3 Reasons Disney Live Action Remakes Make Money...Despite Mixed Reviews
This past weekend The Little Mermaid swam its way into theaters and had a big $115 million opening weekend for the 4-day weekend. Over the last several years we’ve gotten several Disney live action and while some of them get negative to mixed reviews, they still print money. Why is that? Why do these movies print on despite mixed reviews? Those are the questions we are answering today!
Nostalgia: Disney has a great track record with making great Disney animated movies. If you ask anybody what some of their favorite animated movies are, chances are pretty high a Disney animated film is one of them, maybe even several of them. And so many of the Disney animated films are ones that people grew up watching. So naturally when they see a trailer for a new retelling of a movie from their childhood they’re curious about it. It evokes all of these memories of watching that animated movie as a child. And as of now FOUR of these remakes have crossed $1 billion, three of them are from the Disney Renaissance Era. If you don’t know, the Disney Renaissance Era started with The Little Mermaid and ended with Tarzan. Three live action remakes are remakes from that time period; those movies are Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin, and The Lion King. Because a handful of adults in 2023 were 8-12 years old when the animated films came out. Some of them were the perfect age when Beauty and the Beast or Aladdin came out, now they have kids that are the perfect age of these films. So parents know their kids will probably enjoy them, so they load up the family and head to the theater to watch the movie. Because they want to experience this movie again on the big screen, they want their kids to have the same experience they had as a kid. And several of these movies have iconic images or songs, that if they use them right in the marketing it can also recapture that nostalgia factor. My step-mom is below an average movie goer, she rarely goes to the movie theater. In the time she’s been with my dad I can probably count the number of times she’s been to the movie theater on my fingers. But every time there’s one of these Disney live action remakes remade from a Disney Renaissance film, she wants to see it. She wanted to make it a family event, where all 6 of us go see it in the theaters. The last time she felt this was when Aladdin and The Lion King came out, even though we didn’t see those as a family in the theaters. She gets very excited to see these movies more so than any other movies. And I feel like that’s a common theme amongst the audiences for these films, they feel nostalgia and therefore want to go see it.
Mixed to Negative Reviews Don’t Matter: Several of the live action remakes don’t have the best reviews. A lot of them have under a 50% on Rotten Tomatoes, people naturally don’t seem to like these movies. But people still go see them no matter what the reviews say. The Lion King remake is a perfect example of this. When that movie came out it was polarizing, people’s opinions were all over the place. People were praising the visuals but crapping on the rest of the movie. But it still made $1.6 billion at the box office, if you want to consider it an animated movie…it’s the highest grossing animated film of all time. The movie was not well received, if you YouTube search “Lion King (2019) review” I don’t think very many of them would be positive. But people are still curious about it, people still want to go see it. And I feel like The Lion King (2019) helped because people wanted to see the film’s visuals on the big screen. Therefore it just kept on making money, it remained in the top 10 at the box office for 11 weekends. It made $190 million opening weekend, a fantastic number. But when these films do get positive reviews they also print a lot of money. Now I’m writing this the Monday after the movie came out, so we don’t know if The Little Mermaid will cross $1 billion or not. But I have a feeling it absolutely will, I wouldn’t be surprised if in July or August the film crossed $1 billion. The Little Mermaid had a better opening weekend then Aladdin did, which also opened Memorial Day weekend. Aladdin did cross $1 billion, so therefore I think this one will as well. Another movie that was well received Beauty and the Beast made a $170 million opening and made $1.2 billion at the box office. No matter the mixed reviews this movie gets or the positive reviews they get, they print lots and lots of money.
International Appeal: Now I feel like this is a very broad reason, but it factors into every $1 billion movie. If you look at most film’s box office, they typically make more overseas than domestically. Which makes a lot of sense if you stop and think about it. There are some films that make more domestically than they do internationally, Top Gun: Maverick from last year did that. And all of the billion dollar films, The Lion King, Aladdin, and Beauty and the Beast had big audiences overseas. Aladdin was a hit in the US, but for being a billion film it made $355 million domestically, but it made almost $700 million internationally. The reason why Aladdin hit $1 billion was because of its audience overseas. The Lion King, $540 million domestically. Fantastic domestic run, I believe it’s one of the highest grossing films in the US. It made $1.1 billion overseas, it made over double its domestic box office. Even if The Lion King’s international box office wasn’t over $1 billion it still would have crossed $1 billion, because the domestic box office was so high. Now looking at the opening weekend box office for The Little Mermaid it made about $60 million more domestically then it did overseas. The movie only had a $190 million world wide opening, $120 million of it coming from the US. Granted, it’s only been out for about four days and a lot can change. But as of now, it doesn’t seem like the international audience is feeling The Little Mermaid right now. But you look at the numbers for Aladdin and The Lion King, part of the billion dollar success of those films, come from its international audience.
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