Into The Woods, Maleficent and Alice In Wonderland are just a few of the classic fairy tales that Disney has made into highly grossing films over the past few years.
Up next is the anticipated and overly marketed Cinderella, starring an actress fairly new to Hollywood, Lily James. The cast also includes notable actors like Academy Award winner Cate Blanchett, Game Of Thrones actor Richard Madden and Oscar nominated actress Helena Bonham Carter. Cinderella hits theaters this Friday and has received positive reviews so far.
With past films, critics around the Internet have duly noted that the exaggerated darkness of Into The Woods, Maleficent and Alice In Wonderland has turned off viewers, no matter how popular the cast was. Still, the box office says otherwise as each of these films continue to rake in millions — because how can you not see everything Disney?
Because these films are under the classic and most nostalgic Disney umbrella, they are automatically put in the alpha category — welcomed to Hollywood with the highest of expectations, despite our recently increasing disappointment.
Proof of this shows, as other studios attempted to remake fairytales into live action films, including Mirror Mirror, a rendition of Snow White from Relativity Media, or the next release, Pan, based on Peter Pan from Warner Brothers.
Mirror Mirror was more successful than originally planned, grossing over $180 million, but it was not something remembered several years after, like a Disney film. Studios who have recreated a new story gained attention for being original and taking a risk. Studios also would only dip its toes into the fantasy waters once or twice.
In recent news, it was also announced that Emma Watson was casted to play Belle in Disney’s next rendition of another childhood classic, Beauty and the Beast. According to iMDB, Beauty and the Beast will stay faithful to the original Disney animated feature, including the exact same songs and characters.
Since Maleficent and Cinderella were based off of the classic Brothers Grimm fairytale books, both had room to stretch its legs and focus more on whichever part of the tale the screenwriters chose.
Another Disney classic, The Little Mermaid, has been in development for over a year, according to The Escapist, which calls this cash cow a trend of the “Princess” franchise, something that the other studios can’t get enough hands on.
Still, with Disney constantly releasing these live-action films inspired by the animated versions we saw as children, it may give them the leeway to focus on the development of another original project on the side, since these studio branches crunch to release two to three notable films a year, focusing on quality over quantity.
There is no doubt that Cinderella will be highly successful on its upcoming opening weekend, as it has already received an 87 percent “fresh” rating on Rotten Tomatoes — although users have commented on the page to express the same feelings about Disney’s lack of originality.
And if that wasn’t enough, there’s even a Tumblr page called (I kid you not), “Disney Get Your Shit Together”, with hundreds of posts pointing out Disney’s recycled film ideas, even down to the animated characters whose features have also been recycled. Take Rapunzel’s face for example— it’s suspiciously similar to another character in Big Hero 6.
Simplified or not — by cranking out fairy tale after fairy tale as its biggest hits, is Disney continuing to play it safe or just running out of ideas? At this point, time will tell us soon enough.