Things Disney Could Do Besides Remakes

With The Little Mermaid being an over 500 million box office smash, Peter Pan and Wendy flying out as soon as it flew in, A Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs musical with Rachel Zeigler on the way, and news of a QuestLove Aristocats, and a live-action Bambi rumored to be a part of the Disney Vault, it seems that Live Action Disney remakes or retellings are everywhere. Some people are excited. Most are tired and wondering when is Disney going to do something new.

But until that fateful day when Disney's Wish makes me eat my words by how good it is, I'm going to talk about the ways I would suggest that Disney could give us new and engaging content while also putting comfortable money in the mouse's pockets.

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5: Remake the movies that bombed at the box office or have been lost in the nostalgia zeitgeist.

Now I don't mean just live-action, I mean animation as well. I know I'm not in the minority when I say that The Black Cauldron should be remade but remade so it's better. But the Black Cauldron isn't the only one that should be remade. Disney did attempt this once: Pete's Dragon was a better remake than the others and would have had more legs I think if Disney marketed it properly so that more people knew it was a thing. Even though it made over its budget, its already forgotten. There are movies that didn't do well or are forgettable that Disney could remake for modern audiences like The Reluctant Dragon, Treasure Island, and/or The Rocketeer. I don't know. Maybe I'm the odd one out, but I think giving a second chance to movies that didn't give Disney the reception they wanted or didn't do well would be a good move.

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4. Short Films

Short films were the lifeblood of cinema back in the day, and Disney did their best to make as many of them as they could. Particularly in the 40s during World War II, the animation company compiled what was more than likely going to be their own films and made them short animations compilated together, giving us Make Mine Music, Melody Time, and The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr.Toad. 

Later, the Disney catalog gave us short films (mainly on DVD where it could be found in the extras) in the early 2000s like The Little Match Girl, Goofy's How to Make Your Home Theatre, and the story of John Henry. Now in the 2020's it seems like they haven't given us many original shorts, mainly banking off of continuations of their existing properties like Frozen, Tangled, and Up. Perhaps if they made new original shorts and promoted them correctly it would bring more people to have new experiences.

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3: Go back to doing original stories (not based on popular or known IP) 

Now, I know basing movies off known IPs no matter where they're from is the forte of Disney animation. However! There are so many stories that could be told outside of known Grimm fairytales. We should have more stories like Moana, Encanto, and The Emperor's New Groove. Do you see the correlation between those stories? They're based on cultures that are underrepresented. Now with me saying this, we don't want nor need another Pocohantas either (even though I love the songs, Pochohantas is extremely problematic), but Disney could do better by giving us more expansive stories that not only give a spotlight on different cultures in their stories but also allow the audiences to experience a story that is different than the others they made. They could go anywhere with this. They can do this with live-action also, it doesn't necessarily be animation even though it would be better in that wheelhouse. It would be fun to see Disney actually implement different stories. 

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2: Go back to 2D animation

Ever since the financial disappointment that was Princess and the Frog Disney has edged away from 2D animation completely, the only time going back would be the short Paperman. Due to its time consumption and expense, the switch from 2D to 3D and CGI was inevitable. Other company movies like Klaus, Spiderverse, and Nimona have brought the use of 2D animation back in the works which means that its popularity through the 'vintage' nostalgia lens will be back in trend. And with Disney's upcoming movie aforementioned Wish coming, hopefully, its success will bring back 2D if not full-time then partially. 

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1: Make Movies Out of Their Hyperion Books

I cannot stress this point enough. Disney has ideas, they're just not experimenting with what's already in their arsenal because they want to stay safe. Staying safe=financial stability...in theory. Disney has multiple streams of income, and one of them is its publishing house. They're very underrated, underappreciated, and under-marketed publishing house Hyperion. Hyperion has so many books that many people love. (Literally, guys, go to the website...it's overwhelming but in the best way). There are many books that are in the catalog that I can't even list them all but I may do a top 5 blog about which ones they should turn into movies, and because the majority of them aren't part of a known IP but may have a fanbase from readers it would be a good stepping stone for Disney to branch out into having new movie material. I don't know. I just want a Kingdom Keepers and Mayor of Maxwell Street movie, guys.

(Which by the way the latter is coming out in 2024. It's by Avery Cunningham. You should preorder it.)

Do you agree with me about any of these? Do you have ideas about what Disney could do besides the soulless Live Action Remakes? Let me know down below.