-action remakes is the adaptation of stories and characters to reflect contemporary values and societal expectations.

These changes are often substantial, aiming to balance authenticity with relevance.

For instance, *The Little Mermaid* (2023) cast Halle Bailey, a Black actress, as Ariel, marking a significant shift in representation and sparking both celebration and backlash .

Bailey’s casting was widely seen as a beacon of hope for young girls of color, providing representation in a genre where it was previously lacking .

The film also updated Ariel’s age from 16 to 18 and emphasized her independence and agency, moving away from the original’s focus on romance .

Other remakes have similarly modernized their narratives.

*Beauty and the Beast* (2017) reimagined Belle as an inventor, reflecting themes of female empowerment, though some fans felt this altered her original charm .

*Aladdin* (2019) gave Jasmine a more prominent role and a new song that highlights her aspirations beyond traditional princess roles, aligning with contemporary discussions about gender equality .

*Mulan* (2020) removed musical elements and focused on a more serious, action-oriented narrative, aiming for a nuanced portrayal of honor, identity, and personal growth .

The upcoming *Snow White* remake reimagines the titular character as a leader rather than a passive figure, reflecting current values of empowerment and agency .

Disney also addresses cultural representation and sensitivity in its remakes.

For example, *Mulan* (2020) featured an all-Asian cast and consulted cultural experts to honor Chinese culture more authentically, though it still faced criticism for certain portrayals .

The studio has also reimagined supporting characters to avoid outdated stereotypes, as seen in the upcoming *Snow White*, where Disney worked with the dwarfism community to update the depiction of the seven dwarfs .

**Balancing Authenticity and Relevance** A persistent challenge for Disney is maintaining the essence of the original films while updating them to resonate with modern audiences.

This balance is evident in the way remakes incorporate updated themes without completely abandoning the source material.

For example, *The Little Mermaid* (2023) revised the lyrics of songs like "Kiss the Girl" and "Poor Unfortunate Souls" to reflect modern values around consent and female agency .

*Pinocchio* (2022) took a more irreverent tone, diverging from traditional narrative styles to refresh the story for new audiences while still paying homage to the original .

However, some remakes have been criticized for lacking the creative risks and emotional depth of the originals, leading to accusations of formulaic storytelling .

**Public Reaction and Cultural Impact** Public response to Disney’s live-action remakes has been mixed, reflecting the complexities of reimagining beloved classics.

Many viewers celebrate the inclusivity and modernization of these tales, praising performances such as Halle Bailey’s Ariel and the diverse casting choices .

The remakes have sparked important conversations about representation, diversity, and gender roles in media .

However, others express dissatisfaction with perceived political agendas or changes to beloved characters, accusing Disney of pandering to "woke" culture or straying too far from the originals .

For example, Peter Dinklage criticized the casting in *Snow White* for retelling what he called a "retrograde history," prompting Disney to emphasize its efforts to avoid stereotypes .

The backlash against Bailey’s casting in *The Little Mermaid* also highlighted broader societal debates about race and representation .

Despite controversies, the commercial success of these films indicates strong audience demand for adaptations that blend nostalgia with new elements.

*The Little Mermaid* and *Aladdin* (2019) both featured new songs alongside classic hits, appealing to both longtime fans and new viewers .

However, some remakes, such as *Dumbo* (2019) and *Mulan* (2020), encountered criticism and underwhelming responses, partly due to perceived shortcomings in storytelling or failure to capture the original’s magic .

**Role of Music and Marketing** Music remains a crucial element in the remakes, serving as a bridge between nostalgia and modern adaptation.

Many remakes retain beloved songs from the originals while introducing new compositions that reflect contemporary themes and character development .

For example, *The Little Mermaid* (2023) features classic songs like "Under the Sea" alongside new pieces by Lin-Manuel Miranda, supporting narrative shifts toward empowerment and consent .

Marketing campaigns for these films heavily emphasize nostalgia by showcasing iconic music, imagery, and characters

Disney’s live-action remakes of its classic animated films over the past decade—including *Cinderella* (2015), *The Jungle Book* (2016), *Beauty and the Beast* (2017), *Dumbo* (2019), *Aladdin* (2019), *The Lion King* (2019), *Mulan* (2020), *Pinocchio* (2022), and *The Little Mermaid* (2023)—are the result of a deliberate strategy that leverages nostalgia, financial incentives, and the need to adapt timeless stories for modern audiences .

Title:

Content: Disney responds to Peter Dinklage’s criticism of the live-action adaptation

THE disney has been recreating several of its classic animations in live action over the years and, currently, one of the projects developed focuses on telling the story of snow White. Although the project does not have many details disclosed, the film has already become the target of criticism from Peter Dinklagethe Tyrion of game of Thrones. Now, it was the company’s turn to respond to the actor’s speech.

Actor Peter Dinklage.

In his comment, the actor noted that he was shocked that the company was proud to cast a Latin actress in the lead role while also looking to retell a “retrograde history”. THE The Hollywood Reporter contacted a representative of the disneywho offered a response to the actor’s comment, noting that the live action is taking care to avoid stereotypes present in the animated version. The statement says:

“To avoid reinforcing stereotypes from the original animated film, we are handling these seven characters differently and have consulted with members of the dwarfism community. We look forward to sharing more as the film enters production after a long period of development.” the representative said.

The report released by the website further states that the film has been in development for three years, and the dwarf characters are being reimagined from the early stages of development. Furthermore, snow White is not the first live action Disney to have cultural consultants, as this was also the case with Aladdinfor example.

snow White has the direction of Marc Webb (The spectacular Spider Man), having in its list Rachel Zegler (Love sublime love) in the role of the protagonist and Gal Gadot (Wonder Woman) as the Evil Queen. The production does not yet have a premiere date.

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A Definitive List of All the Disney Live-Action Films

From Halle Bailey’s Little Mermaid to the live-action Moana to sequels galore.

By Delia Paunescu and Amy Mackelden

Most of us grew up watching Disney movies, and for better or worse, we wondered what it might be like to be a Disney princess. In recent years, Disney has cleverly played into that nostalgia by transforming its classic animations into live-action movies filled with some of Hollywood’s biggest stars. Following the success of big-budget adaptations like Beauty and the Beast and The Lion King, Disney has committed to turning the majority of its animated catalog into cinematic treats. From Angelina Jolie’s star turn in Maleficent to the upcoming live-action version of Moana, fans will be spoiled for choice. Here, we round up all of Disney’s live-action movie adaptations to date, as well as some of the rumors about what’s to come.

1

Maleficent (2014)

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Loosely based on Sleeping Beauty, Angelina Jolie’s wicked witch arrived when lots of evil queens were getting their own feature films (Remember Charlize Theron in Snow White and the Huntsman?). Elle Fanning’s turn as Princess Aurora put her on the map as an A-lister to watch. The film even launched a Maleficent makeup collaboration with M.A.C., which we adored.

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2

Cinderella (2015)

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Disney’s dreamy live action remake of Cinderella cast Cate Blanchett as the evil stepmother, with Bodyguard star Richard Madden playing the Prince. When she landed the title role, Lily James’ most significant part had been as a rebellious cousin on Downton Abbey. Naturally, the fairytale brought James worldwide recognition (and she went on to play young Meryl Streep in Mamma Mia 2).

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3

The Jungle Book (2016)

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The original Jungle Book features some of the best music in Disney’s catalog, so director Jon Favreau’s 2016 live-action remake had a lot to live up to. Newcomer Neel Sethi masterfully took on the part of the boy trying to stay alive with a vengeful Shere Khan hunting him down.

A sequel has reportedly been in the works since Jungle Book was released, with Favreau rumored to be returning as director, according to The Hollywood Reporter.

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4

Beauty and the Beast (2017)

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Few Disney remakes were more anticipated than Beauty and the Beast. It was lavish in its production, starring Emma Watson as Belle and Dan Stevens as an all-too-human Beast. Supporting cast members like Stanley Tucci, Emma Thompson, Audra McDonald, and Ewan McGregor were exceptional as the castle staff.

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5

Christopher Robin (2018)

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Honestly, it feels like this movie came and went without anyone, besides die-hard Winnie the Pooh fans, paying much attention. It’s a shame, really, because Ewan McGregor is endearing in the grown-up title role and the Hundred Acre Woods’ animal pals are as warmly fuzzy as you’d hope.

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6

Mary Poppins Returns (2018)

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Emily Blunt steps into Julie Andrews’ cape and brings the magical nanny to life once more. The Devil Wears Prada darling did a terrific job, and was nominated for a Golden Globe as a result. Anyone who grew up loving the cheerily psychedelic musical numbers is bound to appreciate Hamilton star Lin-Manuel Miranda as lamplighter Jack. As if Mary Poppins Returns couldn't get any better, Meryl Streep, Dick Van Dyke, Julie Walters, and Angela Lansbury are also all in the film.

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7

Dumbo (2019)

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Dumbo remains one of the most upsetting stories in Disney’s roster, and 2019’s live-action remake will give you all of the feels. Directed by Tim Burton and starring Colin Farrell, Michael Keaton, and Danny DeVito, Dumbo re-tells the emotional story of a young elephant with the gift of flight, who finds himself embroiled in some circus drama.

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8

Aladdin (2019)

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Fans were desperate to find out who had been cast in the live-action Aladdin, no doubt because the original movie is so beloved. While Mena Massoud took on the title role, Power Rangers star Naomi Scott transformed into Princess Jasmine. And of course, Will freaking Smith did his very best to fill Robin Williams’ iconic lamp as the Genie.

In 2020, it was revealed that a sequel is in the works, via Deadline. Plus, a spin-off featuring Prince Anders is also in development.

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9

The Lion King (2019)

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The all-star remake of The Lion King might be the most important thing the house of the mouse has done since they released the original Lion King in 1994. This live-action version cast none other than Beyoncé herself as Nala. She stars alongside Donald Glover as Simba, and Billy Eichner and Seth Rogen as Timon and Pumbaa, with James Earl Jones reprising his original role as Mufasa. A sequel (or prequel) is on the way.

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10

Maleficent: Mistress of Evil (2019)

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Angela Jolie and Elle Fanning returned for the follow-up to 2014’s Maleficent. Jolie’s character continues to wrestle with people’s perception of her as a villain, while Princess Aurora receives a marriage proposal, much to Maleficent’s chagrin. Meanwhile, an endangered species known as the Dark Fae start to rise up.

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11

Lady and the Tramp (2019)

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1955’s canine couple du jour were given a live-action/animation hybrid update, which debuted on Disney+ in 2019. Justin Theroux voiced the scampy Tramp and Tessa Thompson played the elegant Lady in this animal romance. Thompson’s BFF Janelle Monáe, and Kiersey Clemons round out the cast of this cute remake.

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12

Mulan (2020)

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Disney casting directors had their job cut out for them with Mulan, reportedly spending a year auditioning nearly 1,000 actresses for the lead. The part ultimately went to Chinese superstar Liu Yifei. Fans finally saw the 31-year-old in full character thanks to this arresting first image. Director Niki Caro told the Hollywood Reporter: “It’s a big, girly martial arts epic. It will be extremely muscular and thrilling and entertaining and moving.” What more do you need to know?

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13

Cruella (2021)

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Anyone else think Cruella was woefully misunderstood? Enter 2021’s Cruella, which tells the story of 101 Dalmatians’ villainous diva before she became, well, fully evil. The inimitable Emma Stone won the lead role, infusing the tale with ’80s punk chic. From the eye-catching costumes to the super cute puppies, Disney’s origin story has everything. A sequel is reportedly in the works.

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14

Pinocchio (2022)

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Tom Hanks as Geppetto? Say no more. It may be 80 years later, but this live-action remake is just as relevant today as the original was upon its release. Joseph Gordon-Levitt gives a heartfelt performance as Jiminy Cricket, and Pinnochio’s journey to becoming a real boy is brought to life in stunning visuals.

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15

Peter Pan & Wendy (2023)

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There have been numerous adaptations of J. M. Barrie’s iconic story, but Disney promises to delight fans of its 1953 animated classic with the live-action Peter Pan & Wendy. After meeting Peter Pan, Wendy (Ever Anderson) embarks on an adventure to Neverland, where she faces up to Captain Hook. A story that truly never gets old.

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16

The Little Mermaid (2023)

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Ariel’s story of thirst-trapping Prince Eric, after selling her voice to that glorious diva Ursula in exchange for human legs, is ripe for a remake, especially given the 1998 original’s fishy gender dynamics. Halle Bailey wows in the lead role, with Melissa McCarthy embodying sea witch Ursula. Lin-Manuel Miranda wrote new songs for the flick, alongside Disney musical genius Alan Menken.

The Little Mermaid hits theaters on May 26, 2023.

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17

Snow White (2024)

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Disney is bringing its live-action magic to 1937 animation Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. While Rachel Zegler will take the lead as Snow White, Gal Gadot has been cast as the Evil Queen. With Greta Gerwig tapped to write the screenplay, we can expect Snow White to be all kinds of wonderful.

Snow White is set to hit theaters on March 22, 2024, per Deadline.

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18

Moana (TBD)

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In April 2023, it was announced that Moana (which was just released in 2016) would be getting the live-action treatment, with Dwayne Johnson reprising his role as demigod Maui. The original voice of Moana, Auli‘i Cravalho, has signed on as an executive producer. Johnson said in a statement, “This story is my culture, and this story is emblematic of our people’s grace and warrior strength.” The release date is currently unknown.

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19

Lilo & Stitch (TBD)

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A live-action/CG hybrid remake of the supremely adorable 2002 film about a Hawaiian girl and the alien who befriends her was first announced in October 2018. It is being produced by Dan Lin and Jonathan Eirich, who were also tasked with the Aladdin remake. A release date is up in the air but it’s possible this will debut on Disney’s upcoming streaming service. The cast includes Zach Galifianakis, Courtney B. Vance, and newcomer Maia Kealoha as Lilo, per The Hollywood Reporter.

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20

Hercules (TBD)

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In June 2022, Deadline reported that Aladdin director Guy Ritchie had signed on to direct the live-action remake of Hercules. The 1997 animate feature retold the legend of demigod Hercules, who was voiced by Tate Donovan. While details on the remake remain scarce, Hercules is certainly one to watch for Disney fans.

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Delia Paunescu

Delia Paunescu is a writer, producer, and social media consultant based in New York City. She's written for Vulture, Racked, Brooklyn Magazine, New York Post, and amNewYork, among others. Delia also spent two years leading NowThis Entertainment. She'd very much like to shout at you about why Jane the Virgin is the greatest show of all time over on Twitter.

Amy Mackelden is a freelance writer, editor, and disability activist. Her bylines include Harper's BAZAAR, Nicki Swift, Cosmopolitan, Marie Claire, ELLE, The Independent, Bustle, Healthline, and HelloGiggles. She co-edited The Emma Press Anthology of Illness, and previously spent all of her money on Kylie Cosmetics.

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Title:

Content: As Disney suffers through its latest box office bomb, another flop celebrates 20 years

Image via Walt Disney Pictures
Review of:

Reviewed by:
Rating:
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On November 28, 2022
Last modified:November 28, 2022

Summary:

What makes the efforts of marketing so interesting is that it often plays a key role in determining how many people end up seeing your movie. As one of the most powerful entertainment corporations on the planet, one can imagine that Disney would be privy to a nuance like this. Why, then, has the Mouse neglected promotion for Strange World?

There could be multiple answers for this, some of them more malicious than others, but the end result is still a disappointing performance for Disney’s latest animated venture, reportedly making a mere $18.6 million in the five days since its release. With a reported budget as high as $180 million, Strange World is in for the fight of its life—a fight that’s projected to result in a $100 million loss.

History is a whimsical little prankster, it seems. As Strange World gasps for breath at the box office, the ghost of another Disney financial flop haunts the halls of cinemas 20 years on.

Indeed, on this day 20 years ago, Treasure Planet was under the very same duress that Strange World is bearing at the moment, with the 2002 sci-fi film having famously lost Disney $30 million at the box office.

Where Strange World seems to have mostly suffered from a lack of marketing, the theories on the heavily-advertised Treasure Planet‘s failure seem to stem from skepticism around its animation to its deviation from the stories that Disney often told. One must also consider, of course, that Treasure Planet is simply not a good movie. To this day, B.E.N.’s presence awakens something quite violent in many a viewer.

Alan Bergman, if you’re reading this, these are the films that you should be focusing your live-action remakes on. We don’t need a reimagining of already inch-perfect films like The Lion King or Aladdin; give those chances to the more lackluster members of your library that are desperately in need of fresh eyes and a second chance. In the case of Strange World, try not to drop the ball on letting people know that it exists next time.

Strange World is currently playing in theaters.

How has Disney leveraged nostalgia in recent years?

By turning classic animations into live-action films with major stars

How has Disney leveraged nostalgia in recent years?

By turning classic animations into live-action films with major stars

How has Disney leveraged nostalgia in recent years?

By turning classic animations into live-action films with major stars

The decision-making process behind these remakes is rooted in the recognition that Disney’s animated classics possess enduring emotional resonance, which can be harnessed to attract both older fans and new generations, ensuring multi-generational appeal and sustained profitability [cfcaf052-95a6-474b-92de-9c0a0ba2dfd8_669457786_1].

Title:

Content: Disney’s The Little Mermaid is looking to deliver one of the top Memorial Day weekend debuts ever, after grossing $38 million on Friday, including over $10 million from Thursday previews. The live-action remake of the classic animated film is expected to generate $104 million across the traditional three-day weekend, and around $125 million across the extended four-day holiday weekend, coming in ahead of expectations. This beats the $116.8 million that the House of Mouse’s live-action Aladdin remake grossed across the same frame in 2019.

If these estimates hold, The Little Mermaid’s Memorial Day bow will be among the top five of all time, behind Top Gun: Maverick ($160.5 million), Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End ($153 million) and Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull ($152 million). Directed by Rob Marshall and starring newcomer Halle Bailey in the titular role, The Little Mermaid was produced on a reported budget of $250 million, and is currently tracking to gross around $80 million from overseas markets by Sunday, which should put its global debut above $200 million.

Aladdin legged it to over $1 billion globally, as did the live-action remake of Beauty and the Beast, and considering the top-tier source material, The Little Mermaid has certainly set itself up for a similarly excellent lifetime haul with this debut. The reviews have been mostly positive, with the film currently sitting at a “fresh” 67% rating on review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes and earning an excellent A CinemaScore from opening day audiences. Collider’s own Ross Bonaime called it “one of the rare live-action remakes that manages to capture that Disney magic” in his review.

RELATED: Everything 2023's 'The Little Mermaid' Changes From the Original Disney Classic

Last week’s number one film, Fast X, is eyeing a hefty drop in its second weekend. The 10th installment in the long-running action franchise is continuing to display diminishing returns domestically, despite generating sustained interest in overseas markets. Fast X added $6.3 million on its second Friday, taking its running domestic total to $91 million. By Sunday, the film will pass the $100 million mark stateside, and by Monday, it is expected to hit around $113 million. Globally the film has made more than $500 million, but it still has a long way to go before it can compare with some of the franchise’s top-grossing movies, two of which — Furious 7 and The Fate of the Furious — have made more than $1 billion worldwide.

A Handful of New Releases Opened Low

Disney’s Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 slipped to the third spot after four weekends in the top two. The superhero threequel added $5.4 million this Friday, and is expected to make around $20 million across the weekend. Guardians of the Galaxy 3 had a relatively soft $116 million opening in the first week of May, but it managed to deliver one of the top holds in Marvel Cinematic Universe history in its second weekend. The movie quietly stayed afloat over the next couple of weeks, and will pass $300 million domestically and $700 million worldwide by Sunday. Anything around or above Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2’s lifetime haul of $863 million should be considered a win, considering that the movie was marketed as the emotional closing chapter for a beloved trilogy.

The Super Mario Bros. Movie is expected to narrowly claim the fourth spot this weekend, despite being available on digital for a couple of weeks. The mega-hit animated movie added $1.6 million on Friday, and is expected to generate over $8 million across the four-day extended weekend. This should take its running domestic total to $560 million. The sole newcomer to debut in the top five this week is The Machine, starring Burt Kreischer and Mark Hamill. The action-comedy made $2.2 million on Friday, and is expected to gross around $7 million across the extended holiday weekend. Two other new releases — the Gerard Butler action vehicle Kandahar and the comedy film About My Father, starring Robert De Niro — are expected to debut outside the top five.

You can watch our interview with The Little Mermaid star Bailey here, and stay tuned to Collider for more box office updates over the weekend.

What motivates Disney to keep producing live-action remakes despite mixed reviews?

What motivates Disney to keep producing live-action remakes despite mixed reviews?

**Nostalgia as a Strategic Driver** Nostalgia is a central pillar in Disney’s approach to live-action remakes.

**Nostalgia as a Strategic Driver** Nostalgia is a central pillar in Disney’s approach to live-action remakes.

The company capitalizes on the deep emotional connections audiences have with the original animated films, which serve as cultural touchstones for multiple generations .

How has Disney leveraged nostalgia in recent years?

By turning classic animations into live-action films with major stars

How has Disney leveraged nostalgia in recent years?

By turning classic animations into live-action films with major stars

This nostalgia is not only a powerful marketing tool but also a financial safeguard, as it creates a built-in audience base that is likely to revisit beloved stories in a new format .

According to John Musker, why does Disney rely on live-action remakes rather than producing new stories?

As a risk-reduction strategy
As a safer option

How has Disney leveraged nostalgia in recent years?

By turning classic animations into live-action films with major stars

What motivates Disney to keep producing live-action remakes despite mixed reviews?

For example, *Beauty and the Beast* (2017) and *The Lion King* (2019) each grossed over $1 billion worldwide, demonstrating the lucrative potential of leveraging established intellectual property with strong nostalgic value .

Title:

Content: Simu Liu’s Response to Quentin Tarantino Was Ill-Advised

credit: Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings

Simu Liu’s response to Quentin Tarantino was ill-advised for a few reasons. However, the fact that Disney has acted in less than honorable ways concerning representation is easily pushed into the spotlight. This is why it is one of the more tiresome arguments out there. People tend to pull from the past when they can’t argue the present.

Much of this debate started when Martin Scorsese claimed that the MCU is not cinema. Plenty of fans took the offensive immediately, which was amusing. Many fail to realize that even the words of Scorsese and Tarantino, both famous directors, can’t stop the MCU from expanding.

There are many reasons why this argument is pointless. Storytellers are sensitive, no matter how well they hide this trait. They tend to speak out when their beliefs are challenged, as expected, but quickly seek to justify their words when their own beliefs are challenged.

The idea that Simu Liu is defending Disney but vilifying Tarantino doesn’t sit well with a lot of people. Unfortunately, there are a lot of hypocrites in this debate and not enough self-aware individuals.

credit: Reservoir Dogs

The truth is that Simu Liu is right to stand up for comic book movies

One word that has come up during the debate is escapism, and this is what people use movies for. This is also why comic book movies are so popular. The fact that a few directors, including Tarantino, have taken issue with the MCU is a bit hypocritical.

Not only are these directors denying the validity of comic book movies, but they also deny the idea that these movies have stories to tell. There is a lot of flash in the MCU, but there is also substance. Unfortunately, fans and Tarantino have taken things deeper.

Disney has not always moved with the times or tried to preserve stories. Amusingly enough, neither has Tarantino. Both the Mouse House and Tarantino tell the stories they want to. Many have jumped to the idea that Disney doesn’t care about various cultural stories. This is hard to argue against, but it is possible.

Disney is a corporation designed to make money. This is the goal of any corporation, and what’s more, Tarantino knows this. He’s an astute director, but Tarantino doesn’t like sharing the spotlight.

Tarantino and Scorsese have enjoyed a following that Disney is challenging

There’s no way to deny that Tarantino and other directors who have lambasted Disney are successful. They’ve enjoyed a following throughout the years that is impressive. But Disney’s rapid growth has created a serious demand for more movies and shows.

Oddly enough, those who follow Tarantino and Scorsese’s works haven’t turned away from them due to Disney. It is entirely possible to follow more than one director and/or cinematic universe. But thanks to the fact that Disney has challenged their movies at the box office, several directors have spoken out. This speaks to an argument that has more to do with possible earnings than anything else.

It certainly doesn’t have as much to do with the Oscars since they’re still dominant in this area.

credit: Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings

It’s true – Disney has not always acted ethically

Stating that the Mouse House is entirely innocent when it comes to burying stories is inaccurate. Disney has decided to ignore certain stories, and their idea of representation is still kind of suspect. The live-action Mulan reboot made this evident, but what people tend to ignore is that several Disney movies still show fair representation.

On top of that, there’s still the idea that experts from various cultures could collaborate with Disney to make certain that the representation issues are addressed. On top of that, the idea of escapism means that fantasy and imagination can easily allow representation to blend and mix several cultures to create something unique. Many people don’t want to see this, as they appear to enjoy the debate instead of the resolution.

At the end of the day, Disney is not perfect, and neither is Tarantino. But the truth is that they are both successful and can coexist without the need to tear at each other.

Acceptance and tolerance are easy solutions to this issue

Strangely enough, there is a solution to this debate that Simu Liu and Tarantino don’t appear ready to employ. The idea of accepting that escapism will not show perfect representation is not hard to tolerate. There are plenty of stories yet to tell, and the acceptance of this is one of the founding tenets of storytelling.

The love of debate has clouded this issue in a big way. Simu Liu is just one of many that have decided to bull his way into the argument. Unfortunately, this might only prolong the argument instead of solving it.

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How has Disney leveraged nostalgia in recent years?

By turning classic animations into live-action films with major stars

How successful was the 2019 live-action version of The Lion King?

Worldwide revenues exceeded one billion dollars

What motivates Disney to keep producing live-action remakes despite mixed reviews?

How has Disney leveraged nostalgia in recent years?

By turning classic animations into live-action films with major stars

How successful was the 2019 live-action version of The Lion King?

Worldwide revenues exceeded one billion dollars

What motivates Disney to keep producing live-action remakes despite mixed reviews?

How has Disney leveraged nostalgia in recent years?

By turning classic animations into live-action films with major stars

How successful was the 2019 live-action version of The Lion King?

Worldwide revenues exceeded one billion dollars

What motivates Disney to keep producing live-action remakes despite mixed reviews?

*The Little Mermaid* (2023) grossed over $550 million globally, surpassing the original’s earnings and underscoring the commercial viability of this strategy .

Title:

Content: Disney responds to Peter Dinklage’s criticism of the live-action adaptation

THE disney has been recreating several of its classic animations in live action over the years and, currently, one of the projects developed focuses on telling the story of snow White. Although the project does not have many details disclosed, the film has already become the target of criticism from Peter Dinklagethe Tyrion of game of Thrones. Now, it was the company’s turn to respond to the actor’s speech.

Actor Peter Dinklage.

In his comment, the actor noted that he was shocked that the company was proud to cast a Latin actress in the lead role while also looking to retell a “retrograde history”. THE The Hollywood Reporter contacted a representative of the disneywho offered a response to the actor’s comment, noting that the live action is taking care to avoid stereotypes present in the animated version. The statement says:

“To avoid reinforcing stereotypes from the original animated film, we are handling these seven characters differently and have consulted with members of the dwarfism community. We look forward to sharing more as the film enters production after a long period of development.” the representative said.

The report released by the website further states that the film has been in development for three years, and the dwarf characters are being reimagined from the early stages of development. Furthermore, snow White is not the first live action Disney to have cultural consultants, as this was also the case with Aladdinfor example.

snow White has the direction of Marc Webb (The spectacular Spider Man), having in its list Rachel Zegler (Love sublime love) in the role of the protagonist and Gal Gadot (Wonder Woman) as the Evil Queen. The production does not yet have a premiere date.

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How has Disney leveraged nostalgia in recent years?

By turning classic animations into live-action films with major stars

What motivates Disney to keep producing live-action remakes despite mixed reviews?

How has Disney leveraged nostalgia in recent years?

By turning classic animations into live-action films with major stars

What motivates Disney to keep producing live-action remakes despite mixed reviews?

How has Disney leveraged nostalgia in recent years?

By turning classic animations into live-action films with major stars

What motivates Disney to keep producing live-action remakes despite mixed reviews?

The nostalgia factor also encourages parents to introduce these stories to their children, further expanding the audience and ensuring continued relevance .

**Financial Motivation and Risk Management** Disney’s reliance on live-action remakes is also a calculated financial strategy.

**Financial Motivation and Risk Management** Disney’s reliance on live-action remakes is also a calculated financial strategy.

**Financial Motivation and Risk Management** Disney’s reliance on live-action remakes is also a calculated financial strategy.

By reimagining proven stories, the company minimizes the risks associated with original content development in a competitive entertainment landscape .

Title:

Content: Disney Remake Cancels Century-Old Love Story

in Movies

Credit: Disney

From Snow White to Frozen, Disney has been responsible for creating and adapting some of the most enchanting fairytales ever put to screen. While many of their stories are hundreds of years old, the studio’s adaptations are likely the prime example in the mind of the public consciousness.

Reimagining these classic tales has also done wonders for Disney. However, the recent controversy surrounding the upcoming adaptation of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs has sparked a decidedly volatile reception, especially since the studio has officially abandoned its first and original love story.

No Love for Snow White

Recent coverage of the film’s progress revealed that Disney is officially stepping away from the traditional fairytale elements that make up Snow White’s narrative. Rachel Zegler plays the title role, and her recent quote on the matter has more than a few Disney fans up in arms.

“It’s no longer 1937… She’s not going to be saved by the prince, and she’s not going to be dreaming about true love. She’s dreaming about becoming the leader she knows she can be.”

Related: Gal Gadot’s ‘Snow White’ Sabotaged by Media Frenzy

That means no dwarves, prince, or spell broken by love’s first kiss. Although Disney has several strong leading women in many of its other productions, Snow White really isn’t the appropriate story to take that approach, and fans recognize that.

Some viewers, like the creator seen here, are absolutely outraged that Disney would remove the romance and love story element from their original fairytale. While it’s true we no longer live in 1937, that doesn’t mean there isn’t still a desire or an audience for a traditional romanticized tale about princesses and magical creatures without some sort of shoe-horned message behind it.

Related: Iconic Dwarf Actor Rips Into Woke ‘Snow White,’ Says Story Is “For Dwarfs”

To put it bluntly, Disney should make a fantasy-themed female-empowerment film, but not at the expense of another established work. At this point, “Snow White” is just a namesake, as any charm or enchantment associated with the story has gone entirely out the window.

Has Disney erased the love in Snow White? Tell Inside the Magic what you think in the comments below!

Be the first to comment!

According to John Musker, why does Disney rely on live-action remakes rather than producing new stories?

As a risk-reduction strategy
As a safer option

Compared to new franchises, what is the risk and return of remakes and sequels?

Lower risk but smaller long-term returns.

How has Disney leveraged nostalgia in recent years?

By turning classic animations into live-action films with major stars

The strong box office performance of these remakes, such as *The Lion King* (2019) earning approximately $1.66 billion globally and *Aladdin* (2019) grossing over $1 billion, highlights the effectiveness of this approach .

Title:

Content: It’s possible that being an only child was one reason I was not exposed to the phenomenon of Disney princess worship during my youth. On the other hand, the lack of a coordinated merchandising effort during the 1970s probably had much more to do with the fact that the company’s princess lineup wasn’t yet emerging as a cultural trend.

In that decade, Disney focused most of its marketing on the so-called “Sensational Six” core characters, including Mickey Mouse, Minnie Mouse, Pluto, Goofy, Donald Duck, and Daisy Duck; along with product tie-ins to the 1977’s “The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh.”

Of course, Disney had only made three princess movies up to that time. Those included 1937’s “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs,” 1950’s “Cinderella,” and 1959’s “Sleeping Beauty.” Following the introduction of Aurora in 1959, Disney would make moviegoers wait 30 years for the next princess to arrive in a film that would herald the start of the Disney Renaissance.

And that film was 1989’s “The Little Mermaid.”

Written and directed by John Musker and Ron Clements, the 28th Disney animated feature film was very loosely based on the 1837 Danish fairy tale of the same name by Hans Christian Andersen. It boasted a string of memorable songs that brought imbued the production with Broadway panache. Alan Menken wrote the score, and collaborated with Howard Ashman on the songs. The film scored three Academy Award nominations, winning two for Best Original Score and Best Original Song for “Under the Sea.”

The animated film featured the voices of Jodi Benson, Christopher Daniel Barnes, Pat Carroll, Samuel E. Wright, Jason Marin, Kenneth Mars, and Buddy Hackett.

Buoyed by the success of “The Little Mermaid,” the Disney Renaissance ran from the late 1980s to the late 1990s and unleashed a series of critically and commercially successful animated films. Of the 10 films considered part of this period, five were Disney princess films. By 2000, the list of Disney princess included Snow White, Cinderella, Aurora, Ariel, Belle, Jasmine, Pocahontas, and Mulan. Andy Mooney, a former Nike executive who had been named president of Walt Disney Company's Disney Consumer Products division, saw an opportunity. He pitched the Disney Princess franchise line — and a generation of children became entranced consumers.

More than 20 years have gone by since the end of the Disney Renaissance and the official launch of Disney’s Princess Line. These days, Walt Disney Pictures is focused on making live-action adaptations of its animated films. The latest of these is “The Little Mermaid,” directed by Rob Marshall from a screenplay written by David Magee. The film was released theatrically on May 26.

When evaluating a remake, adaptation, or reinterpretation of a classic film, one must consider not only the quality of the new film, but also how it compares to the original. It’s not enough to ask if the film entertaining and well executed. One must also determine what makes the remake valuable in its own right.

“The Little Mermaid” is set in the 1830s in the Caribbean. Ariel (Halle Bailey), youngest child of King Triton (Javier Bardem), lives in an underwater kingdom. Disney wisely mentions in its synopsis of the film that Ariel is 18 years old — not 16, as she was in the animated version.

Unlike her older sisters, Ariel is defiant and rebellious. She is captivated by a world beyond her reach, defying her father’s orders to study humans and collect their possessions from shipwrecks. She is often joined in this endeavor by her aquatic companions Flounder and Sebastian (voiced by Jacob Tremblay and Daveed Diggs, respectively); as well as by the birdbrained Scuttle (voiced by Awkwafina), a seabird whose understanding of human culture is amusingly erroneous.

When a sailing ship she has been watching is destroyed in a storm, she rescues Prince Eric (Jonah Hauer-King). When Triton learns Ariel interacted with the surface world, he goes on an overprotective father rampage, destroying her collection of bric-a-bracs, baubles, and curios while reiterating his mandate that she should not indulge her inclination to learn, explore, or meet new people. Ironically, Prince Eric’s adoptive mother, Queen Salina (Noma Dumezweni) places similar constraints upon him because she is fearful of the outside world and of losing her son.

Desperate to be reunited with Prince Eric — who she is in love with despite the fact that the two haven’t even actually met at this point — Ariel turns to Triton’s evil sister Ursula (Melissa McCarthy), a scheming sea witch who sees this as an opportunity to oust Triton and take power over all the world’s oceans. Ursula strikes a deal with Ariel, giving her legs in exchange for her voice. There’s a catch: If Ariel fails to receive true love’s kiss from Eric before the end of three days, she will become Ursula’s property. To make sure Ariel fails, Ursula also causes her to forget about needing to score that kiss.

That’s just the setup. If it seems a bit drawn out, imagine how it feels watching it on the screen. With a runtime of 2 hours and 15 minutes — 53 minutes longer than the 1989 animated version — it sometimes feels like we’re treading water. One wonders if, in a post-pandemic world filled with ADHD brains, kids can manage to maintain focus on this narrative that meanders its way from scene to scene without a sense of urgency. Sebastian and Flounder know that there is a looming deadline, but in this version of the story, Ariel has been robbed of that knowledge. In the animated version, she at least had a specific objective. She actively worked toward that goal. In this version, she is a starry-eyed young woman crushing on someone she barely knows, drifting dreamily between infatuation and limerence.

Because it is both a retelling of a classic fairy tale and a redesign of a beloved Disney property, the film suffers from a pronounced scarcity of creativity and originality. There are updates to the story, changes in individual characters, and a few additional songs. Some of these facelifts work, such as the addition of Queen Salina. Some of these addendum fall flat, such as Eric’s song “Wild Uncharted Waters,” written by Lin-Manuel Miranda. Miranda’s song “The Scuttlebutt,” performed by Awkwafina and Diggs, is a more palatable add-on, despite that fact that it is jarringly different tonally from other music in the film.

All the film’s flaws and miscalculations can be forgiven by its most impressive saving grace: Bailey’s performance is as remarkable as it is enchanting. Bailey stands out again and again in the murky, sketchy CGI undersea sequences, glowing with charisma and agency. She brings the magic that is noticeably lacking in elsewhere in the film, balancing the nostalgia of childhood memories with a contemporary attitude. She carries this film on her shoulders, filling it with a sense of wonder and awe that will inspire children to seek out unexplored horizons and work toward achieving their dreams.

Mind you: I’d prefer Ariel did not have to literally transform — for a man — to be deemed successful. This version somewhat mitigates that theme. Personal transformation is fine when prompted by a desire to become a better person, while self-change enacted strictly to please an individual or a group is unwise and unhealthy.

The film also features recurring examples — both subtle and palpable — that show gender equity, diversity, and inclusivity are beneficial to society. These are the very same principled concepts extremist legislators and ultraconservative judicial officials currently vilify as “woke,” as if being socially aware, compassionate, and empathetic has somehow become objectionable. If you ascribe to that mindset, you should probably skip this movie.

The bottom line is “The Little Mermaid” may not be as artistically inspired as the animated version, but a standout performance by Bailey keeps the film afloat. It frequently captures the kinetic energy of a Broadway stage production, delighting audiences both with signature songs and newly added sequences that enhance the story and the characters. It is consistently entertaining, with sporadic moments of dazzling brilliance.

If you don’t trust an old curmudgeon to properly evaluate a Disney Princess film, I’ll share a few points my 16-year-old daughter made.

According to B.C. Zumpe, the film’s CGI could have been better. She particularly enjoyed a scene in which Ariel and Eric are dancing in a village near his castle, while a Caribbean band plays.

“Some people want all the characters to look exactly like the originals,” she said. “It wouldn’t be fair if Disney excluded Halle just because of her skin color. They chose her for her voice and her spirit. Even if you’re only upset because she looks different from the Ariel you grew up with, you can’t expect them to keep everything the way you want it.”

My daughter also felt that Awkwafina did a good job in voicing Scuttle. She appreciated how the film promoted the idea that it is good to interact with other cultures and be open to new ideas.

She’s a good kid.

Photo courtesy of DISNEY

Halle Bailey stars as Ariel and Jonah Hauer-King as Prince Eric in “The Little Mermaid.”

Photo courtesy of DISNEY

Melissa McCarthy stars as Ursula in “The Little Mermaid.”

Title:

Content: Pixar is back on top. Their latest film, Inside Out 2, is not only a hit, it’s not the top-grossing animated film in history — with a fairly substantial asterisk.

Disney and Pixar are touting that Inside Out 2, with its $1.462 billion in grosses worldwide, is now the biggest animated hit ever. Its ticket sales put it ahead of the previous record holder, 2019’s Frozen II, also from Disney, which grossed $1.453 worldwide.

Disney is also touting the fact that Inside Out 2 is the fastest animated film in history to $1 billion. (It took the movie 19 days to cross that threshold.) It’s also the top-grossing movie of 2024, as well as the only movie of the year to date to gross $1 billion.

READ MORE: The Wildest Pixar Fan Theories That Might Actually Be True

Now, with all that said, what is the asterisk? It is this: In making this bold claim, Disney is essentially ignoring its own animated movie, 2019’s remake of The Lion King. If you include The Lion King as an animated movie, then it is the highest-grossing animated movie in history, with $1.663 billion in worldwide ticket sales.

Why does Disney not count it? They apparently view the movie as a “live-action” remake of the original Lion King, akin to the studio’s live-action versions of CinderellaAlice in WonderlandBeauty & the Beast, or The Jungle Book. The difference, though, is that while all of those films did include digitally-animated characters, they also featured real flesh-and-blood actors. 2019’s The Lion King does not. All of the “live-action” animals were actually computer generated.

In fact, according to The Lion King’s own director, Jon Favreau, there is just one “real shot” in the entire movie, plus “1490 rendered shots created by animators and CG artists.” Favreau joked on Twitter in 2019 that he “slipped in one single shot we actually photographed in Africa to see if anyone would notice.”

Despite all of that, Disney does not consider this Lion King an animated movie. And if you don’t consider it an animated movie, then yes, Inside Out 2 is the box office champ.

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More From ScreenCrush

How has Disney leveraged nostalgia in recent years?

By turning classic animations into live-action films with major stars

How successful was the 2019 live-action version of The Lion King?

Worldwide revenues exceeded one billion dollars

What motivates Disney to keep producing live-action remakes despite mixed reviews?

How has Disney leveraged nostalgia in recent years?

By turning classic animations into live-action films with major stars

How successful was the 2019 live-action version of The Lion King?

Worldwide revenues exceeded one billion dollars

What motivates Disney to keep producing live-action remakes despite mixed reviews?

How has Disney leveraged nostalgia in recent years?

By turning classic animations into live-action films with major stars

How successful was the 2019 live-action version of The Lion King?

Worldwide revenues exceeded one billion dollars

What motivates Disney to keep producing live-action remakes despite mixed reviews?

Even in the streaming era, Disney’s remakes have performed well, with films like *Elemental* (2023) becoming the most viewed premieres on Disney+ .

Title:

Content: Paloma Faith sparks backlash after knocking The Little Mermaid: ‘Wtf is this s**t?’

Paloma Faith has sparked a backlash after she attacked Disney’s new live-action remake of The Little Mermaid, saying it encourages girls to “give up their voice”.

After months of hype surrounding Halle Bailey‘s captivating performance as the flame-haired Ariel and Melissa McCarthy‘s drag-inspired take on the malevolent sea witch Ursula, Disney’s reboot swum to box office victory during its opening weekend, earning rave reviews from the public with its representation.

But not everyone is happy about story’s renaissance. In a now-deleted Instagram story, singer Faith criticised the film after watching it with her daughters.

“Just seen the new Little Mermaid with my kids,” she wrote, “and while I think Halle gives a good performance and it’s great casting, as a mother of girls, I don’t want my kids to think it’s OK to give up your entire voice and your powers, to love a man.

“Wtf is this s**t. Not what I want to be teaching next gen women at all.”

The Little Mermaid follows mythical sea creature Ariel who, fascinated by human life, falls in love with Prince Eric (played by Jonah Hauer-King). To achieve her dreams of living on land, she strikes a deal with the nefarious Ursula, who gives her legs in exchange for her voice.

Alongside the uplifting message of pursuing your dreams in the song “Part of Your World”, the film has specifically updated “Kiss The Girl” and “Poor Unfortunate Souls” to promote consent and female empowerment, while Bailey has spoken about how the new film moves forward from Disney’s original storyline of Ariel pursuing a man’s love.

“I’m really excited for my version of the film because we’ve definitely changed that perspective of just her wanting to leave the ocean for a boy,” she told Edition magazine.

“It’s way bigger than that. It’s about herself, her purpose, her freedom, her life and what she wants.

“As women, we are amazing, we are independent, we are modern, we are everything and beyond, and I’m glad that Disney is updating some of those themes.”

Now, many people are questioning how “Better Than This” singer Faith could be oblivious to the storyline, which has been a part of popular culture for decades.

“Ariel in The Little Mermaid doesn’t give up her voice for a man,” one social media user wrote. “She gives up her voice to be human. Falling in love is one of her human experiences, but it wasn’t the reason. ‘Part of Your World’ is literally about this.”

Some have also argued that this is not the right moment to take issue with the film’s themes, especially during a time when Bailey is fighting bigotry.

The criticism is particularly confusing considering that Ariel, rather than Eric, defeats Ursula in the remake.

Meanwhile, others have located a tweet from 2009 in which Faith expressed her love for the original animated film.

The Pennyworth star is not the first to miss the message of The Little Mermaid. In 2018, Keira Knightley told Ellen DeGeneres she had “banned” her daughter from seeing both this film and Cinderella.

“This is the one that I’m quite annoyed about because I really like the film,” she said at the time. “But Little Mermaid [is banned, too]. I mean, the songs are great, but do not give your voice up for a man.”

However, reflecting on how her character is now a role model, Bailey told Essence magazine: “It feels so amazing to be able to be representation for this new generation, for this big film that we’ve all known and loved for a very long time.

“Ariel has meant the world to me since I was five years old, so getting to reimagine her with the colour of my skin is so beautiful, and I’m just grateful to be in this position.”

The Little Mermaid is in cinemas now.

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Title:

Content: Why Halle Bailey Was 'Sobbing' After 'The Little Mermaid' : 'I Had Come Out of This Cocoon with Ariel'

Halle Bailey tells PEOPLE that her journey making The Little Mermaid "mirrored what Ariel goes through in the film"

Halle Bailey evolved right alongside her character Ariel while making The Little Mermaid.

The 22-year-old singer transforms into the underwater Disney princess in the upcoming live-action re-imagining, which had its first teaser trailer debut on Friday. Bailey told PEOPLE at the D23 Expo about how the role changed her — and why she broke down in tears after completing the anticipated movie.

"I'd definitely say coming into this film I was a lot more, I think, just young-minded and a bit more not sure of myself so much," she says. "The whole experience of filming, in more ways than one, mirrored Ariel's journey of finding herself and her voice."

"I remember at the end of filming, wrap day, I was just sobbing because I truly felt like I had come out of this cocoon with Ariel," says Bailey. "This story has done so much for me and the filming process has really kind of changed my life. I'd definitely say it mirrored what Ariel goes through in the film."

Never miss a story — sign up for PEOPLE's free weekly newsletter to get the biggest news of the week delivered to your inbox every Friday.

Bailey adds that the film has "changed my perspective on everything" and "impacted my life in so many ways." And she hopes the representation she now brings to the iconic story will mean just as much to young audiences.

"The fact that now it's getting to be played by me, a person who looks like me, woman of color, I'm just like, wow, I'm so grateful what it will do for all the other little Black and brown boys and girls who will see themselves in me," she says. "Because I know if I had seen myself when I was younger, I think my whole perspective would've changed."

As for how she put her own personal stamp on Ariel, Bailey says: "Well, I can only be myself when it comes to taking on something this grand and great."

"Sometimes it can be overwhelming to take the character that everybody has loved and known for years and make it your own," says Bailey. "But I just listened to the little girl that's in me, and I listen to her and make her happy and then I know if I put my all and my passion and everything into it that I'll give it my best. And I feel like I did."

The Little Mermaid is in theaters May 26, 2023.

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What motivates Disney to keep producing live-action remakes despite mixed reviews?

What motivates Disney to keep producing live-action remakes despite mixed reviews?

This financial success reinforces the company’s commitment to remaking its animated catalog .

Title:

Content: Mean Girls Takes The Weekend Box Office Crown Marking Another Big Screen Musical Win

What will be the big box office trends in 2024? Superhero movies aren't expected to dominate as they typically do as a result of the Hollywood labor battles last year and pushed release dates, so which genre or genres will start to fill that vacuum? Based on what we've seen thus far in January, it certainly seems like musicals are going to be a thing. In the last couple weeks, Paul King's Wonka and Blitz Bazawule's The Color Purple have performed well (the former winning its third box office crown last weekend), and Samantha Jayne and Arturo Perez Jr.'s Mean Girls has now arrived to keep movie-goers tapping their topes.

The new musical made its debut in wide release this past Friday and was the biggest thing in theaters domestically the past three days. Check out the full Top 10 below and join me after for analysis.

Swipe to scroll horizontally
TITLEWEEKEND GROSSDOMESTIC GROSSLWTHTRS
1. Mean Girls*$28,000,000 $28,000,000 N/A3,791
2. The Beekeeper*$16,789,000 $16,789,000 N/A3,303
3. Wonka$8,380,000 $176,194,000 13,346
4. Anyone But You$6,940,000 $55,179,000 52,935
5. Migration$6,190,000 $85,756,000 43,224
6. Aquaman And The Lost Kingdom$5,265,000 $108,228,000 32,741
7. Night Swim$4,660,000 $19,170,000 23,257
8. Guntur Kaaram*$4,100,000 $4,100,000 N/A800
9. The Boys In The Boat$3,524,897 $39,356,000 62,007
10. The Book Of Clarence*$2,575,000 $2,575,000 N/A2,010

Mean Girls Continues A Strong Trend For Musicals On The Big Screen

Not every big screen musical released in 2023 totally worked at the box office, but a good number of them did quite well. The aforementioned Wonka has made half-a-billion dollars thus far globally; Greta Gerwig's Barbie, the biggest release of the year, features standout song-and-dance numbers; and Rob Marshall's The Little Mermaid kept Disney's streak of successful live-action remakes of animated classics alive. If Sam Wrench's Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour is counted among the wins as well, what you see is an audience expressing a whole lot of interest in seeing more music in their movies.

It should be noted that Paramount Pictures didn't exactly go to great lengths promoting Mean Girls as a musical (watching the trailer, you get very little sense of the genre change), but it feels fair to include it as part of the trend conversation regardless. Since Friday, the feature has easily dominated all other options at the big screen and has made $28 million. That number is expected to get a nice boost tomorrow thanks to the three-day holiday weekend. Deadline reported a $30 million-plus prognostication last week, and it looks like that the feature will match expectations.

One nice little feather in the film's cap is that its standard three day opening box office numbers have surpassed those of the Mark Waters-directed original – though that's without accounting for inflation. When the Lindsay Lohan/Rachel McAdams movie hit theaters in the summer of 2004, it made $24.4 million in its debut, and it went on to make $130 million worldwide. Not only did it end up making "fetch" a thing, but it became a title beloved by a generation and spawned a multimedia franchise including a stage musical. That's where the inspiration for the new film came from, and now Mean Girls' popularity is ready to sustain itself through a whole new generation.

Critics have mostly offered praise for the Mean Girls remake in the runup to its wide release, though the "B" grade that has been delivered via CinemaScore surveys makes one question what kind of legs it will ultimately demonstrate. The movie has been released at a time when the box office is pretty crowded with musicals, and without more positive word of mouth, it may get a bit lost in the chatter.

As will be discussed later, there isn't a whole lot of new competition set to arrive next weekend, so it would be pretty rough to see Mean Girls take a weekend-to-weekend tumble over 60 percent when the numbers come in next Sunday.

Providing Familiar January Big Screen Action, The Beekeeper Starring Jason Statham Settles For Second Place

As I noted in my CinemaBlend review of David Ayer's The Beekeeper, there is a grimness in the new Jason Statham action movie that I didn't particularly care for, but it certainly has plenty of dumb fun to offer (emphasis on dumb) and it got a mostly positive response from critics last week – reminiscent of what we saw with Jean-François Richet's Plane one year ago. That early positivity didn't end up pushing the film to become the new number one movie in North America, but the film did still have a decent start at the box office.

Information about the production costs of the film don't seem to be available (Variety simply calls it a "modestly budgeted thriller"), but a $16.8 million start isn't too shabby and would have put it in the Top 50 domestic openings last year. To keep the Plane comparison going, the Gerard Butler vehicle only made $10.3 million in its first three days, so The Beekeeper is off to a hotter start. It's also worth noting that the 2023 movie finished its worldwide run making just $47.9 million, but that was considered enough to justify a greenlight for a sequel titled Ship.

By David Ayer standards, the result is a mixed bag. The movie didn't make as much in its opening weekend as 2016's Suicide Squad (duh) or 2014's Fury, but $16.8 million is a higher figure than what was brought in by 2015's Sabotage, 2012's End Of Watch, or 2008's Street Kings.

For Jason Statham, it's not a bad win. As far as solo leading man turns are concerned (meaning no Expendables or Fast & Furious), the film isn't finding the success of the Meg movies, but it's far outpacing his last two Guy Ritchie collaborations (2021's Wrath Of Man and 2023's Operation Fortune: Ruse de guerre).

The Beekeeper has earned a better CinemaScore than Mean Girls (a "B+", to be specific), so how they compete in Weekend #2 will almost surely a topic of conversation in next Sunday's box office column.

The Book Of Clarence Had A Terrible Opening Weekend And Barely Made It Into The Top 10

In 2021, director Jeymes Samuel earned a great deal of buzz with his wonderful contribution to the western genre The Harder They Fall, and it found a sizable audience as a Netflix exclusive. Unfortunately, the filmmaker's follow-up The Book Of Clarence is not experiencing a similar fate. While the biblical epic throwback feature has earned a positive response from critics, it ended up having a disastrous opening weekend in theaters.

While Mean Girls and The Beekeeper got the bulk of the attention from movie-goers the past three days, The Book Of Clarence played in over 2,000 theaters nationwide and only managed to make $1,281 per location. Considering that the film reportedly cost $40 million to make (according to Variety), it appears as though it's going to go down in the books as the first box office flop of 2024.

How will things get shaken up next week with the arrival of Gabriela Cowperthwaite's I.S.S. – the new science-fiction thriller starring Ariana DeBose? Be sure to head back here to CinemaBlend next Sunday for my box office report and get a preview of what's ahead in the coming months with our 2024 Movie Release Calendar.

Assistant Managing Editor

Eric Eisenberg is the Assistant Managing Editor at CinemaBlend. After graduating Boston University and earning a bachelor’s degree in journalism, he took a part-time job as a staff writer for CinemaBlend, and after six months was offered the opportunity to move to Los Angeles and take on a newly created West Coast Editor position. Over a decade later, he's continuing to advance his interests and expertise. In addition to conducting filmmaker interviews and contributing to the news and feature content of the site, Eric also oversees the Movie Reviews section, writes the the weekend box office report (published Sundays), and is the site's resident Stephen King expert. He has two King-related columns.

How has Disney leveraged nostalgia in recent years?

By turning classic animations into live-action films with major stars

How successful was the 2019 live-action version of The Lion King?

Worldwide revenues exceeded one billion dollars

What motivates Disney to keep producing live-action remakes despite mixed reviews?

How has Disney leveraged nostalgia in recent years?

By turning classic animations into live-action films with major stars

How successful was the 2019 live-action version of The Lion King?

Worldwide revenues exceeded one billion dollars

What motivates Disney to keep producing live-action remakes despite mixed reviews?

**Adapting Stories and Characters for Modern Audiences** A defining feature of Disney’s live-action remakes is the adaptation of stories and characters to reflect contemporary values and societal expectations.

**Adapting Stories and Characters for Modern Audiences** A defining feature of Disney’s live-action remakes is the adaptation of stories and characters to reflect contemporary values and societal expectations.

These changes are often substantial, aiming to balance authenticity with relevance.

These changes are often substantial, aiming to balance authenticity with relevance.

For instance, *The Little Mermaid* (2023) cast Halle Bailey, a Black actress, as Ariel, marking a significant shift in representation and sparking both celebration and backlash .

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Content: Robert Zemeckis understands two things about Disney’s Pinocchio. First, he knows the 1940 animated film is ingrained in the entertainment behemoth’s DNA. It’s considered by many to be the best animated film from the studio’s early days. “When You Wish Upon a Star” is now the Walt Disney Pictures fanfare. The song’s promise of wishes fulfilled under starlight is part of Disney’s patented feel-good m.o. Heck, over the years Jiminy Cricket has become the company’s B-tier mascot, right behind Mickey Mouse.

But Zemeckis also knows that the ’40s Pinocchio is weird as hell. The stranger things that punctuate that seminal early Disney effort are hidden in plain sight, though they're often forgotten as people marvel at the film's artistry. Most other filmmakers would’ve bent over backwards to pay homage if given a chance to bring Pinocchio to life in 2022. Zemeckis is not the guy you hire to do that.

His new live-action Pinocchio adaptation gives you what you’d expect, but so, so much more. It’s as if Zemeckis wanted his adaptation to play like if Moulin Rouge-era Baz Luhrmann directed Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory. The film is only as reverential as a Zemeckis film can be, which is not very reverential at all.

After Disney's years of uninspired retreads, like 2019’s The Lion King and 2017’s Beauty and the Beast, Pinocchio veers all the way in the other direction. The eye-popping Pleasure Island sequence alone has more personality than most anything Disney has done in this space recently. While the aggressive shift in artistic influence might alienate some Mouse House purists, anyone willing to take a walk on Zemeckis’ wild side might get a kick out of this one.

Take Tom Hanks, for example. As Geppetto, the screen legend channels the same cornball energy that made his portrayal of Col. Tom Parker in Elvis a glorious meme. Even when Hanks is hamming it up, he’s still credible and magnetic (kind of like Zemeckis as a director). Continuing with the irreverence, the film’s portrayal of Pinocchio is like if you made Ralph Wiggum out of wood and gave him Jacob Tremblay’s voice. Zemeckis gets in a few fun jabs at Pinocchio’s blissful ignorance (at times involving fire), which help keep the film from getting too saccharine.

Zemeckis’ Pinocchio doesn’t hew too closely to the preciousness and regality of the animated classic. It's more of a parking-lot carnival ride through an uncompromised vision, and the most enjoyable one of these live-action Disney flicks since 2016’s Pete’s Dragon.

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Content: Halle Bailey Mesmerizes With First Live Performance Of 'Part Of Your World'

The star of the live-action "Little Mermaid" appeared before Disneyland's Sleeping Beauty Castle for a jaw-dropping rendition of the classic song.

Halle Bailey continues to happily embrace her role as Disney’s newest princess.

The star of the hotly anticipated “Little Mermaid” live-action remake appeared on Sunday’s episode of “American Idol” to perform the classic song “Part of Your World” in front of a live audience for the first time.

Bailey certainly looked the part in a floor-length blue gown designed by Michael Fausto. Fittingly, she sang the song while standing in front of Disneyland’s Sleeping Beauty Castle, which featured animated projections of tropical fish and other sea creatures.

Watch Bailey perform “Part of Your World” below.

As stunning as Bailey’s “Part of Your World” performance looks and sounds, however, the actual conditions in which filming took place were a bit less than magical.

“Singing vocals in freezing cold weather at 3am while park is closed is no joke,” Bailey quipped on Twitter late Sunday, “but we did it! only 11 more days until you all can watch the film.”

Due in theaters next week, the new “Little Mermaid” also stars Jonah Hauer-King as Prince Eric, Ariel’s human love interest, and Javier Bardem as her stern father, King Triton. Much of the early buzz on the film, however, has centered on Melissa McCarthy’s diva-licious turn as sea witch Ursula.

In an interview with Deadline last week, Bailey said she hoped the cultural impact of a Black actor portraying Ariel would outweigh any early backlash news of her casting received.

“It means the world to me, especially for the beautiful babies to be able to see a reflection of themselves,” she said. “I am just honored to be a part of this and be one of the princesses now because for me it was Brandy as Cinderella and then Anika [Noni] Rose as Princess Tiana. So the fact that I am getting to continue this and live on this legacy is really exciting and I’m just grateful.”

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Content: “Wokeness” Is Driving Disney Movies Away From Cinemas

in Disney, Movies

Credit: D23

With disastrous performances and early releases on streaming platforms, is it time for Disney to consider withdrawing its movies from cinemas?

Disney has been under fire for allegedly promoting a “woke agenda,” with many, including national media representatives, accusing the company of “pushing woke garbage in our faces.” The Walt Disney Company’s stance in promoting diversity, equity, and inclusion has caused several problems for the company, the most notorious being the legal and political crusade Florida Governor Ron DeSantis is carrying out against the House of Mouse.

But recent results show that Disney is being severely affected by this “woke crusade,” possibly driving the company away from cinemas for good.

Movies and series being released by the studios that belong to The Walt Disney Company, including Pixar, Marvel Studios, Lucasfilm, and Walt Disney Studios, have faced severe backlash for promoting “woke” ideologies by including LGBTQIA+ characters in stories and seeking to provide representation for minorities like the Black and Hispanic communities.

And while most audiences have applauded Disney’s efforts, the company continues to struggle with the box office performance of its most recent releases.

Related: Op-Ed: Disney Needs Johnny Depp to Create Another Hit Franchise

From Pixar’s Lightyear (2022) to Disney’s Strange World (2022), Disney has faced severe backlash and criticism, with audiences promoting boycotts of the company’s latest films, which has inevitably harmed the box office performance of several Disney movies.

And the upcoming premiere of Disney’s live-action adaptation, Snow White, is causing strongly polarized opinions, sparking rumors of the movie’s cancellation.

The latest examples of this have been the live-action adaptation of the beloved Disney movie The Little Mermaid (2023), Pixar’s Elemental (2023), and this year’s Haunted Mansion, inspired by the iconic Disneyland ride.

Related: Disney Star Served $1M Lawsuit Following Box Office Bomb

However, the performance of these films has proven to be wildly different after their premiere on Disney+, Disney’s streaming service, with The Little Mermaid shattering records that had previously changed Disney+.

The recent premiere of Pixar’s Elemental on Disney+ has, once again, proven that Disney movies are having a better performance on the streaming service than in cinemas, as Elemental now holds the title of “most viewed premiere on Disney+ of 2023.

According to Disney, the movie has earned 26.4 million views in its first five days of streaming, becoming the most viewed animated movie premiere since Disney and Pixar’s Turning Red was released in March 2022, as well as the most viewed Disney+ movie premiere of all time in Latin America, ahead of Turning Red.

Related: DeSantis “Woke” Wars Blamed for ‘Elemental’s Box Office Performance

And while it is exciting to hear the news, these results could be driving Disney movies away from cinemas, as the company could analyze new ways to distribute its content, achieving higher revenue.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, Disney adopted Disney+ Premier Access, a pay-per-view-type system, to release movies like Mulan (2020), Cruella (2021) starring Emma Stone, Marvel’s Black Widow (2021) with Scarlett Johansson — resulting in a multi-million-dollar lawsuitRaya and the Last Dragon (2021), and Dwayne Johnson’s Jungle Cruise (2021) on Disney+. However, the system was ditched after The Rock’s Jungle Cruise.

Related: Dwayne Johnson Takes Over the Role of ‘Aladdin’s’ Genie

Following rumors of Disney drafting plans to sell parts of the company, it is possible that Disney could analyze new strategies to release upcoming movies or shows directly on its streaming service at an additional charge. However, as of this article’s publishing, this remains purely speculative.

Disney’s summer blockbuster, Haunted Mansion, struggled at the box officepartly due to its proximity to the premiere of the Barbie movie — and is slated to premiere on Disney+ on October 4, 2023. It is yet to be seen if Haunted Mansion will perform better on the streaming platform, further cementing speculation on the company’s need to seek new strategies for its upcoming movies.

Should Disney consider withdrawing its movies from cinemas? How could the company solve its problems in box office performance? Share your thoughts with Inside the Magic in the comments below!

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What controversy did Disney's The Little Mermaid spark globally?

Debate over both Ariel's casting and racial representation.

What controversy did Disney's The Little Mermaid spark globally?

Debate over both Ariel's casting and racial representation.

What controversy did Disney's The Little Mermaid spark globally?

Debate over both Ariel's casting and racial representation.

What controversy did Disney's The Little Mermaid spark globally?

Debate over both Ariel's casting and racial representation.

Bailey’s casting was widely seen as a beacon of hope for young girls of color, providing representation in a genre where it was previously lacking .

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Content: © Disney
Halle Bailey plays the lead character, Ariel, in 'The Little Mermaid.'
The New York Times has stirred online outrage by faulting Disney's new live-action remake of 'The Little Mermaid', a children's movie, for not including any "kink" in the storyline.

Times film critic Wesley Morris began his review by saying the movie had "noble intentions," dutifully checking various diversity boxes to gain approval. However, he added that Disney erred by trying too hard to avoid offending audiences: "Joy, fun, mystery risk, flavor, kink - they're missing."

Controversy over the review bubbled up earlier this week, when the newspaper posted a Twitter message promoting the piece. It came amid a wave of conservative boycotts against major corporations over alleged sexualization of children and promotion of transgender ideology.

US retailer Target, for instance, has lost more than $13 billion in market value over the past two weeks amid public pushback over a "Pride Month" campaign that featured merchandise for babies and other children.

"The New York Times complaining about the lack of 'kink' in 'The Little Mermaid' pretty much sums up where we're at," said Darryl Cooper, host of the MartyrMade podcast. He added, "Their contempt for traditional values transformed into a seething hatred for ordinary people."

Fox News contributor Tomi Lahren argued on Tuesday that by promoting the sexualization of children, leftists had galvanized conservatives who normally lack the "intestinal fortitude" to fight for their causes. "They have found the hill that conservatives and decent folks are willing to die on, and that is protecting children. And we will do it every single time. Ask Target, ask Bud Light, ask Kohl's."

Comment: Disney should have gotten the boycott treatment a long time ago

"We will protect children. We will keep them from being exploited. We will do it every time. Do not mess with us. We are done playing with this."

Morris, the film critic, said that although black singer Halle Bailey was cast to play the lead role of Ariel, 'The Little Mermaid' took few chances that might anger "the haters." He added, "That allergy to creative risk produces hazards anyway."

The reviewer also critiqued the movie's allegedly racial undertones, such as a scene in which the character Vanessa, played by a white actress, steals Ariel's voice and woos her love interest, Eric, with a song. "There's a whole American history of theft and music to overthink, too," Morris said.

Morris has won two Pulitzer Prizes for his work, including a 2021 group of essays that explored "the intersection of race and pop culture," according to his New York Times bio.

The film also updated Ariel’s age from 16 to 18 and emphasized her independence and agency, moving away from the original’s focus on romance .

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Content: Is Disney's Aladdin 2 Still Happening? Star Mena Massoud Remains Hopeful

Disney loves a live-action remake. The House of Mouse has discovered that instead of coming up with new ideas they can simply remake their classic animated flicks into live action. The results have been pretty darn profitable, and the studio shows no signs of stopping — there are currently live-action remakes of "Moana" and "Lilo and Stitch" on the way. One of their successful live-action remakes was the 2019 take on "Aladdin," helmed by — believe it or not — Guy Ritchie. The film was a smash, hauling in over $1 billion worldwide and going on to become the ninth highest-grossing film of 2019.

When you make numbers like that, a sequel can't be far behind. Sure enough, in 2019 the film's producer, Dan Lin, revealed that Disney was in the early stages of developing a sequel. But that's the last we've really heard of the potential follow-up. The live-action "Aladdin" starred Will Smith as the Genie first made popular by the late Robin Williams, while the titular role of Aladdin was played by Mena Massoud. Massoud has seemed to cast doubt about the sequel ever happening at this point. He most recently gave an update on the potential project late last year.

No idea where it's at

Back in March of 2023, Mena Massoud Tweeted that "Aladdin 2" was "Very unlikely at this point." (The Tweet has since been deleted, but the folks at Collider caught it at the time). Then, in December of 2023, Massoud was promoting his horror movie "The Sacrifice Game" when ScreenRant asked him about "Aladdin 2." He replied: "I don't have any updates ... the strike kind of just put everything on hold. I know they were trying to get it off the ground for a long time but I have no idea where it's at." He added:

"Listen, we shot in 2017. It's been six years now since we shot and wrapped the project. So to me, at a certain point, life just goes on. So not really, I'm sure they have their reasons. I know they were trying for a long time. So I don't know what the obstacles exactly were. But maybe now after the strike is over, they'll continue to try to get it off the ground ... But I hope, I hope definitely that it happens in some way."

In other words, it really doesn't sound like this sequel is happening — but you never know.

Other films

A sequel wasn't the only potential "Aladdin" project Disney was said to be working on. In 2019, it was revealed the studio was planning a spin-off film based around Prince Anders, a character played by Billy Magnussen. Disney quickly faced backlash for planning a movie around one of the only white guys in a film filled with people of color, but the studio continued to push forward. In 2022, Magnussen said the project was still in development — but we haven't heard anything about it since.

In 2015, before the live-action "Aladdin" was even made, the studio also announced they were making a prequel movie called "Genies," with the plan being that the film would lead into the live-action "Aladdin." That never happened, and "Genies" was scrapped. At this point, I wouldn't be surprised if the "Aladdin" sequel or the Prince Anders spin-off were both scrapped as well. Despite the smashing success of the 2019 "Aladdin," it feels like too much time has gone by to strike while the iron is hot.

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Content: Fans Bash Disney, “Gender-Swaps” Iconic 58-Year-Old Character

in Entertainment, Marvel

Credit: Disney

The Walt Disney Company, founded in 1923 by Walt Disney and Roy O. Disney, has grown into one of the world’s largest entertainment conglomerates, renowned for its iconic animated characters, theme parks, and media networks.

With a diverse portfolio spanning from Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937) to modern franchises like Frozen (2013) and Marvel’s The Avengers (2012), Disney has captured the hearts of audiences worldwide. Beyond animation, Disney’s acquisitions of Lucasfilm, Marvel Entertainment, and 21st Century Studios have broadened its offerings to include beloved franchises like Star Wars and the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

However, Disney’s journey hasn’t been without controversy. In recent years, the company has faced criticism from some fans who argue that it has become overly “woke,” meaning it’s overly focused on progressive social issues. This criticism has come from various quarters, including backlash against the company’s decision to feature more diverse characters and storylines, as well as accusations of political correctness influencing its content. Now, this has allegedly extended to the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

The Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) isn’t just a collection of movies; it’s a vast web of interconnected stories and characters that captivates audiences worldwide. With each installment, it weaves together intricate narratives and introduces iconic heroes and villains, shaping the landscape of modern cinema. Among the most anticipated additions to this cinematic universe is the arrival of the Fantastic Four, a cornerstone team in Marvel Comics lore. Despite previous attempts to bring these characters to the big screen, none have quite captured the essence and grandeur deserving of an MCU film.

Now, Marvel Studios is poised to rectify that with their latest rendition, simply titled The Fantastic Four (2025). Led by an ensemble cast including Pedro Pascal as Reed Richards/Mister Fantastic, Vanessa Kirby as Sue Storm/Invisible Woman, Joseph Quinn as Johnny Storm/Human Torch, and Ebon Moss-Bachrach as Ben Grimm/The Thing, this iteration promises to deliver a fresh take on the beloved superhero team.

Adding to the excitement is the recent announcement that the Silver Surfer will also join the fray. A character of immense significance within the Marvel Comics pantheon, the Silver Surfer, also known as Norrin Radd, has long been associated with the Fantastic Four, particularly in their cosmic adventures. While audiences may recall his portrayal in Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer (2007), Marvel Studios is set to introduce a new interpretation of this iconic character—one that may surprise and intrigue fans, which Inside the Magic previously covered.

Enter Julia Garner, acclaimed for her performances in Ozark and Inventing Anna, who will portray a gender-swapped version of the Silver Surfer in The Fantastic Four. This casting decision is a bold one, to say the least, particularly when it comes to Disney’s last few duds at the box office.

As with any major casting announcement, there has been speculation and apprehension from certain corners of the fanbase. Concerns about “woke” culture and the alteration of beloved characters have surfaced on social media, with some expressing reservations about the gender-swapped interpretation of the Silver Surfer.

One fan called for a boycott of the movie.

One fan said they believe the movie is going to be “woke garbage.”

However, another fan noted that there was a female Silver Surfer in the comics.

Still, that hasn’t stopped backlash from coming in droves. Ultimately, the jury is still out. One influencer shared that he believes the “MCU is doomed.”

At this time, no other information about Fantastic Four has been released by Disney or Marvel Studios.

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The Little Mermaid live-action remake actually fixed the right character

The biggest story changes aren’t for Halle Bailey as Ariel

Whenever a new Disney live-action remake of an animated classic comes out, there’s always a hullabaloo about what, if anything, changed from the source material. Specifically, fans question whether the latest remake updates anything to take modern standards into account, or a creator boasts that it does — whether it’s giving LeFou an “exclusively gay moment” in 2017’s Beauty and the Beast or canning the Siamese cat song in 2019’s Lady and the Tramp.

For whatever reason, though, most of the filmmakers behind these projects seem determined to also “fix” the stories’ main heroines — usually losing what made them so appealing in the first place. The most nefarious case in point is Beauty and the Beast’s Belle, a character beloved by young bookworms everywhere. Making her a book-lover wasn’t enough for the 2017 remake, which also turned her into an inventor for some reason — and then did absolutely nothing with that plot point.

But in the case of the new Little Mermaid, director Rob Marshall and screenwriter David Magee actually picked the right character to update.

That isn’t Ariel, who for the most part keeps pretty much the same personality she had in the original, though she certainly gets more moments to flesh it out. Ariel is a beloved heroine, and Marshall and Magee understand what made her so appealing in the original animated Disney film. She’s curious, passionate, and idealistic, and the 1989 movie takes great care to highlight those things, while also embracing her faults, like her absent-mindedness and stubbornness. Halle Bailey’s stellar performance as Ariel in the live-action version bolsters all of those points. Even with some added moments, her Ariel is pretty much recognizable. She isn’t the one who needed to undergo a modern makeover, after all.

The character who really needed a change was Eric.

The original animated Eric is a hero of his era. He meets the minimum requirements to be a Disney Prince, in that he’s handsome and brave, and not much else. In the 1989 film, Ariel sees him on a ship, playing with his dog, and immediately falls in love with him. That’s pretty true to the original Hans Christian Andersen story — not to mention the Disney fairy-tale movies that came before — but in 2023, we need more evidence that this is a man worthy of Ariel’s time, and worthy of her giving up everything to try and be with him.

The 2023 live-action version of Eric, played by Jonah Hauer-King, isn’t just a hunk. He feels restless in his palace, and he wants to explore the world beyond his island nation, but he feels trapped by his mother’s rules. That’s a direct parallel to Ariel’s story, so it makes sense that she would relate to him. Her bargain with Ursula (Melissa McCarthy) is more about her desire to escape her father’s controlling rules about her being in love. (Ariel’s “Daddy, I love him!” line doesn’t make the cut in this version.) There’s a sense of comfort in knowing that there is at least one person on land who would understand her choice to leave the ocean. In Eric, she sees more of a kindred spirit than a soulmate.

The new Little Mermaid also gives Ariel and Eric more time to get to know each other. Instead of the dinner scene where Ariel bungles basic social interaction, now Ariel and Eric bond over Eric’s vast collection of trinkets he found on his adventures. As it turns out, they’re both total nerds when it comes to their interests, and they’re both just squirming to talk about what they love with someone. Ariel still can’t talk because of Ursula, but she’s still an active participant in the interaction, showing Eric a thing or two about his treasures from the sea, and eagerly poring over his maps. All their interactions are fueled by an awkward yet adorable attraction that just makes their romance all the more believable, and worth rooting for.

There are some superfluous changes to the live-action movie that don’t really add anything meaningful. For instance, Ariel’s sisters are rulers of their own seas, not Triton’s decorative choral singers, but they still don’t contribute much to the plot. Ursula has added motives, but that doesn’t come up beyond her introduction. Scuttle the seagull (voiced by Awkwafina) raps for a bit, because sure, why not? If you think too hard about some of the more consequential world-building changes in 2023’s The Little Mermaid, the movie begins to unravel.

But what makes The Little Mermaid isn’t whether the fish look good, or what exactly fuels Triton and Ursula’s feud. It all comes back to Ariel and her journey, which is fueled by the central romance between her and Eric. Just because Ariel falls in love doesn’t mean she’s not a strong and beloved protagonist, and just because Eric is a handsome and dashing prince doesn’t mean he lacks the substance behind that charming smile. By updating their romance, the 2023 Little Mermaid makes the love story more satisfying — and resonant for a new generation.

The Little Mermaid swims into theaters on May 26.

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Other remakes have similarly modernized their narratives.

Other remakes have similarly modernized their narratives.

*Beauty and the Beast* (2017) reimagined Belle as an inventor, reflecting themes of female empowerment, though some fans felt this altered her original charm .

*Aladdin* (2019) gave Jasmine a more prominent role and a new song that highlights her aspirations beyond traditional princess roles, aligning with contemporary discussions about gender equality .

*Mulan* (2020) removed musical elements and focused on a more serious, action-oriented narrative, aiming for a nuanced portrayal of honor, identity, and personal growth .

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Content: Up Next

Ariel (center) with other dolls based on characters from The Little Mermaid. Mattel
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How red locs on The Little Mermaid shows the ways dolls move from mere representation to authenticity

Dolls aren’t just playthings. They tell a story about how children see themselves.

When the live-action remake of The Little Mermaid was released in theaters recently, there was a predictable, if disheartening, reaction from people upset that the title role was portrayed by a young Black woman. (Because, in real life, uh, cartoon mermaids are never Black?) Overshadowed by that predictable paroxysm of racism was an interesting development in the toy aisle.

To accompany the movie’s release, Disney and Mattel produced a series of dolls made in the likeness of the actress who took on the role of Ariel, Halle Bailey, right down to the head full of red locs cascading down her back.

It’s a small detail, but also one more step in decades of innovations to authentically showcase Blackness in children’s toys.

“I see Black dolls as historical objects,” said Sabrina Thomas, a dean at Duke University whose research focuses on material culture and childhood. “They provide a visual narrative of Black history in America by their presentation, not only their hair, but their coloring, their clothing, their presentation, and how that has evolved over time.”

Thomas’ collection of 900 dolls spans from 1900 to the present day. “When you think about the earliest Black dolls, they were [created] by Black people,” said Thomas. There are few remaining examples of those handmade dolls or rag dolls because their materials deteriorate over time.

There was little movement toward manufacturing Black dolls in the U.S. until after the famous doll choice study by psychologists Kenneth and Mamie Clark. The study was first performed in New York City in the 1930s, and an NAACP team suing to end school segregation asked the Clarks to repeat their study in the South in the 1940s. In a series of experiments, Black children were asked to choose between white and Black dolls. Most of the children not only preferred the white doll but attributed positive attributes to its skin color.

“[The study] catapulted the doll as an object into the consciousness of America as an everyday object that speaks to our racial anxieties in the sense that we can extrapolate children’s understanding of themselves as racial beings and their place in the world,” Thomas said.

“I think it gave a new level of consciousness to the object itself, but we’re still not talking about mastering representation.”

Representation started with two dolls: the Patty-Jo and the Saralee. The Patty-Jo, which was sold from 1947 to 1949, was based on a character created by cartoonist Jackie Ormes, whose work appeared in the Chicago Defender and the Pittsburgh Courier.

“In mid-20th century America, most black dolls represented stereotypes, like mammies, dolls advertised as ‘piccaninnies,’ and raggedy little boys and girls,” reads Ormes’ website. “Jackie Ormes said, ‘No more … Sambos … Just KIDS!’ and she transformed her attractive, spunky Patty-Jo cartoon character into the first upscale American black doll.”

The Saralee, made by the Ideal Toy Corp., was in production from 1951 to 1953. A color jury that included political scientist Ralph Bunche and author Zora Neale Hurston came together to determine the appropriate skin tone for the doll.

Thomas noted that Saralee is significant in doll history because this was the first time the White House got involved in doll production. Ideal agreed to produce the doll after first lady Eleanor Roosevelt advocated for it.

But the company viewed the project mostly as a publicity stunt. The doll’s debut was featured in Life magazine, photographed by Carl Van Vechten. It seems commonplace to think about marketing a doll like this now, but it was unheard of at the time.

Interestingly, Patty-Jo was more popular than Saralee. “I believe it’s because Saralee came out as an actual race doll, if you will,” Thomas said. “They were both Black, but the Saralee doll is making a political statement, and the Ideal Toy Corp. wasn’t that invested in her.”

“Saralee just had so much fanfare around her,” said Thomas. “A Black doll had never been produced with that amount of celebrity or political backing but Ideal didn’t didn’t promote her after that. But Patty-Jo, who’s around the same time, she’s very popular and what Patty-Jo did for Black dolls, I believe that she’s one of the first Black dolls that actually said Black people can be solidly middle-class.”

These dolls appealed to upwardly mobile Black folks looking to impart the idea to their children that, in a phrase that would become more prominent in the Sixties, Black is beautiful. It’s at this point that dolls stopped being simply playthings and became a symbol of progress.

Patty-Jo was advertised as having “playable hair, and the finest and most extensive wardrobe on the market, with all manner of dresses, formals, shoes, hats, nightgowns, robes, skating and cowgirl costumes, and spring and winter coat sets, to name a few.”

“Think of anything that said glamour, she came with it,” said Thomas. “It’s the first time in Black history where we see it so prominent.”

Skip ahead two decades, and another doll, Baby Nancy, reflected the state of Black America. Baby Nancy, a 13-inch baby doll, debuted at the American Toy Fair in 1968.

“Oftentimes when people spoke about Baby Nancy, they said she was the doll born from the ashes of the Watts Riots in 1965,” said Thomas. “The company that produced Baby Nancy, I would say, is a definite turning point in sort of the representation of Blackness in the toy industry.”

In the aftermath of the riots, Louis S. Smith II and Robert Hall worked with civil rights activists and community members to launch Operation Bootstrap, an organization focused on creating social and economic equity. Baby Nancy was designed by Shindana Toys, a start-up within Operation Bootstrap. Mattel provided Shindana Toys with a factory, business loans, and consultants.

Baby Nancy was introduced with a short Afro because Shindana Toys was focused on not just representation, but authenticity, creating dolls with a hairstyle that epitomized Blackness in the 1960s.

And, Thomas said, because Shindana Toys made it clear it wasn’t producing dolls from molds created for white dolls, by the time production shut down in 1983, the company had opened the way for representation for other racial groups and ethnicities.

“The impact they’ve had on the toy industry is that they essentially serve as a test model to prove that Black dolls could be sold, that consumers were interested in Black dolls and not just Black consumers,” said Thomas. “They reported many times that the majority of their dolls were being purchased by white customers.”

Bottom line, she said, it’s because of Shindana Toys that by the 1970s, every major toy company had at least one Black doll line. “This is important because prior to that they were having conversations in the boardroom about whether or not America was really ready for an integrated doll market,” she said.

Growing up, I didn’t want a Barbie or a Cabbage Patch doll. My mother bought me an Addy Walker, Pleasant Co.’s first Black American Girl Doll, which was introduced in 1993. In the accompanying books, 9-year-old Walker escapes slavery with her mother to start a new life in Philadelphia. Her skin looked like mine, her nose resembled mine, and, importantly, so did her hair texture.

When the company was acquired by Mattel in 1998, it was able to add depth to the diversity of American Girl’s offerings. “When I heard Pleasant Co. sold to Mattel, I said, ‘Oh, something is about to happen’ because one thing Mattel is exceptionally good at is accessorizing,” Thomas said, citing the brand’s “create your own” feature. “You can go into American Girl Place and order skin tone 003, request green eyes, and freckles creating a ginger if you want.”

“You can either take her home as-is or you can buy a wheelchair for her. Or you can buy glasses. You can buy a cochlear implant. You can make that doll whatever you need her to be where she represents people in the world.”

Mattel was involved in reimagining Disney Princesses, too. When Disney introduced its first Black princess, Tiana, in The Princess and the Frog in 2009, her character not only told an authentic story about another culture, it reimagined who got to be a Disney Princess.

Like Ariel, Princess Tiana was also brought to “life” in a doll.

A lot of the work that went into creating the Ariel doll started with The Princess and the Frog. Launi King, Disney’s global product design director, spent two years designing the Tiana Disney Ultimate Princess doll.

King said she was honored to work on Tiana because the character is Black and had a close relationship with her father in the film. Also, Princess Tiana’s story was different from some of the other princesses: She wasn’t waiting for her prince to show up before she could live her life. King wanted the work process with the doll’s designers to be different as well.

“I have a vision in my mind of who the character is and how I would like her to be designed but then I also needed to speak to them about when you’re designing a Black doll,” said King. “I needed to have that moment where you get to see the beauty of our curls and our culture and our texture. And so that was one of the first things that I asked for was to really showcase the hair.”

Re-creating Black hair is rarely done in mass-market dolls because of the expense involved in mimicking different hair textures on one head. For instance, the Princess Tiana doll wears her hair sleek and styled into an updo and the Ariel doll’s hair is styled with a mix of locs and straighter hair.

“There’s a machine and it can go in and it puts the hairs in individually into the scalp, but you’re not mixing [textures] because that drives the cost up, and you’re definitely not doing things by hand,” King said.

The next challenge with Princess Tiana was to showcase authentic skin tone and facial features. “African Americans have a colorization that’s beautiful. It has highlights and shadows in the skin,” King said. “So one of the things about us being browner is that the light actually has the opportunity to bounce off of our skin in a way that doesn’t necessarily happen when your skin is very light.

“It’s very important as well to focus on the shape of the nose,” King said but that drives up manufacturing costs: “It is very costly to do a different shaped head on an adult, a different-shaped anything, really, because you pay for a tool and that tool can be anywhere from $25,000 to $100,000 dollars just for you to do one doll.”

She said that the more manufacturing leeway given to create specific features on any particular doll, the higher it will retail. “We want to make sure that the dolls are at a price point where anyone can get it,” said King. “OK, so that could be from $14 to $150, but that $14 one should not feel cheap.”

Companies needed to amortize that cost, making sure they could turn a profit, and King says this is why there was such a lack of authenticity in the beginning. “They would do a Barbie doll and what was happening is she would just be made brown, which meant the color of the plastic changed but it didn’t change the fact that that’s not what our noses are normally shaped like and so we ended up with Caucasian-looking dolls with brown skin,” King said. “And this is where I think we’ve come a long way because companies are investing and making sure that we are represented in the most authentic way.”

Mattel’s latest crop of dolls, created in partnership with Black companies, is working to create the range in authenticity that Thomas mentions.

In 2020, Mattel’s The Black Panther: Wakanda Forever Fresh Fierce Collection by The Fresh Dolls from World of EPI won The Toy Association’s Doll of the Year in 2022. “To be recognized by the entire toy industry, was just … Oh, my gosh. It’s still surreal,” said Lisa Williams, founder and CEO of World of EPI, a multicultural doll company.

Williams didn’t play with dolls growing up — her sister did have “a Black fashion doll with European features, with, like a coat of a deeper, darker tan skin tone, right, which was by no means authentic.” But after seeing a 2010 CNN report that reexamined the conclusions of the doll test and found that many of the same attitudes were still prevalent, she decided she wanted to make authentic-looking dolls for Black children.

At the time, Williams was a professor at the University of Arkansas, teaching executive doctoral and MBA students.

“I’m watching this, thinking by this time, we have beautiful [Black] celebrities on the covers of magazines, we’re being voted most beautiful in the world. Barack Obama was president, we had all of that going on,” Williams said. “This is the advancement I thought I would see but I didn’t.

“Something in me broke because I realized we really hadn’t advanced as far as I thought. I just realized that there was a generation of children who were growing up that didn’t know the beauty and the brains of who they really are,” she said. “That day, sitting on my sofa, I vowed to make a change.

“We are mindful about making sure shades of eye color blend perfectly with the skin tone which blends in perfectly with the lip color and the hair color and the blush color all that has to match and be complementary to you to get a beautiful face,” said Williams.

She said she was naive getting into the toy business but has a compassion for and understanding of why true authenticity historically has not been truly represented. “You have to have a ‘why’ you’re doing it. Because if you don’t, you will kind of settle like, ‘Oh, this is good enough,’ right? And that’s what we’re seeing in the market. It was good enough. The dolls weren’t so horrible when we’d throw the dolls in the trash, right?”

The Walt Disney Co. approached Williams to re-create The Proud Family: Louder and Prouder cast as dolls to celebrate the reboot in February 2022 and in September 2022, this time with Marvel to recreate The Woman King cast in doll form.

“It’s such an honor and we worked very collaboratively. But they really did lean in if we said this isn’t quite accurate or I think we can do better,” said Williams. “Like for Nakia’s character [from The Woman King], she actually had locs, not braids, and locs did not exist in the mass-market before us. Clearly, we could have taken existing braids and just said OK, here it is, but we knew that that’s not authentic.”

Williams knows the difference between a braid and a loc, and she knows the community she’s serving knows the difference, too. “So we went to the drawing board, and we went to the fiber manufacturer to get both a fiber and a technique that’s now patent-pending.

“I’m always thinking about the little girl and little boy playing on the floor. What image do I want them to play with?” she said. “Who are they when they play with that doll? And I want them to see themselves and I want them to envision themselves achieving their dreams and they can only do that, in my opinion, when there’s a great connection with the doll that really resembles them.”

What Williams is saying is a nod to what Thomas sees as the future of doll production: moving beyond racial representation to creating real authenticity.

“That is going to require the toy industry to recognize that there is not just the presence of Blackness, but there is a heterogeneous Blackness out there that they have not figured out how to personify or create into an artifact,” said Thomas.

Channing Hargrove is a senior writer at Andscape covering fashion. That’s easier than admitting how strongly she identifies with the lyrics “Single Black female addicted to retail.”

The upcoming *Snow White* remake reimagines the titular character as a leader rather than a passive figure, reflecting current values of empowerment and agency .

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Content: Walt Disney Animation Head Jennifer Lee On Setting Up The Next Generation Of Artists [Exclusive Interview]

We're technically in the middle of Disney's centennial celebration, but for the iconic animation studio, the party is just getting started. After news came out earlier this month that nearly 30 restored animated shorts from the Walt Disney Animation Studios vault will be released on Disney+, the studio had a triumphant presentation at the Annecy International Animation Film Festival to reminisce on the past while also looking at the future.

First, the studio presented their latest animated short, "Once Upon a Studio," directed by Dan Abraham and Trent Correy, possibly the most magical thing they've done in years and a short that pays homage to the studio's 100-year-old history, the characters, and the animators that made the studio what it is. Then, audiences were treated to about 20 minutes of "Wish," the upcoming Disney animated musical feature which brings back the Disney villain, and does some cool things with its visuals. That film is directed by Chris Buck and Fawn Veerasunthorn (in her feature directorial debut), and written by Allison Moore and Jennifer Lee, the latter of whom also wrote and co-directed "Frozen" and serves as chief creative officer of Walt Disney Animation Studios.

/Film caught up with Lee shortly after the footage presentation of "Wish," where she talked about the future of Walt Disney Animation Studios, bringing back an actual villain for "Wish," and why animation is so special.

Note: This interview has been lightly edited for clarity and brevity.

'Technology and the artistry are merging'

The short film "Once Upon a Studio" includes a lot of different animation styles, while "Wish" looks different than many Disney films. What sort of experimentation is in store for the studio going into its second century?

Well, what I think particularly with the short and "Wish" is, and I think it's happening across animation, we're finally arriving at that place where technology and the artistry are merging in a way that I think is everyone's dream. I think of the incredible production designer, Lisa Keen, and the painting she did for "Frozen," but then they'd be translated into CG and they'd sort of be degrees away. But now, those paintings, that look, can make it onto the screen. And we've all been working on this for a long time. It's mattered. And with us, we were able to build it on a short scale, but to build it for a feature, we started, I think, when we met with the design team, the dream they said would be to be able to honor those watercolors from "Sleeping Beauty." "Sleeping Beauty" was such an inspiration for "Frozen" in terms of framing, but to get to do it, and we said, "Well, it's our hundredth, we have to have that goal, and they've been working on the technology for years."

I was saying just a couple months ago, we bumped into an issue where we didn't have it lined up to do water. So we had to brainstorm and work together and they figured it out because the scene was too important and they wanted to earn it, and there's nothing like a challenge for a technologist. That's what they want. "What's the next challenge?" So now we're hitting this place, we're going, "Okay, the look can go in many directions. That is so exciting," and it's really going to come down to the identity of the artists themselves coming through more. I think that is the best case scenario.

Building foundations

You talked during the studio presentation about the pairing of fresh talent with veterans, and you yourself were mentored by a veteran of the studio. Why is that important not just at an animator level, but on a key role like a director?

Well, I mean, all of these films are hard. Every one of them is hard to make. One of the things that our veteran filmmakers have is, they've been through it. They've been through a lot. They've had to redo things a lot. They felt the pain of failure, they felt the joy of success, and they have the layers of life. The new generation has talent. I mean, more and more talent out there. And they come in, and to go through your first film, I always say it's going to break your heart a little bit, over and over again, because it's not enough to dream. We all have dreams that we think, "Oh, if we could only make that." You look back at Walt and what it took for him to make "Snow White," and how it almost failed and it was a fight for every frame. There's never a shortcut in every movie.

So with our veteran filmmakers — and obviously you have someone like Eric [Goldberg, veteran Disney animator] who is everything, he is the talent and the years and the fight in him, and we've got an apprentice program that we've formed for the new generation of hand-drawn. And he's not just bringing skill this way, he's bringing those layers of life. To me, none of this is for the faint of heart. I think being creative, you are always vulnerable. So what we can do is build a good foundation and it's just important. For me, that's the big focus of where I want to go from here, is getting those voices that I'm finding so fresh and exciting, but how do you help them succeed? Because that takes more than just talent. [laughs] We all know, it's a fight. So I think that's what I'm most excited about.

'We've wanted to really celebrate a delicious villain for a while'

One thing that was really exciting about the footage was the villain. Why was that important to have in the film, and from your perspective, what makes a great Disney villain?

Yeah. We've wanted to really celebrate a delicious villain for a while. And we've had fun really straying where, I think in life, for a period of time we were exploring how the villain is not always so clear. Sometimes it's ourselves or thematic. But that idea of those villains, and the song, and we love that deliciousness of their evil. [laughs] So the daunting task of creating one, I think what really worked for us with this is we listened to our story artists, we listened to our audience, and people are saying, "I want him not just to be arch, though, I want to know" what we didn't always do, which was tell you why or how did they make those choices? You sort of meet them fully formed and they could be wonderful, but what makes Magnifico different? So we said, "Okay, from the first frame of the film, you're going to feel the journey of this person from the relatable part of ourselves." You get to see, as you saw in a scene when the villain and the protagonists are completely aligned and then you see as their philosophies diverge, you get to watch ... because we never want to say, "Anyone like this will make this choice." It's that this man makes this choice, this woman makes that choice, and it's so fun to watch. And Chris Pine was big on that and it's part of why we wanted to work with him. He's so smart, he holds the character accountable. So it was just so fun to build Magnifico with him, because you couldn't just take anything for granted. So for me, what's been great is getting ... you only saw the first couple of scenes, but getting to that place with him that we think is delicious, but watching him get there has been such a thrill ride for us.

'That did a lot for us in terms of trust'

From a production standpoint, we're three years into the pandemic. How has that impacted the way the studio looks at new projects? Has anything changed in your approach to either the stories you want to tell or the animation pipeline?

I think, in a good way, what we learned about ourselves during Covid was, we built "Raya" and "Encanto" completely [separately]. No one was together and the whole productions were done from home. So I felt like we showed that we understood each other enough and we could carry the same vision from multiple homes. And that did a lot for us in terms of trust. So what we have now is this place where, as people are coming back and this collaboration that it's kind of like we've been through a lot together, so there's no formality, and that makes, for me, I think that makes for a much more wonderful creative space. But I think the big thing is, it's not even about Covid, it's about, as I say, that new generation. I'm more aware than ever of their power and what they can do, but I'm also more aware of that responsibility.

So where I look at is what excites people about storytelling evolves and it's hard when you're getting old to look to yourself. I have certain things I can bring, but it's my job to make sure that I'm spotting that talent and giving them that platform and support and then letting them take it. And I think that's how Eric is helping new generations. That's what we've done that keeps us Disney, is continuing to let that new generation help us evolve, but setting them up for success. So I feel like that has less to do with Covid and just more to do with, here we are. I mean, I've been in this role five years. I've been in the studio 12 years. I came in under 40 and now I'm over 50. So it's time. I think of that. And you hear them banging on the door and they challenge the storytelling, and it's great.

'They're artists. They're not Disney artists. They do work for Disney, but they bring their soul and their tastes come with them'

Serving as both a writer and a producer on "Wish," what was the key element that made this right for the hundredth year celebration?

Well, what I love though is we all started talking as a group, all the directors would get together and we'd meet with story artists and just leave it open and talk about all these fantastical fun ideas. But what kept coming back were certain things — yes, the villain, but this idea of the wishing on stars. That little clip we showed [a montage of Disney characters throughout the years looking at the stars], that was put together before we had the film. Someone just put it together who was inspired to say, "This is something that's a part of us." And you felt it come. Then Chris, he didn't set out to direct it originally, but it spoke to him so clearly. And Fawn, she was such a powerhouse right away.

Then what happened with us is as we were developing the character, Star changed quite a bit. Star originally could talk and took different forms, sometimes human form. And it was really saying, "But that's not what Star is. Star is hope, possibility, wonder — those things don't have the power, they have the power to inspire you." And then I started watching panda bears and how ridiculously funny they were and felt that curious innocence and we said, "What if Star is just that?" And then they said, "You can see this. I think you need to write a draft." And luckily Allison Moore was there in the room every day, but I could come in. But it didn't happen where it was no moment of an order. It was more of, as people were drawn to it and they got it, they just formed the team. And I felt very lucky that, when they asked me to write it and I had no time, but how could I not? It was such an honor.

Disney has always been a studio strong in its traditions, and its recognizability. I'm curious, with something like "Wish," where do you look for pushing boundaries while also keeping those traditions?

All our artists are looking all the time. They're artists. They're not Disney artists. They do work for Disney, but they bring their soul and their tastes come with them, and what they see in the world inspires them. That's great about this industry. Every day there's always buzzes of what's going on. But I think if I look at "Tangled" as a good example of understanding the fairytale, our first sort of CG princess and this nod to the past, but this embracing of this technology, which was a little scary, I'm sure. I wasn't there, so I can only guess. But to say, the approach they took, it kind of showed us where we could go and be more playful. If there hadn't been "Tangled," there would not have been "Frozen." So I'm very grateful that we took some bold steps.

'It's the greatest form of flattery, I guess'

There's been a lot of live-action remakes of Disney movies, both classics and newer ones. From an animation standpoint, does that push you to make visuals more distinct or even just "easier" to adapt? Does it at all affect the mentality going into a new project?

No, I mean, very, very politely, we completely build these independently. We don't think ahead of the live-action. We're honored if it happens. It's the greatest form of flattery, I guess. But I do think, one of the things I love — to me, what defines animation is it is truly transportive in a way that it speaks to your imagination, not to your reality. And so I think in terms of, personally, the looks that I'm inspired by, of where I do feel I'm in a believable world and it feels alive, but it is wholly nothing of our world. It's a place that I can truly escape to. I think that means a lot to a lot of us. So to me, the easy part of it is, if the goal is reality, the technology can go that way. But animation is not about that. What I love about animation is, it starts with a dream and everything is built and the more we can be transported to something we've never seen, the more excited I get.

Lastly, when it comes to "Wish" or any future projects as you are working through development, especially just that first brainstorming phase, what is the balance or even just your personal feelings in terms of wanting to look back at the history of Disney versus looking at what is possible now with new technology and new ideas?

Yeah, yeah. For me, there's not an overall philosophy about it. I do think it's director and artist by artist. And so what we'll do on one film, we won't do on another, and we'll try a whole different ... "Zootopia" and "Wreck-It-Ralph" are nothing like "Frozen." And I think that we'll do that for everything where we take it one film at a time. I think what I always have to trust is what inspires those artists. But I do think when we think about the legacy, to me, there are certain things that I think are wholly Disney, which are films that give hope. Films where you can escape, where you feel like you belong, that you feel that it can become yours. And there's always an element, hopefully, of joy. But we're not afraid to go into deep, dark places. All fairytales do.

But I think that's what we do say is a part of who we are. And I think for so many of us there, it's this thing we share, which is for so much of our lives, starting from our first memories to now, Disney was a place for us to go no matter what was happening in the world, and we could feel this escape. And it was an escape that left you feeling things are possible. I do think that's part of who we are, foundationally, that we all think about. How we get there should be very different each time. And obviously the musicals, the musicals, the musicals, because we love them.

"Wish" arrives in theaters on November 22, 2023.

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How Disney's The Little Mermaid Live-Action Remake Is Changing the Narrative

Disney's live-action remake of The Little Mermaid has made a significant impact by surpassing the original's box office earnings, offering representation to young girls of color, and standing firm against racist backlash.

BNN Correspondents
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In a world where representation matters more than ever, Disney's live-action remake of The Little Mermaid has set a new benchmark. The film, which grossed over $550 million in global ticket sales, has surpassed the original's box office earnings, making a significant financial and cultural impact. Beyond merely being entertaining, the film has become a beacon of hope for young girls of color, seeing themselves represented in a fantasy world for the first time.

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Reimagining Inclusion in Fantasy

The casting of Halle Bailey as Ariel sparked controversy even before filming began. Detractors used AI to alter her features to resemble a white woman, reflecting a narrow view of what a mermaid, or a princess, should look like. Despite the racist backlash, Disney stood firm, challenging the status quo and reimagining inclusion in fantasy. The film's success underscores the necessity of diversity in storytelling, proving that audiences are hungry for fresh perspectives and narratives that resonate with their own experiences.

Standing Firm Against Racism

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The release of the first teaser at D23 Expo was met with enthusiasm and anticipation. The beautiful shots of Halle Bailey's Ariel in the ocean, accompanied by the iconic Part of Your World, were a powerful assertion of Disney's commitment to diversity. The film, directed by Rob Marshall and released in May 2023, also features Jonah Hauer-King as Prince Eric, Melissa McCarthy as Ursula, Awkwafina as Scuttle, Jacob Tremblay as Flounder, Javier Bardem as King Triton, Daveed Diggs as Sebastian, and Noma Dumezweni in an undisclosed role. Each casting choice was a testament to the company's determination to stand against racist attacks and uphold the importance of representation.

Attending to Details for Authentic Representation

With its Reimagine Tomorrow initiative, Disney is leading the way in promoting diversity and inclusion across its productions. By paying meticulous attention to details, the company ensures authentic and inclusive representation both on-screen and off-screen. The success of The Little Mermaid underlines the significance of these efforts, and the film serves as a potent reminder that stories have the power to inspire change.

In conclusion, the journey of The Little Mermaid offers valuable lessons for leadership and the power of storytelling. It highlights the importance of standing firm against critics, especially in the face of racism. It also emphasizes the necessity to reimagine inclusion in fantasy and the significance of paying attention to details for authentic representation. These lessons are not just applicable to film-making, but are relevant in all fields where leaders have the opportunity to challenge hate and inspire change through their work.

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Disney also addresses cultural representation and sensitivity in its remakes.

Disney also addresses cultural representation and sensitivity in its remakes.

For example, *Mulan* (2020) featured an all-Asian cast and consulted cultural experts to honor Chinese culture more authentically, though it still faced criticism for certain portrayals .

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Content: July 9 is the 20th anniversary of the seminal Disney film, Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl. It’s been quite the road for the film franchise that gave birth to the iconic cinematic rogue known as Captain, or should I say “Cap’n,” Jack Sparrow (Johnny Depp). Since 2003, Pirates of the Caribbean has brought in more than $4.5 billion worldwide from theatrical ticket sales over five movies. In the 2000s, Pirates of the Caribbean had a cultural impact that equated to or surpassed some of the biggest brand names and IPs on the planet. People wanted to dress up as Cap’n Jack Sparrow on Halloween. "Savvy" and Jack Sparrow became household words. On paper, the odds were not in favor of this franchise when it first began, but somehow, the creative team and dynamic cast found a winning formula and turned straw into gold. Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl broke the mold for Disney in many ways. It was a runaway smash hit, as well as the first movie released under the Walt Disney Studios banner with a PG-13 rating. And the film succeeded where Disney’s other attempts to adapt their popular theme park attractions into live-action features failed miserably. On the cusp of the 20th anniversary of the film’s release, it's time to explore how and why Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl caught lightning in a bottle.

The Plight of Getting 'Pirates' Made

The biggest obstacle that Pirates of the Caribbean faced ahead of its release was that pirate-themed movies did not have a good track record at the box office. The last major, big-budget pirate tentpole movie was Cutthroat Island, released in 1995. The film, by Die Hard 2 director Renny Harlin, only managed to gross about $10 million against a budget of nearly $100 million. So at the time, it was a massive risk to make a big-budget, period-piece tentpole movie about a bunch of swarthy, foul-mouthed pirates. On top of that, it was a movie based on a Disney theme park attraction. While the Pirates of the Caribbean ride was a beloved favorite at Disney Parks, it was not exactly prestigious source material. Besides, how do you make a movie out of a theme park ride?

RELATED: 'Pirates of the Caribbean' Characters Sorted Into Their Hogwarts Houses

When Disney started adapting its theme park attractions into major motion pictures in the early aughts, the first release out of the gate was The Country Bears in 2002. Even at a relatively modest budget of $35 million, the film was still a gigantic flop and was savaged by critics. The Haunted Mansion was also a costly failure. Considering that, the odds were heavily stacked against Pirates of the Caribbean.

The 'Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl' Casting Was Phenomenal

The tremendous casting of the original Pirates film cannot be understated. The film scored Orlando Bloom fresh off his newfound, emerging stardom from appearing as Legolas in the first two chapters of The Lord of the Rings Trilogy, The Fellowship of The Ring and The Two Towers. Keira Knightley was also on the cusp of stardom at the time after her newly released international hit comedy, Bend It Like Beckham. With Bloom and Knightley as the male and female heroes and romantic leads of the story, Will Turner and Elizabeth Swann, you had a promising young heartthrob talent in Bloom and a buzzworthy soon-to-be "It Girl" in Knightley.

Additionally, the film’s coup de grâce was its casting of Johnny Depp as Captain Jack Sparrow. Depp was already an established name at the time. Earlier in his career, he became a pop-culture icon from his days on 21 Jump Street, but he earned his stripes as a celebrated and acclaimed actor in films such as Edward Scissorhands, What’s Eating Gilbert Grape, Ed Wood, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, and Chocolat. Depp was the production’s trump card, and his performance and characterization of Jack Sparrow made the franchise iconic. Jack Sparrow became the face of the franchise, as well as its wily mascot.

The rest of the cast were not slouches either. In the role of the villain, Captain Barbossa, Disney cast Oscar-winner Geoffrey Rush, best known for his more serious film roles in Shine and Quills. When you look at the film's winning formula, Depp is undoubtedly a big part of that, yet a great hero is nothing without a great villain. Rush brought his amazing acting chops and went full bore with Captain Barbossa, providing a bad guy with charisma, presence, and pure magnetism. If Depp completely transformed into the role of Jack Sparrow, so did Geoffrey Rush with Hector Barbossa.

Rounding out the cast was an experienced thespian in Jonathan Pryce as Elizabeth Swann’s father Governor Swann; Jack Davenport as British naval officer, and romantic rival to Will for Elizabeth, Commodore Norrington; Kevin McNally as Mr. Gibbs; and someone by the name of Zoe Saldaña playing the pirate Anamaria. While it wasn't a huge role for Saldaña, her career would go on to much greater and bigger heights in the aftermath of The Curse of the Black Pearl. What all these actors have in common, up and down, is that they were all perfectly cast in their roles. They dove into their characters and embodied both the time period, along with the film's spirit of fun, swashbuckling action mixed with comedy. Casting directors Jennifer Alessi and Ronna Kress knew what they were doing with their infinitely inspiring casting decisions.

Director Gore Verbinski joined Pirates of the Caribbean shortly after the mainstream horror hit, The Ring. But when you look at Verbinski’s filmography, he didn’t take a big jump from small features to Pirates. He worked his way up through progressively bigger productions. He got his start directing music videos and shorts before landing his feature directorial debut in the hit film, Mouse Hunt. That was followed by more hits with The Mexican and The Ring. Verbinski also proved he could work with multiple genres and major Hollywood names before accepting the role of Pirates of the Caribbean. It was a job he was ready for and primed for the task.

Pirates of the Caribbean was the culmination of all of Verbinski’s past work, and it all came together well. At a budget of $140 million, the film looks every bit of it onscreen. It’s a beautiful-looking picture that’s well-paced. It’s serious when it needs to be, and it strikes that right balance of humor with action. Despite the slapstick humor and goofy comedy, there are still high stakes, and the action is suspenseful. The film delivers to audiences everything they want when they go to a movie for a big summer blockbuster event.

The Play’s the Thing

Another major part of the Pirates’ winning formula was co-writers Ted Elliott and Terry Rossio. Before making Pirates, they had recently succeeded with the Oscar-winning animated movie, Shrek, which also earned their screenplay an Oscar nomination. When you look at Shrek, the film is a clever sendup of the fairy tale genre, with a refreshing, modern spin. Shrek was so beloved for its time, not just for poking fun at pop culture, but also for the institution of The Walt Disney Company. It was a self-reflexive send-up of Disney animated classics. And now, they found themselves writing a big-budget blockbuster for Walt Disney Studios. They had also proven their chops writing period action-adventure movies beforehand with the 1998 hit movie, The Mask of Zorro.

One key to the success of their script with Pirates was how they modeled the story and characters off of a classic form of professional theatre called commedia dell'arte. In The Curse of the Black Pearl, you can see that old-world theatrical, commedia flavor through many of the characters, along with the humor. Jack Sparrow is the film's version of the commedia Harlequin, a buffoon or type of court jester or comic servant. Britannica defines a Harlequin as a "wily and covetous comic servant," and he was cowardly superstitious, and plagued by a continual lack of money and food." The Harlequin is often led into "difficulties from which he managed to extricate himself by cleverness and irrepressible high spirits." That most certainly fits Jack Sparrow to a T.

The characters of Elizabeth Swann and Will Turner fit the mold of commedia’s Innamorati, young, star-crossed lovers. Governor Swann is like that of the Vecchi, wealthy old men, and masters. Captain Barbossa and Commodore Norrington resemble commedia’s Il Capitano, who are self-styled captains or braggarts.

Considering that Pirates of the Caribbean is set in the old-world period of the early 18th century, it was a smart choice to utilize a form of theatre that would have been popular with the masses throughout Europe at the time. Writers Elliott and Rossio tapped into these basic, primal building blocks for their colorful cast of characters. They took commedia as the basis for their pirate story, and the commedia style can also be seen through the film’s use of slapstick comedy, and Depp’s physical performance. Physical comedy, pantomime, recognizable character archetypes, and big costumes were all major aspects of commedia, and the film reinforces that.

Pirating the Cultural Zeitgeist

Depp’s performance as Captain Jack Sparrow left the biggest impression on audiences. The film was well-received by critics and audiences alike. It was a box office smash, despite the low expectations due to its genre. It would go on to garner four more installments and billions of dollars more in ticket sales and revenue. Interestingly, The Curse of the Black Pearl did not feature the Disney logo for its theatrical release. Disney was likely skittish about putting the studio’s logo in front of the film since it was rated PG-13. As mentioned earlier, no previous film released under the Walt Disney Studios banner had a PG-13 rating. The Curse of the Black Pearl was the first. That changed when Disney introduced its new studio logo for the franchise’s first sequel, Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest. Keep in mind, this was years before Disney Studios acquired Marvel Studios and Lucasfilm. They didn’t have the Marvel Universe and Star Wars brands to play around in their sandbox yet. But with the Pirates films, Disney finally gained some muscle in the live-action blockbuster department.

With the success of The Curse of the Black Pearl, Johnny Depp became the biggest star on the planet and one of the most bankable leads in town. He received an Oscar nomination for his turn as Sparrow, and he would return to the role for Disney four more times, his later personal and professional issues notwithstanding. The major players for the film would go on to have big careers, especially Verbinski, who directed the next two Pirates films. He also won an Oscar for his animated feature, Rango, where he once again collaborated with Depp. Despite a small supporting role, where she didn’t return for the sequels, Saldaña also did incredibly well post-Pirates, starring in Guardians of the Galaxy as Gamora, Star Trek as Uhura, and James Cameron’s Avatar as Neytiri.

Even though the last installment of the franchise, Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales, ends on a relative cliffhanger, the franchise has been in hibernation since 2017. That can largely be blamed on diminishing franchise returns, not to mention the issues of Depp’s private life that became very public in the ensuing years. There have been talks of franchise reboots and revivals for a while, but nothing has truly materialized. Looking back at all the installments, none of them caught lightning in a bottle as well as the original did 20 years ago. You can check out Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl, and all its sequels right now on Disney+.

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Content: From 'The Little Mermaid' To 'Barbie,' These Are The 2023 Movies We're Looking Forward To

Grab your popcorn and join us at the box office for some movies that'll definitely grab your attention.

2022 was the year Tom Cruise saved the movies. I kid, though the huge box-office returns for “Top Gun: Maverick” signaled that audiences had been craving a return to the movies, after the pandemic-related uncertainty of the past few years. This was especially true of blockbusters: Throughout 2022, moviegoers showed up in huge numbers for popcorn movies like “Jurassic World: Dominion” and “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever.” But movies that weren’t new installments of major franchises did not fare as well — with some exceptions, such as the breakout hit “Everything Everywhere All at Once.” Increasingly, movies perceived as “smaller” (read: not based on existing IP and/or full of spectacle) are more likely to be made solely for streaming platforms.

2023 looks to be another year of Hollywood figuring out what’s next, particularly amid a looming economic recession. Despite this transitional state, there’s plenty of exciting fare coming soon, in whatever way audiences end up watching it. Here are 19 of the movies we on the HuffPost culture desk can’t wait to dive into.

“The Little Mermaid”

Yes, it is yet another live action remake. And yes, there have been way too many racist reactions to a Black Ariel. But the much-anticipated “The Little Mermaid” will arrive in theaters in May and will set so many children’s hearts aflutter anew with Halle Bailey “under the sea” as Ariel. Also starring Jonah Hauer-King as Eric, Melissa McCarthy as Ursula, Javier Bardem as King Triton, Daveed Diggs as Sebastian and Awkwafina as Scuttle, the fantasy film has been in development for years and will feature new music. “The Little Mermaid” has long been one of my favorite Disney movies, and I hope this adaptation gives me all the good feels of the original. — Erin E. Evans

“M3GAN”

The ridiculous single-word title with a number lodged in the center of it should give you some clue that this movie will not be much interested in what makes literal sense. The titular doll, clearly inspired by an artificial intelligence nightmare, is not exactly like the horrifying Annabelle from “The Conjuring” movies, but it does come from the same studio: Blumhouse. A roboticist (Allison Williams) designs M3GAN to be a companion to humans and, just maybe, a comforting babysitter for her niece. But it looks like that backfires. Horrifically. — Candice Frederick

“Barbie”

It’s somewhat unusual to be getting so much intel about a movie that has yet to come out, so it’s inevitable we’re at least mildly curious about it. A live-action Barbie movie with such a stacked cast — Margot Robbie as Barbie, Ryan Gosling as Ken, and a slew of big names (Kate McKinnon, Alexandra Shipp, America Ferrera, Simu Liu, Will Ferrell, Issa Rae and Hari Nef) in supporting roles? Intriguing! As a Greta Gerwig enthusiast (“Frances Ha” remains, to me, one of the best movies about being in your 20s, and her 2019 adaptation of “Little Women” is an exquisite cozy winter tale), I’m cautiously optimistic this will match her previous films, despite its more, uh, potentially weird premise. At the very least, it will give us plenty to talk about. — Marina Fang

“John Wick: Chapter 4”

It’s safe to say that as long as they keep making “John Wick” movies, folks will watch them. Not just because they’re there, but because they’re also really damn good. Morpheus, er, Laurence Fishburne will reprise his role as Bowery King, teaming up again with his “Matrix” co-star Keanu Reeves as the titular hit man, alongside Bill Skarsgård in a mysterious new role. In this fourth installment in the franchise, John Wick is back fighting the bad guys, fighting for his freedom and, apparently, fighting off some of those he thought were his friends. Can’t wait. — Frederick

“Missing”

My immediate reaction to the trailer of “Missing” was a loud “hell, nah!” which actually means I need to see it right now. Starring Storm Reid, Nia Long and Ken Leung, the thriller is a stand-alone sequel to 2018’s “Searching” and follows Reid as she searches for her mother who goes missing on a trip to Colombia. I’m hoping the film is as engaging as its trailer, and, at the very least, I know these three actors will all turn in memorable performances. Can’t wait. — Evans

“Shortcomings”

It’s always intriguing when a great actor decides to take the leap into directing. In this case, Randall Park is making his directorial debut with an adaptation of cartoonist Adrian Tomine’s graphic novel of the same name. I wasn’t previously familiar with the graphic novel, which Tomine adapted himself. But its premise sounds like the kind of movie I typically really enjoy: a contemporary slice-of-life comedy about someone figuring out what the hell is going on in their life. Justin H. Min (“After Yang”) stars as protagonist Ben, a struggling Bay Area filmmaker whose life is thrown into uncertainty when his girlfriend, Miko (Ally Maki), moves to New York for an internship. — Fang

“Mission Impossible: Dead Reckoning - Part One”

There is very little plot information available for this seventh entry in the widely popular “Mission Impossible” spy thriller franchise. But you can probably bet there will be an extended running scene with Tom Cruise, lots of explosions, truly outrageous stunts and amazing use of the OG theme song. — Frederick

“They Cloned Tyrone”

There’s no specific release date for “They Cloned Tyrone,” but ever since I saw this clip of the film’s stars (Teyonah Parris, John Boyega and Jamie Foxx), I’ve been ready to press play. Heading to Netflix at some point in 2023, the movie follows a trio looking into a government conspiracy. I’m ready. — Evans

Untitled Sandra Oh/Awkwafina road trip comedy

Not much is known about this movie, from veteran TV director Jessica Yu, whose name you’ve probably seen in the credits of many prestige shows of the last 20 years. But I mean, a road trip comedy starring Sandra Oh and Awkwafina as sisters cooking up some shenanigans? (Per Hulu, the plot of the movie, shot in New Orleans this summer, involves the pair trying to get money to cover their mom’s gambling debts by embarking on “a wild, cross-country trek” and Awkwafina’s character becoming “a bona-fide gameshow champion.”) Say no more. I will follow them to the ends of the earth. Whatever the movie ends up being, I will instantly click play when it hits Hulu sometime in 2023. — Fang

Untitled Adele Lim/Lionsgate comedy project

The directorial debut of “Crazy Rich Asians” co-screenwriter Adele Lim, this is another one of those movies that has been kept very under wraps. However, with its intriguing logline, stacked cast, and summer release date, all signs point to a potential hit. So far, all we know is that it follows four Asian American women on a trip to Asia, as one of them searches for their birth mother. Among the long list of notable names in the cast are “Everything Everywhere All at Once” breakout star Stephanie Hsu, “Emily in Paris” star Ashley Park, Desmond Chiam (“With Love,” “Partner Track”) and Alexander Hodge (aka the Asian bae of “Insecure”). So yeah, lots to look forward to. — Fang

“You Hurt My Feelings”

Writer-director Nicole Holofcener rarely misses, so I’m excited about her new movie, “You Hurt My Feelings,” making its world premiere at the Sundance Film Festival in January. Known for great, deeply observed dramedies, Holofcener is once again collaborating with Julia Louis-Dreyfus, with whom she previously worked on the wonderful “Enough Said.” Alongside Louis-Dreyfus, playing a writer working on her next book, are Tobias Menzies (“The Crown,” “Outlander,” “This Way Up”) as her husband, Michaela Watkins as her sister and the always scene-stealing Arian Moayed (“Succession,” “Inventing Anna”) as her brother-in-law. — Fang

“The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbird and Snakes”

It seems Hollywood has learned one of the more interesting ways to get folks interested in a franchise that has most certainly overstayed its welcome is to go back to before it all began with a prequel. Oh, and center the story on its chief villain — in this case, President Snow. This latest installment in the massively successful “Hunger Games” franchise promises to take us back to when he (now played by Tom Blyth) had actual human empathy, and a heart for an impoverished tribute (Rachel Zegler). Truthfully, the whole male capitalist and poverty-stricken girl romance trope should have properly faded out in the ’80s, but Hollywood seems stuck on this. What is most intriguing about “Ballad of Songbird and Snakes,” though, is that it could answer some lingering questions about the community of Panem and its identity before it all went left. — Frederick

“The Color Purple”

I can’t get enough of “The Color Purple.” The original Steven Spielberg adaptation of Alice Walker’s 1982 novel is cinematic gold, with stellar performances across the board and quotable scenes that sit in the hearts of many. Its Broadway production, in its many iterations, is also iconic. (I saw it in 2015 with Cynthia Erivo as Celie, Danielle Brooks as Sofia and Jennifer Hudson as Shug, and it was incredible.) At the end of 2023, we can expect to see a whole new version of the film, with Fantasia returning as Celie, Colman Domingo as Mister, Taraji P. Henson as Shug, Corey Hawkins as Harpo and Brooks reprising her role as Sofia. It’s a star-studded cast, with many more big names attached, and will definitely draw crowds back to the theater for the 2023 holiday season. — Evans

“There’s Something Wrong With the Children”

This one sounds eerily similar to the great 2012 Mexican horror film “Here Comes the Devil.” But, this American version where a couple goes on a getaway with friends and their kids, who disappear for a bit only to return horrifyingly changed, is the premise that keeps on giving. — Frederick

“Killers of the Flower Moon”

This is director Martin Scorsese’s next Oscar bait epic starring Leonardo DiCaprio, which revisits the real-life murders of approximately 24 members of the Osage tribe in Oklahoma in the early 1920s. The crime drama has, unsurprisingly, attracted a lot of attention, particularly because this is a story that is centered on Native victims and is directed by a white man. Scorsese rarely disappoints, though, and far beyond DiCaprio’s reliable talent, I am most excited to see actual Native actors like Lily Gladstone and Tantoo Cardinal playing Native people. Fingers crossed this is good. — Frederick

“Cassandro”

Anything starring Gael García Bernal should spark immediate interest, to be honest. And him portraying Saúl Armendáriz, the real-life gay amateur wrestler from Texas who achieves fame and the moniker “The Liberace of Lucha Libre”? Sign me up. This is sure to be a fascinating story. — Frederick

“Cat Person”

It was only a matter of time before the screen rights for Kristen Roupenian’s viral New Yorker short story got snatched up. Directed by Susanna Fogel, this adaptation is another one of those movies where the cast automatically makes me take note: “CODA” star Emilia Jones and Nicholas Braun (aka Cousin Greg from “Succession”) lead, along with Geraldine Viswanathan (“Blockers,” “Bad Education”), Fred Melamed, Hope Davis and the legendary Isabella Rossellini in supporting roles. — Fang

“Cocaine Bear”

The Atlantic reporter Yasmin Tayag recently wrote about this film with the headline “Why?” and, yeah, why is this movie happening? Because it is. Who knows. Elizabeth Banks is in the director’s chair here with a ripped-from-the-headlines story about a giant bear that consumes a bunch of cocaine and starts attacking people. The chaotic trailer seems both hysterical and horrifying at the same time, but, judging by the backstory, there’s a lot more to it. Plus, it has an all-star cast including Keri Russell, Ray Liotta, Margo Martindale and Jesse Tyler Ferguson. So, it can’t be that bad, right? RIGHT?! — Frederick

“Creed III”

I don’t have much to say about the third installment of “Creed” other than ... did you see these images of Jonathan Majors on set? Who do I need to pay to be the person who oils this man up? Sign me up NOW. — Evans

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The studio has also reimagined supporting characters to avoid outdated stereotypes, as seen in the upcoming *Snow White*, where Disney worked with the dwarfism community to update the depiction of the seven dwarfs .

How did Disney respond to criticism from Peter Dinklage regarding stereotypes?

Consulted members of the dwarfism community to avoid reinforcing stereotypes

**Balancing Authenticity and Relevance** A persistent challenge for Disney is maintaining the essence of the original films while updating them to resonate with modern audiences.

**Balancing Authenticity and Relevance** A persistent challenge for Disney is maintaining the essence of the original films while updating them to resonate with modern audiences.

This balance is evident in the way remakes incorporate updated themes without completely abandoning the source material.

This balance is evident in the way remakes incorporate updated themes without completely abandoning the source material.

For example, *The Little Mermaid* (2023) revised the lyrics of songs like "Kiss the Girl" and "Poor Unfortunate Souls" to reflect modern values around consent and female agency .

*Pinocchio* (2022) took a more irreverent tone, diverging from traditional narrative styles to refresh the story for new audiences while still paying homage to the original .

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Why Spider-Verse And Mario's Soaring Success Leaves Disney Animation In The Dust

It's a good time to be making movies.

The COVID-19 pandemic brought the film industry to a screeching halt, forcing theatres to shutter their doors as studios shuffled their theatrical slates. With the future of the theatrical model uncertain and studios itching to gain income quickly, potential blockbusters like "Soul" and "The Tomorrow War," which were initially slated for theatrical release, debuted on streaming.

It's now 2023 and the box office is slowly approaching pre-pandemic levels, largely in part due to studios and theatres deciding to work together. However, while films like "Top Gun: Maverick" and "Avatar: The Way of Water" brought audiences back to cinemas, its animated juggernauts like "The Super Mario Bros. Movie" and "Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse" which are compelling audiences to stick with the theatrical experience. The success of "Mario" and "Spider-Verse" can't solely be attributed to the fact they're IP. Both films, alongside their contemporaries, are doing something different.

Since theatres returned to capacity, Disney and its subsidiary Pixar's animated footprint has been microscopic when compared to rival studios, with Illumination and Sony Pictures Animation making strides at the box office and in the culture. The House of Mouse's animation division is going through a crisis. In 2019, Disney boasted 3 billion dollar-grossing animated flicks: "The Lion King," "Frozen II," and "Toy Story 4." Since then, no animated flick from the studio has managed to gross over $250 million, with the company debuting two unprecedented bombs with "Strange World" and "Lightyear."

What happened? While others are innovating, Disney has found itself running in place, failing to adapt on several fronts. Through a series of managerial missteps and uninspired decisions, Disney Animation has quietly handed its throne over to the players who were once playing catch-up.

Super Mario is the simple family-friendly adventure that millions wanted

When it comes to box office supremacy, it's Illumination that's at the top. With its crowd-pleasing stories and eye-popping visuals, the Universal-backed studio has managed to create three inoffensive billion-dollar franchises with "Despicable Me," "Sing," and "The Secret Life of Pets." While critics might label their films as safe, they're known quantities for families and children who want to be whisked away for 100 minutes or less.

With "The Super Mario Bros. Movie," they've delivered their biggest hit to date. Nintendo and its roster of characters have defined the video game medium, with characters like Mario and Luigi holding the same universality worldwide as a bottle of Coca-Cola or McDonald's golden arches. The animated picture, which debuted in early April with little competition at the multiplex, has grossed over $1.3 billion and has racked up nearly $100 million from Premium Video on Demand.

Why is "Mario" so successful (particularly when the 2023 film is compared to its divisive 1993 live-action predecessor)? It's simple. In keeping with Illumination's mantra of creating crowd-pleasing films, "Mario Bros." doesn't alienate. It capitalizes on its IP by treating it with reverence and respect. It doesn't go beyond its means and tries its best to create a piece of mass-market cinema that isn't overly complex, which allows it to be easily translated. Nearly 60% of the "Mario" gross is thanks to international markets, where the film was dubbed with local talent to match audience expectations. Unlike Disney's contemporary films, which primarily deal with Western-centric trials and tribulations, the appeal of "Super Mario" was wholly universal — audiences across the globe knew they were getting a simple, family-friendly comedy with the right amount of heart the moment they walked into cinemas.

Spider-Verse, meanwhile, innovates at every turn

If "Mario" is a testament to the power of IP and simplicity, then "Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse" is the opposite, an exposé on how IP can serve as a gateway to expand upon new and bold ideas. In the case of "Spider-Verse," it's the franchise's ability to chart a new path with its inventive animation, bleeding traditional hand-drawn looks with contemporary CG, creating a fluid, immersive visual language. "Into the Spider-Verse," which debuted in 2018, quickly became the blueprint for contemporary animation, with films like the upcoming "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem" taking cues from it. And the film's 2023 sequel has truly penetrated pop culture on another level, with many dubbing it as one of the best animated films of all time.

"Across the Spider-Verse" taps into both superhero and multiverse tropes with grace, capitalizing on audience expectations with its fair share of cameos and easter eggs. But it's the film's visuals that set it apart, proving that audiences are ready to digest animation styles that don't just replicate reality. "Spider-Verse" swings for the fences by playing with a variety of contrasting images and designs to create something that truly has to be witnessed on the biggest screen for possible. As superhero films lose their general hold over audiences, "Spider-Verse" stands out from the crowd because its "it factor" isn't the multiverse, but rather, its liberal use of several different animation techniques.

For Disney, this should be a wake-up call that their animation style is getting stale — audiences are ready for more visual risks.

Disney needs to balance between magic and strategy

The light on Disney's kingdom seems to be dimming, at least on the animation front. Illumination and Sony Pictures Animation –and arguably, DreamWorks Animation — are filling in for the once mighty behemoth, delivering hits that hold actual staying power. What's gone wrong for Disney? It's important to recognize that the slump is because of two things: (1) a lack of innovation and (2) business blunders that have robbed the company of its prestige. After diminishing returns with "Meet the Robinsons" and a failed return to hand-drawn animation with "The Princess and the Frog," Walt Disney Animation Studios found itself in a slump, while sister company Pixar was soaring to new heights. Their luck changed with 2013's billion-dollar grossing "Frozen," a film that playfully toyed with the studio's reputation for creating princess-centric films. With "Frozen," true love wasn't conventional heteronormative love, but the power of sisterhood, a subversion that proved Disney was moving beyond traditional, boxed-in themes, like Pixar.

Since that striking turn a decade ago, WDAS (and Pixar) have found themselves in a corner with one core theme: generational trauma. "Frozen II," "Turning Red," and "Encanto," among others, have focused on the sins of the past manifesting in the present. Repetitive narratives and themes are fine if there is visual diversity, but WDAS has largely followed in the footsteps of Pixar, trying its darndest to create 3D computer-animated films that emphasize realism. If "Spider-Verse" has proven anything, it's that audiences can value adventurous forms of animation that aren't wholly uniform. Pixar and WDAS were once the face of taking risks by focusing on realism, genre-bending narratives, and diverse characters. Today, that isn't enough.

Disney has no one to blame but itself

"Toy Story 4" and "Frozen II" grossed over $1 billion in 2019. If "Toy Story 5" and "Frozen III" were to hit cinemas this calendar year, it's difficult to imagine them grossing over $800 million. IP matters, right? Not when it's diluted. In a bid to boost Disney+'s clout during the COVID-19 pandemic, Disney sent several of Walt Disney Studio Animation Studios and Pixar films to the service, robbing instant classics like "Soul" and "Turning Red" of profitable theatrical runs. Even "Raya and the Last Dragon," a film that should have been widely celebrated for its diverse story and roster of characters, was sent to Disney+'s Premier Access to squeeze up a quick profit. The result? Families across the globe realizing that their $7.99 a month subscription to Disney+ was a far better bet than buying tickets for the company's latest animated effort.

"Lightyear," what should have been a surefire hit, dropped the ball with middling critical reception and a gross of $218 million. The kooky sci-fi epic "Strange World," which boasted out-of-this-world visual aesthetics, couldn't take flight with a $69 million cume — one of the company's biggest financial failures. And "Elemental," the closest thing to a riff on "Inside Out," debuted to shy of $29 million –  just $2 million less than the third-weekend gross of "Spider-Verse."

Disney knows they fumbled the bag by sending their films to Disney+, with Pixar chief Pete Docter telling Variety that the company trained audiences to expect films on the service. It also doesn't help that their films cost way too much. In pursuing realism, Disney's bank accounts are being drained, with "Elemental" and "Lightyear" boasting $200 million price tags. "Spider-Verse" and "Mario," meanwhile? $100 million, shortening the amount of success they truly need.

Disney will persevere

The success of "Super Mario Bros" and "Spider-Verse" should scare Disney. The once-mighty powerhouse needs to figure out a way to bring audiences back to cinemas because, frankly, the Disney magic is dissipating as each day goes by. Luckily, "Mario" and "Spider-Verse" provide the necessary steps for Disney to rebound.

Disney should continue to focus on cost-cutting, bringing down the budgets for its animated flicks. If both "Mario" and "Spider-Verse" can become record-breaking and genre-defining films with small budgets, Disney should be able to do the same. Another way to save money? Actually release films in theatres. Recent flounders like "Lightyear" and "Elemental" should not signal that the theatrical model is dead. Treat Disney+ as the company's archive, not its saving grace. Allow future and recent projects like "Elemental," to premiere on PVOD after their time in the cinema is done. Give it months before sending the film to Disney+, where it can live forever. This is what Disney does with its Marvel films and, most recently, "Avatar: The Way of Water."

But no managerial switch-ups and financial cutbacks can change audience perception. Audiences want something new. If "Mario" was the power of IP and general breeziness coming to life, then "Spider-Verse" is proof that risks can be taken. Disney, pick your fighter. Instead of regurgitating IP, like with "Lightyear," allow Pixar to bring the world of "Avatar" or "Star Wars" to animation. Or switch up your tried-and-tested 3D animation style for something that pops, forcing audiences to witness the latest visual marvel on the biggest screen possible.

With "Wish," Disney seems to be doing just that, blending 3D animation with watercolors to create a look that no one else is doing. Now, will Disney succeed with this upcoming "risk?" That's up to the audience members.

However, some remakes have been criticized for lacking the creative risks and emotional depth of the originals, leading to accusations of formulaic storytelling .

Title:

Content: Home Movies

Thought the brand of hatred Brie Larson suffered for ‘Captain Marvel’ is over? Well, version 2.0 is here

'The Brie Larson Treatment' comes for another performer with the gall to have opinions.

Image via Marvel Studios

Social media, am I right? What started out as a means for the world to communicate instantly, bringing people together from across the planet, has since metamorphosed into that slime from Ghostbusters 2 that feeds on anger.

And now we’re stuck, knee-deep in a bog of the loudest opinions, all being digitally shouted by everyone that never figured out their internet inside voices. We’ve been here for a while. We all know what it looks like. Arguably, it all boiled over around the time that Captain Marvel came out.

That’s when Brie Larson became angry-boy-Twitter’s favorite place to drag their knuckles, thanks to the way she voiced outlandish opinions like “I don’t have to smile when strangers tell me to” and “I should get treated the same as my male co-stars” and, if we’re being honest, mostly because she was a pretty lady on the internet who wasn’t going out of her way to make strange dudes feel like she’d love to meet them for coffee sometime and really get to know them. The rage was ubiquitous. You couldn’t swing a dead flerken on Twitter without hitting six burner accounts telling Larson how to be an actress.

But that was what, four years ago? We’ve probably moved on as a species, right? If nothing else, I’m sure Twitter has become a more thoughtful public square since Elon Musk took over – I can’t do it, sorry. I’m kidding. Everything is still the exact same kind of bad, only this time the boys are mad about princesses, actress Rachel Zegler playing Snow White in the upcoming live-action to be precise.

The ghost of Brie Larson’s past is making the rounds on Twitter again

The latest target for social media’s putridity is Rachel Zegler, star of Disney’s upcoming live-action adaptation of Snow White. In a recent interview with Variety, Zegler discussed some of the changes that the new film would make to its story – specifically, the lead character is driven by a desire to lead now, she is “not going to be saved by the prince and she’s not going to be dreaming about true love.”

The merits of Disney remakes aside, they’re changes that make sense. As Zegler puts it, storytelling has changed since 1937. People don’t pay to see feature-length movies about women eating fruit, taking naps, and being awoken by non-consensual kisses anymore. But not everyone agrees.

What happened next will shock you, especially if you just now got your America Online disk and you’re logging onto the internet for the first time: People got mad. Tikitok and Twitter sprayed their musk all over the story, calling Zegler’s takes “pseudo-feminism” and accusing her of “single-handedly destroying this movie.” The rhetoric was hyperbolic. It was acidic. It was, you know, Tuesday. Eagle-eyed viewers noticed a pattern.

There’s a lot that stings about the story. It’s rough, knowing that film Twitter might never stop being a free box of megaphones for everyone with a one-way brain filter and a “No Girls Allowed” sign on their bedroom door. It’s also a little bit gutting to know that conversations about live-action Disney adaptations are always going to swing back around to accusations of surreptitious political agendas and the formation of parasocial disgust targeted at opinionated female performers.
Like, these remakes (mostly lacking originality) are often pretty bad on their own merits, guys. Maybe focus on arguments that actually hold water.

About the author

Tom Meisfjord

Tom is an entertainment writer with five years of experience in the industry, and thirty more years of experience outside of it. His fields of expertise include superheroes, classic horror, and most franchises with the word "Star" in the title. An occasionally award-winning comedian, he resides in the Pacific Northwest with his dog, a small mutt with impulse control issues.

According to John Musker, why does Disney rely on live-action remakes rather than producing new stories?

What approach makes Disney's classics successful according to John Musker?

Immersing audiences in story-driven worlds rather than pushing preconceived ideas.

What does Disney's reliance on sequels and spin-offs instead of new IP suggest about its creativity?

A stalling of the company's creative engine.

What has been the general critical response to most Disney's live-action remakes?

According to John Musker, why does Disney rely on live-action remakes rather than producing new stories?

What approach makes Disney's classics successful according to John Musker?

Immersing audiences in story-driven worlds rather than pushing preconceived ideas.

What does Disney's reliance on sequels and spin-offs instead of new IP suggest about its creativity?

A stalling of the company's creative engine.

What has been the general critical response to most Disney's live-action remakes?

**Public Reaction and Cultural Impact** Public response to Disney’s live-action remakes has been mixed, reflecting the complexities of reimagining beloved classics.

**Public Reaction and Cultural Impact** Public response to Disney’s live-action remakes has been mixed, reflecting the complexities of reimagining beloved classics.

Many viewers celebrate the inclusivity and modernization of these tales, praising performances such as Halle Bailey’s Ariel and the diverse casting choices .

The remakes have sparked important conversations about representation, diversity, and gender roles in media .

What controversy arose from Disney's casting and updates in The Adventures of Pinocchio?

What controversy did Disney's The Little Mermaid spark globally?

Debate over both Ariel's casting and racial representation.

What controversy arose from Disney's casting and updates in The Adventures of Pinocchio?

What controversy did Disney's The Little Mermaid spark globally?

Debate over both Ariel's casting and racial representation.

What controversy arose from Disney's casting and updates in The Adventures of Pinocchio?

What controversy did Disney's The Little Mermaid spark globally?

Debate over both Ariel's casting and racial representation.

However, others express dissatisfaction with perceived political agendas or changes to beloved characters, accusing Disney of pandering to "woke" culture or straying too far from the originals .

Title:

Content: Actually, Black Mermaid Folklore Has Been Around Long Before Disney’s The Little Mermaid

The moment I feel even remotely vulnerable —be that the fragile morning after an inhibition-free night, the familiar shiver of cold and flu symptoms or the helpless pit of despair that engulfs me when my mental health begins to plummet —you’ll find me curled up on the settee, under a protective layer of blankets, shamelessly watching movies filled with childhood nostalgia. Movies like Disney’s The Little Mermaid (1989) have sat firmly in this arsenal of self-care classics ever since I can remember, enveloping me in a carefree hug at a moment's notice.
But movies that transported me to a place of innocence and ignited my imagination without having to strain to envision myself within these fantasy worlds, however, are in short supply. As a dual heritage Black kid growing up in the 90s, opportunities to feel represented in my escapism were limited. Slightly too old to be impacted by Disney’s Princess and the Frog, I found meaning, and myself, in classics such as Roger and Hammerstein's Cinderella (starring Brandy, Whitney Houston and Whoopi  Goldberg) and Motown’s The Wiz (an adaption of the Wizard of Oz starring Diana Ross and Micheal Jackson). It’s for these reasons that I am unashamedly excited for Disney’s live-action remake of The Little Mermaid, in which Ariel is played by Halle Bailey.
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There’s no shortage of discourse on representation politics, the ongoing need for fairer representation in the media we consume and the ways the lack of it impacts people of colour of all ages. This importance can be felt most viscerally via a quick TikTok search of The Little Mermaid where endless streams of reaction videos showcase the unadulterated joy of Black children when seeing the latest trailer.
Move over to Twitter, however, and you’ll likely be bombarded by bigotry and bias. The hashtag #NotMyAriel is trending amongst outrage and disgust at a Black actor being cast to play a fictional character. To quote writer and academic Saidiya Hartman, “So much of the work of oppression is policing the imagination”, and whilst simultaneously comical, embarrassing and triggering to witness, this backlash served as a reminder that no matter how frivolous our sources of joy may be, whiteness will attempt to steal every ounce of it.

The fantasy of merpeople lived in the cosmologies of our Black and indigenous ancestors long before Hans Christian Anderson coined his fable in the 19th century

In decolonizing our imagination —  by challenging the Eurocentric erasure of Black and Indigenous wisdoms, creativities and experiences —we’re able to recognise that whilst the remake of The Little Mermaid is important to many (myself included), we can also find ourselves represented in our own cultural storytelling, folktales and mythologies. We don’t need to rely on the white gaze of Western capitalism to feel seen and heard. In letting go of that gaze, we are reminded that the fantasy of merpeople lived in the cosmologies of our Black and indigenous ancestors long before Hans Christian Anderson coined his fable in the 19th century, and certainly before Disney offered our generation a capitalist mascot in their 1989 animated adaptation.
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“All children, irrespective of race, creed, religion, deserve to see themselves reflected in books and films. We owe it to their self-esteem, to their creativity, to their imaginations. The imagination of a child is boundless, and it is the imaginations of this current generation of children that will ultimately provide solutions to some of the most pressing crises faced by the world today,” writer and doctoral candidate at the University of Cambridge, Mary Ononokpono tells Unbothered.
A final year doctoral candidate, Mary’s ongoing research into the lives of coastal Biafran women during the Atlantic Age and Age of Abolition has sparked an informal interest in the ways that pre-colonial African communities were informed by a belief in and fear of water spirits. Known colloquially as ‘Orishas’ or ‘Ndem’ these deities were thought to have been sent by a supreme or higher god to populate, protect and service the earth, and continue to be worshipped today.
“Racial injustice is ultimately rooted in historical illiteracy. If people don’t understand how we got to this point as a society, injustice will persist. In that respect, the decolonization of the cosmologies, mythologies and folklore of Black Atlantic societies has a really important part to play” she continues.
Some pre-colonial water spirits include Yemaya — a goddess of the ocean, who, legend has it, created the seven seas. Believed to be a fierce protector of women, this water spirit is still worshipped across the world,such as by those of Santería faith in Cuba who were transported across waters during the transatlantic slave trade. It is said that to connect with Yemaya, holding a shell to our ears will carry her messages in the sound of waves.
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Another pre-colonial deity is Oshun, the goddess of divinity, femininity, fertility, beauty and love. Considered to be one of the most powerful orishas, she’s both heralded as the nurturer of humanity and feared as a benevolent being, whose earthly punishments come in the forms of floods and droughts. In Nigeria, annual celebrations continue to take place along its Oshun river, where pilgrims pay homage, make sacrifices, and ask the deity to grant wealth, health and happiness. Often depicted in yellow robes, Oshun is rumoured to be the ethereal muse behind Beyonce’s numerous works, referenced in both the lyrics and symbolisms of her visual album Lemonade and her ode to the African diaspora, Black is King
Photo by YAMIL LAGE/AFP/Getty Images.
A follower of the Orisha sea goddess Yemaya, of the Yoruba religion, gives offerings at Havana's harbour during the Yemaya Day celebrations in Cuba
Elsewhere in Brazil, the Tupi people celebrate Iara, commonly referred to as “the Lady of the Lake”. A great warrior who was betrayed by her brothers, Iara is a water spirit with a princess-like origin story — minus the damsel in distress trope. Often likened to other South American tales of sea witches and goddesses, over time Iara manifests in recent imaginations as a merging of the two, feared and revered for her power to lure men to the bottom of the ocean.
Perhaps one of the more infamously depicted deities however is Mami Wata.  Also known as  Watramama or ‘Mother of the Water’, this water spirit is part human, part fish, and is often depicted as interchangeable genders. Considered to hold the important role of blessing the souls who died at sea, Mami Wata has held cultural and religious significance to the African diaspora for centuries. Mami Wata is celebrated in festivals such as the Epe-Ekpe festival in Togo for example, and is commemorated across multiple artforms; from exhibitions in the Smithsonian and Knockout Centre to featuring as the protagonist in Natasha Bowen’s young adult fiction, Skin of the Sea.
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Another work of fiction which draws sources from Indigenous histories is Monique Roffey’s The Mermaid of Black Conch, a book I have read and reread numerous times. Here, Aycayia, a mermaid of Taíno legend, who has the lower torso of a fish and a human upper torso adorned in tribal tattoos, is reimagined. Drawing inspiration from the Taíno population who inhabited Hispaniola (now the Republic of Haiti and the Dominican Republic) and were made extinct after being ‘discovered’ by Christopher Columbus in the 15th Century, Aycayia’s tale is one of colonialism, displacement, belonging, love and violence.
Photo by Education Images/Universal Images Group/Getty Images.
Entrance to the Shrine of Oshun, the water dwelling fertility goddess of the Yoruba religion in southwestern Nigeria
It’s through the honest and respectful retellings and reinterpretations of pre-colonial imaginations that diasporas of colour of all ages can truly see ourselves represented. As an avid wild swimmer who has always felt an affinity and attraction to merpeople despite being relatively disinterested in fantasy and sci-fi genres, I feel more at home in these nature-adoring narratives that offer an insight into my heritage than I ever have in any Disney movie.

Chantay is a London-based tattoo artist who specialises in Black depictions of ethereal deities. Her merpeople, fairies, cupids and nymphs sit amongst rockpools, toadstools and flowerbeds, sporting voluminous afros, cascading dreadlocks and woven cornrows.

It's for these reasons that I’d always craved a mermaid tattoo, but after one wildly uncomfortable experience involving a white tattooist and a failed attempt at depicting afro hair, I’ve been cautious of finding an artist who could dream up a mermaid that actually looks like me. So, when I stumbled across Chantay Blue’s Instagram I was overjoyed! Chantay is a London-based tattoo artist who specialises in Black depictions of ethereal deities. Her merpeople, fairies, cupids and nymphs sit amongst rockpools, toadstools and flowerbeds, sporting voluminous afros, cascading dreadlocks and woven cornrows. Earlier this year, I had the honour of getting one of Chantay’s merpeople inked on my forearm. There she sits, glistening as bubbles rise around her, her billowing curls trailing to the part of her waist where scales meet skin.
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Catching up over Zoom, Chantay and I discuss her approach to tattooing — itself a form of expression rooted in Indigenous practices that predates colonialism — and its revolutionary potential to reclaim a sense of identity and belonging.  “When you get artwork tattooed on your skin you want something beautiful, something that reflects what beauty is to you, but most of the time we’re only offered images of white faces and features,” she says.
“All this does is reinforce the same beauty stereotypes that were forced on us in stories about merpeople and fairies when we were growing up. It doesn’t sit right with me, that you go for a beautiful tattoo and a white artist inks another white person on your arm or leg,”  she continues, “I want people to be able to see their own beauty in my tattoos — it helps me feel beautiful when I’m drawing these stunning creatures that look like me too. I think it speaks to my inner child who was always into mermaids, but never saw myself in them.”

Through a decolonizing lens we can reclaim our voices, stories, perspectives and imaginations and enjoy a blockbuster movie for what it is...

Whether through feature-length movies, fictional novels, tattoos, exhibitions, music or oral histories, when we are able to access ourselves in our own cultural storytelling, we’re reminded that we never needed the approval of whiteness to do so. With the racist rantings of grown adults on social media reframed as inconsequential white noise, we can also relinquish ourselves from the politics of representation, and no longer rely on white-dominated industries to dictate when and how our valid need to feel seen is met. Much like the ways that Ursula steals the voice of Ariel in the classic story, the commercialised capitalist legacies of colonialism silence the narratives of our ancestors. Through a decolonizing lens, we can reclaim our voices, stories, perspectives and imaginations and enjoy a blockbuster movie for what it is, without feeling uncomfortably reliant on it to speak to our sense of self. So, whilst you’ll most certainly find me tucked up on the sofa, my cat secured in the little spoon position, embracing the 2023 remake with childlike wonderment, I can’t help but wonder: wouldn’t it have been nice if we could’ve seen the tales of our own water spirits — Aycayia’s, Mama Wata’s or Oshun’s perhaps — depicted on the big screen too?
This article was originally published to Unbothered UK

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What controversy arose from Disney's casting and updates in The Adventures of Pinocchio?

What controversy arose from Disney's casting and updates in The Adventures of Pinocchio?

What controversy arose from Disney's casting and updates in The Adventures of Pinocchio?

For example, Peter Dinklage criticized the casting in *Snow White* for retelling what he called a "retrograde history," prompting Disney to emphasize its efforts to avoid stereotypes .

The backlash against Bailey’s casting in *The Little Mermaid* also highlighted broader societal debates about race and representation .

Title:

Content: Halle Bailey Mesmerizes With First Live Performance Of 'Part Of Your World'

The star of the live-action "Little Mermaid" appeared before Disneyland's Sleeping Beauty Castle for a jaw-dropping rendition of the classic song.

Halle Bailey continues to happily embrace her role as Disney’s newest princess.

The star of the hotly anticipated “Little Mermaid” live-action remake appeared on Sunday’s episode of “American Idol” to perform the classic song “Part of Your World” in front of a live audience for the first time.

Bailey certainly looked the part in a floor-length blue gown designed by Michael Fausto. Fittingly, she sang the song while standing in front of Disneyland’s Sleeping Beauty Castle, which featured animated projections of tropical fish and other sea creatures.

Watch Bailey perform “Part of Your World” below.

As stunning as Bailey’s “Part of Your World” performance looks and sounds, however, the actual conditions in which filming took place were a bit less than magical.

“Singing vocals in freezing cold weather at 3am while park is closed is no joke,” Bailey quipped on Twitter late Sunday, “but we did it! only 11 more days until you all can watch the film.”

Due in theaters next week, the new “Little Mermaid” also stars Jonah Hauer-King as Prince Eric, Ariel’s human love interest, and Javier Bardem as her stern father, King Triton. Much of the early buzz on the film, however, has centered on Melissa McCarthy’s diva-licious turn as sea witch Ursula.

In an interview with Deadline last week, Bailey said she hoped the cultural impact of a Black actor portraying Ariel would outweigh any early backlash news of her casting received.

“It means the world to me, especially for the beautiful babies to be able to see a reflection of themselves,” she said. “I am just honored to be a part of this and be one of the princesses now because for me it was Brandy as Cinderella and then Anika [Noni] Rose as Princess Tiana. So the fact that I am getting to continue this and live on this legacy is really exciting and I’m just grateful.”

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What controversy did Disney's The Little Mermaid spark globally?

Debate over both Ariel's casting and racial representation.

What controversy did Disney's The Little Mermaid spark globally?

Debate over both Ariel's casting and racial representation.

Despite controversies, the commercial success of these films indicates strong audience demand for adaptations that blend nostalgia with new elements.

Despite controversies, the commercial success of these films indicates strong audience demand for adaptations that blend nostalgia with new elements.

*The Little Mermaid* and *Aladdin* (2019) both featured new songs alongside classic hits, appealing to both longtime fans and new viewers .

How has Disney leveraged nostalgia in recent years?

By turning classic animations into live-action films with major stars

How has Disney leveraged nostalgia in recent years?

By turning classic animations into live-action films with major stars

However, some remakes, such as *Dumbo* (2019) and *Mulan* (2020), encountered criticism and underwhelming responses, partly due to perceived shortcomings in storytelling or failure to capture the original’s magic .

What has been the general critical response to most Disney's live-action remakes?

What has been the general critical response to most Disney's live-action remakes?

**Role of Music and Marketing** Music remains a crucial element in the remakes, serving as a bridge between nostalgia and modern adaptation.

**Role of Music and Marketing** Music remains a crucial element in the remakes, serving as a bridge between nostalgia and modern adaptation.

Many remakes retain beloved songs from the originals while introducing new compositions that reflect contemporary themes and character development .

For example, *The Little Mermaid* (2023) features classic songs like "Under the Sea" alongside new pieces by Lin-Manuel Miranda, supporting narrative shifts toward empowerment and consent .

Marketing campaigns for these films heavily emphasize nostalgia by showcasing iconic music, imagery, and characters

Marketing campaigns for these films heavily emphasize nostalgia by showcasing iconic music, imagery, and characters